Voodoo3 3000 still valuable?

lost_soul on 16/7/2010 at 05:26

Ten years ago, I played games like Thief, Quake, and Unreal with a Voodoo 3 3k. I got rid of it forever ago, but out of boredom, I checked out the price on Amazon. This thing is selling for $70 used! Did I miss something? Is it heavily sought after or something?

(http://www.amazon.com/3dfx-Voodoo3-3000-Graphics-Accelerator/dp/B00000JDKU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1279257865&sr=8-1)

Even a Geforce 4 TI4600, which is also ancient (and a lot more capable) is a fraction of the price.

dj_ivocha on 16/7/2010 at 06:18

It's being offered for 70 bucks on Amazon, but that doesn't mean anyone's actually buying it. ;)

Even considering where (http://cgi.ebay.com/STB-Voodoo-3-3000-3Dfx-16mb-AGP-made-China-model-/180533413736?cmd=ViewItem&pt=AU_Components&hash=item2a08a14768) this one is being shipped from, it still ends up a lot cheaper than the Amazon ones. And if you want to wait a few days/weeks, you can certainly find a few more cards for a similar price in the US, but without the high shipping costs. If you are not hell-bent on a 3000, you can probably get a 2000 or 3500 for a similar price, but even faster.

june gloom on 16/7/2010 at 09:14

That thing belongs in a museum.

dj_ivocha on 17/7/2010 at 09:23

Hey, don't dis the Voodoo! I built me a PC for playing 3DFX-era games - Voodoo 3 3000, Pentium 3 @1GHz which I can downclock to 500MHz for some of the fiddlier games, SBLive. Good stuff. And the Voodoo and P3 are even watercooled :cheeky:

There are quite a few games from the mid-/late 90s that are a PITA to run on modern PCs and coincidentally, at least some of them support 3DFX.

lost_soul on 17/7/2010 at 21:42

Yeah I was blown away when I first got the card. "You mean I can play in 800x600+ and still get 60+ FPS?" I was using software rendering before that and a Permedia 2, whose drivers were a joke. Thief ran on the Permedia 2 with no textures and Unreal looked corrupt.