Specifications

The List

Integrated 128-bit 3D/2D
VSA-100 processor(x2)
2-way SLI scalability
64MB SDRAM
166MHz/166MHz core/memory clock
Dual pixel pipeline
667Mpixels/s fill rate
667Mtexels/s fill rate
1X/2X/4X AGP with full sideband support
32-bit rendering
32-bit textures
2Kx2K maximum texture size support
Single-cycle trilinear mipmapping
Up to 24-bit floating point depth buffer (Z and W)
8-bit stencil buffer
DirectX texture compression and 3dfx FXT1 texture compression
T-buffer technology
2X and 4X full-scene hardware anti-aliasing
Depth-of-field blur
Motion blur
128-bit Windows GUI accelerator
350MHz RAMDAC
Planar-to-packed-pixel digital video format conversion (DVD Hardware assist)

Notes

The Voodoo 5 5500 features two VSA-100 chips running in SLI mode. The card needs 64MB of memory in order to dedicate 32MB to each chip. Each VSA-100 chip can address up to 64MB of memory.

The VSA-100 has a dual pixel pipeline, but can only do one texture per pixel so texel and pixel fill rates are exactly the same (2 chips x 166MHz clock x 2 pixels per clock). Past 3dfx cards have only featured single pixel pipelines, and texel fill rates doubled pixel fill rates thanks to multi-texturing. Note that the final clock speed still hasn't been determined. Our board is clocked at 166MHz, but final production speeds could be higher.

We see that the V5 features 32-bit color and 2Kx2K texture sizes. Hardware T&L is noticeably absent, but 3dfx has chosen to tackle fill rate and image quality before working on the T&L engine. You can read all about the T-Buffer and 3dfx's cinematic effects in our original T-buffer Report. Interested in 3dfx's FCT1 texture compression? Check out our original FXT1 Report.

Of course, what's life without full-scene anti-aliasing? You can take a look at our FSAA coverage in our GDC Part II Report and our Visit to 3dfx.