Voodoo3™ Reviewers Guide
August 1999
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SECTION 6: FAQ
Q. Are the Voodoo3 2000, -3000 and –3500 TV based on the same chip? What are the
differences?
A. All three boards are based on the same chip design and are pin compatible; however, each is
a different configuration. The Voodoo3 2000 operates at 143 MHz and produces 286 million
texels (megatexels) per second. The Voodoo3 3000 operates at 166 MHz and produces 333
megatexels per second, and the Voodoo3 3500 TV operates at 183MHz and produces 366
megatexels per second. Additionally, the Voodoo3 3500 TV includes multimedia, TV tuner and
FM stereo capabilities.
Q. At Comdex, you introduced Voodoo3 as a 125MHz chip and a 183MHz chip. Why the
change?
A. When we put Voodoo3 into production, three things happened which we think are very
exciting for consumers and hard-core gamers.
First, we discovered that we could beat our projected internal clock rate of our entry-level chip,
so we decided to power the Voodoo3 2000 with a faster 143MHz chip. This still is offered under
the price point we had pegged for the 125MHz chip, so it’s a real bonus for consumers.
Second, we were able to yield excellent performance from a 166MHz version of the chip, so it
made sense to make that the heart of the Voodoo3 3000, the high-end mainstream product. The
Voodoo3 3000 offers industry-leading performance for the vast majority of game enthusiasts,
and promises to be an enormously popular product for us. We think consumers will agree that
it’s a tremendous value and very powerful graphics accelerator.
Third, we discovered that the 183MHz chip again yields performance that exceeds even our
expectations. Based on the relative performance of this chip versus the other Voodoo3 chips
(not to mention the technology available from our competitors), it was clear that this processor
was an ideal engine to drive the Voodoo3 3500 TV product. The 3500 TV is an ideal product for
hard-core gamers and multimedia enthusiasts.
Q. When will 3dfx offer AGP 4X?
A. We’ve announced that a 4X member of the Voodoo3 family will be available to our OEM
partners in time to intercept the debut of AGP 4X in the market. The AGP 4X member of the
Voodoo3 family is timed to ship with the high-volume ramp of the first 4X AGP chipsets.
Q. Why doesn’t 3dfx offer 32-bit rendering?
A. The answer is frame rate. Our internal rendering calculations are done at 32-bits but, as our
press release has explained, we focus on achieving the highest frame rate possible to provide
the best possible content experience. This means that we’ve chosen to limit our frame buffer
format, which is the external data storage format, to 16 bits per pixel. The visual difference in an
individual frame is imperceptible, but the frame rate, the number of frames that we can render
per second, is dramatically increased. We believe frame rate is the single most important
feature for end users and should not be compromised for imperceptible increases in the
graphics display. (For additional information on this topic, please refer to the Frame Rates white
paper we are publishing in February 1999.)
