Accelerator
3dfx Voodoo Graphics
The card that made 3D acceleration ordinary on a home PC, running a fixed-function pipeline of its own and leaving 2D to whatever adapter was already fitted.
- Manufacturer
- 3dfx Interactive
- Released
- November 1996
- Region
- Worldwide
- Record status
- provisional
An Orchid Righteous 3D, the first retail card built on 3dfx's Voodoo Graphics chipset. It has no 2D circuitry at all: a pass-through cable carried the desktop from a separate graphics card.
About this machine
Voodoo Graphics drew only 3D. It sat beside an ordinary 2D card and took the screen over when a game started, which is why a machine fitted with one needed both boards and a short pass-through cable between them.
Configuration
Reference card
| Component | Role | Count | Clock | Capacity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3dfx Interactive Voodoo (3dfx Voodoo Graphics) The dead citation does not establish a reference-card graphics clock. | GPU | 1 | 50 MHz Nominal clock | — |
| 3dfx Voodoo Graphics frame buffer | Video memory | 1 | — | 4 MB |
Figures for the whole machine
1 documented absence
| Metric | Value | Evidence | Basis | Method | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Memory bandwidth whole-system provisional | unknown No reviewed source establishes this figure for a Voodoo Graphics board. | Not stated | Theoretical | Theoretical peak Published independently The fitted frame-buffer bandwidth is unknown, so no whole-system value can be recorded. |
Figures for its components
provisional A figure marked provisional is recorded but not accepted: its evidence is unsettled. It may rely on one source, an unconfirmed announcement, or a digit read from a damaged scan. The reason appears under the figure. The catalog shows the figure but never uses it in a multiplier. How records are judged.
| Metric | Value | Evidence | Basis | Method | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clock frequency gpu provisional | 50 MHz | Confirmed | Vendor-rated | Nominal clock Published independently Two independent technical histories agree on this graphics-clock figure. |
4 documented absences
| Metric | Value | Evidence | Basis | Method | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Peak FP32 rate gpu provisional | unknown No reviewed source establishes this figure for a Voodoo Graphics board; fill rate is not treated as FLOPS. | Not stated | Vendor-rated | Theoretical peak Published independently No qualifying document-level replacement establishes an FP32 rate for this fixed-function card. | |
| Pixel fill rate gpu provisional | unknown No reviewed source establishes this figure for a Voodoo Graphics board. | Not stated | Theoretical | Theoretical peak Published independently No qualifying document-level replacement establishes a pixel fill rate. | |
| Texel fill rate gpu provisional | unknown No reviewed source establishes this figure for a Voodoo Graphics board. | Not stated | Theoretical | Theoretical peak Published independently No qualifying document-level replacement establishes a texel fill rate. | |
| Rated power consumption gpu provisional | unknown No reviewed source establishes this figure for a Voodoo Graphics board. | Not stated | Vendor-rated | Rated power Published independently No qualifying document-level replacement establishes a board-power rating. |
provisional A figure marked provisional is recorded but not accepted: its evidence is unsettled. It may rely on one source, an unconfirmed announcement, or a digit read from a damaged scan. The reason appears under the figure. The catalog shows the figure but never uses it in a multiplier. How records are judged.
| Metric | Value | Evidence | Basis | Method | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Memory capacity whole-system provisional | 4 MB | Rumored | Vendor-rated | Design capacity From community documentation No 3dfx document in this catalog states the card's memory. Wikipedia gives 4 MB of EDO DRAM for the board as it shipped, and the catalog carries it as rumored. |
1 documented absence
| Metric | Value | Evidence | Basis | Method | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Memory bandwidth memory provisional | unknown No reviewed source establishes this figure for a Voodoo Graphics board. | Not stated | Theoretical | Theoretical peak Published independently No qualifying document-level replacement establishes the memory interface or bandwidth. |
Editorial notes
The dead citation does not establish the fitted frame buffer or other reference-card details.