Product Development Cycles

One can glean a lot out of the set cycle for product releases and developments, especially in the graphics card market. For example, we've confirmed that 3dfx is planning for a new product release every 6 months or so. Whether this means a new generation of product has yet to be seen (and may prove unlikely), but the next logical step is to bridge the limitations of the original Voodoo architecture, namely 32-bit rendering and 16MB frame buffer limitations.

To many of us, this is still old news. The lack of 32-bit final rendering has been a constant thorn in 3dfx's side, since it is the one major feature end consumers can readily notice, and that each and every one of their competitors can slam. So when's the turning point? Let's look at the pattern. The first Voodoo Banshee products were announced in mid-late 1998. Voodoo3 was revealed a Comdex in November 1998, with working (albeit slightly underclocked) samples, but the 2000, 2000, and 3500 products made their way into press 6 months later, in February.

Following this train of thought, we should be seeing something significant from 3dfx again in around April, and it really can't be much later than this. 3dfx realizes that there is a limited window of opportunity for existing Voodoo3 technology, and this window doesn't extend past Christmas 1999. They no longer have the luxury of commanding a 100-200% performance advantage against the competition, and they have to move fast, without killing off their existing margins.

This brings us to the enigmatic Voodoo3 4000, which 3dfx described as "Voodoo3 with AGP 4x Support." Not much more is known about the V3-4000 except for the conjecture that it's still based on Voodoo DME architecture, and thus will not support AGP texturing (at 4x or any speed). Considering that the release of the 133Mhz Camino is currently set to early Fall of 1999, it's not a far stretch to assume that the V3-4000 may actually be a new part.