The Next Voodoo?

3dfx and Voodoo3

I'll have to keep the word on 3dfx short, but that doesn't mean they don't have a lot cooking in the labs! Last week, 3dfx announced the Voodoo3 3500 TV AGP, which was very much what we expected to see, plus a few changes for the better!

The Voodoo3 3500

The Voodoo3 3500 was supposed to ship as a 183MHz core/memory part, and include digital flat panel support via a 3dfx LCDfx controller. After a little in-depth market research, 3dfx has decided to "scrap" DFP support in the 3500, and instead integrated an STB-designed TV-tuner video subsystem instead.

We saw the STB TV tuner back at Comdex, and commented on its particularly crisp picture quality. That system has been integrated straight onto the 3500, and it stands out (that's a compliment). Complete with the STB-designed "on-screen remote" with interchangeable "skins," the 3500 has become an AV appliance, much like the Matrox Marvel or ATI All-In-Wonder, except with 3dfx's trademark 3D speed.

A breakout box is included, which contains stereo in/out, composite in/out, and S-Video in/out. The card also support NTSC/PAL in/out, and with the included software, can encode at full D1 quality Mpeg2 in real-time on a Pentium II 450. D1 video is 740x480x24 at 30fps and 10Mb/s. Compare this to DVD, which stands at 740x480x24 at 30fps and roughly 5Mb/s. No small accomplishment for software! This is almost matched by ATI's All-In-Wonder 128, which claims to achieve D1 encoding on a Pentium 3 450.

Whoa, what is that thing?

A big part of delivering the 3500 was about keeping their word to consumers. Back at Comdex in November 1998, 3dfx announced Voodoo3 at 183MHz, and the 3500 will ship at that exact speed, despite many of our doubts regarding yield, memory speeds, and more.

What's next from 3dfx?

If there's one thing everyone's interested in, it's definitely what's coming up next from 3dfx. No one was willing to spill the beans, but 3dfx currently has 4 concurrent ASIC development teams, and probably 20 PCB development designs around these products. Not all of them are "next-generation" parts (at least one of them is a Voodoo3 OEM with digital flat panel support), but they're in there somewhere.

The absolutely mischievous gleam in the eyes of Tony Tamasi and Peter Wicher when they speak of their next generation part gives much of it away - there's absolute confidence in what they're producing, and the only safe quote to print is Tony's, "Voodoo3? It's nothing. Nothing."