http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=7gEAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA9&lpg=PA9&dq=Hank+Semenec&source=bl&ots=JddqgJXOaB&sig=jbnIZWmRos4-Cfux1PasJ54tXu4&hl=en&ei=hNtxS8r2K5v00gSqsKyvCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CBoQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=Hank%20Semenec&f=false

Initally 50 were made, then another 200 were made. Direct quote by him in Maximum PC 2002, Feb.

I know this has been mentioned before, but I have never seen solid evidence of the quote by Hank Semenec.

Just thought it was interesting, it seems that Gary's info taken from Logical Madness's support website might not be correct.

What do you guys think?

Seems true to me. I think the last 200 are all (or almost all 3700 rev). The first 50 are the most interesting - rev 1500 and other special cards - 2x2 design, etc, probably most of those have big problems, Intel chip (not Hint), etc.

EDIT : LOL Tim, this is the 666 post from you...

Yikes.  :P

Hmm, I don't know, the first 50 might be Intel only revisions, and the 200 others 2600-3900, I think that would make a lot more sense since the Intel boards were ditched pretty quickly.

Hank indicated there was a large number of 3700's made, he himself indicated that he personally removed a few dozen from 3dfx when they closed.

I was on anandtech forums, where one guy said he managed to buy one of these in Texas, during a PC fair

and then I he gave it to his cousin, who eventually threw that so called "junk" away...

and he was regretting now to see how much it can fetch on ebay.
Well could be a fake story, but anything goes :-)

Unfortunately, I'm sure that quite a few cards were destroyed after nvidia bought 3dfx. And I'm also sure that some cards (not many, but anyway...) were trown to the garbage in 2000-2001 by people who didn't know their real value.

But that's life...imagine that 3dfx would be still here with us and V5 6000 was released in 2000. How much do you think a V5 6000 would cost now ? I'm sure than you could get it for a few euros (under 50 euro for sure). How about a V5 5500 or V2 boxed ? That would be now cheaper than a bag of peanuts.

Tat is right, if they did not close down, I wouldn't have started collecting
in fact i was waiting for this 6000 to be released because I was utterly upset that the 5500 underperformed so badly against Nvidia's GeForce 2 GTS then.. and the Ultra

but that day never came... and ATi took up the challenge to face Nvidia at least

I don't think the V5 6000 would ever have been released. It wasn't cost effective compared to the Geforce2 and there were better chips on the horizon; Daytona in Q1 of 2001 (if all went well) and Rampage somewhere in the second half of 2001.

So with that situation I had to turn my back on 3dfx and bought a Leadtek Geforce 2 Pro for my Diablo II and Warcraft III gaming
it was USD $ 150 then... but still cheaper than a retail V5 5500 AGP
:-(

NitroX infinity wrote on 10.02.10 at 07:53:22:

I don't think the V5 6000 would ever have been released.

3dfx had plans for a Daytona powered version too once things were sorted out.

Daytona = less power and higher clock speeds.

Actually, I think that GF2 MX destroyed 3dfx, it was the last kick in the 3dfx balls - much cheaper than V5 5500 and almost the same performance, plus DX7 and T&L...

Oh well, 3dfx moved too slow after V2, it didn't learned from the Voodoo Rush mistake - Banshee was too slow - V3 should be released when Banshee was released  and V5 released instead of V3.

Nvidia sucked so bad with Riva 128, bad image quality and a only a little more speed compared to V1, but TNT and TNT2 were much improved - 32 bit very early. Still, V2 SLI was a better choice than TNT and V3 3500 wiped the floor with TNT2 in terms of speed, but after that...

Daytona...hmm, no way - it should compete with GF3, no chance - GF3 was very fast, Quake3 fly on GF3, I remember my Ti200 - when I saw more than 100 fps in Q3 in 1600x1200x32 bit - and the image quality - holly shit. DX8...

gdonovan wrote on 10.02.10 at 02:28:42:

Hank indicated there was a large number of 3700's made, he himself indicated that he personally removed a few dozen from 3dfx when they closed.

Has he ever told you what happened to those boards? :)

RaverX wrote on 10.02.10 at 11:29:23:

Daytona...hmm, no way - it should compete with GF3, no chance - GF3 was very fast, Quake3 fly on GF3, I remember my Ti200 - when I saw more than 100 fps in Q3 in 1600x1200x32 bit - and the image quality - holly shit. DX8...

Daytona was a cheaper version of Napalm, it wasn't supposed to compete with the Geforce3 but with the Geforce2 MX cards.

Then I assume that Napalm was the competitor of GF3. Do you think that Napalm could beat GF3 ? I know, it's all just assumptions, but still... V5 6000 was impressing at that time, but 4 chips to compete against one single chip from Nvidia ?

Yes, that's how it all started, V1 had 2 chips, V2 had 3 chips, but after that it was clear that all features have to go in one single chip. Banshee failed this, V3 was almost OK, but VSA-100 failed again, V4 4500 was too slow and V5 5500 required 2 chips - and still wasn't powerfull enough to compete with GF2 (single chip).

Oh well, I still dream to own V5 6000, but only because it's an impressive piece of hardware, a lot of users want it because it's the most powerfull card produced. I don't really care about that, GLIDE games work fine with V2 or V3 and newer game uses D3D or OpenGL an you can use much faster cards  for that.

No, Napalm was the competitor of the first Geforce but got delayed so it ended up against the Geforce2.

Rampage was supposed to compete with the Geforce3

(Napalm = VSA-100 = Voodoo4/5)

NitroX infinity wrote on 10.02.10 at 11:35:27:

RaverX wrote on 10.02.10 at 11:29:23: Daytona...hmm, no way - it should compete with GF3, no chance - GF3 was very fast, Quake3 fly on GF3, I remember my Ti200 - when I saw more than 100 fps in Q3 in 1600x1200x32 bit - and the image quality - holly shit. DX8... Daytona was a cheaper version of Napalm, it wasn't supposed to compete with the Geforce3 but with the Geforce2 MX cards.

You missed what I was getting at.

3dfx had plans for a V5-6000 with 4 Daytona chips.

LOL. That would have been another monster card. That's not the way to go :( Just put 4-8 chips on a card.

But ... just a crazy ideea - how about a V5 6000 PCI with 2 or even 3-4 SLI connectors  ::)

RaverX wrote on 11.02.10 at 00:19:23:

LOL. That would have been another monster card. That's not the way to go :( Just put 4-8 chips on a card. But ... just a crazy ideea - how about a V5 6000 PCI with 2 or even 3-4 SLI connectors  ::)

True, but the idea how (DDR) 250Mhz x4 would have been awesome.

Thing is, the 6000 would have never come out if Rampage was on time. Even Napalm probably wouldn't have existed.

Oh well, this is the history, faster or slower then the opposition, the 6000 is still one beautiful piece of engineering.  :D

Tim wrote on 11.02.10 at 00:52:00:

Thing is, the 6000 would have never come out if Rampage was on time. Even Napalm probably wouldn't have.

I think Rampage Technology was on time indeed. Napalm series sadly was delayed; Voodoo4 4500 would have face cards like GeForce256, but was released when cards like GeForce2 GTS already came out...

Now, the point is: when you get late, what do you do? Admit to have missed the train and goes back to home, or you try it?

Well, after months of development, time passed to fix hardware problems and a lot of money in tecnology research, I would try it! ^^

Tim wrote on 11.02.10 at 00:52:00:

Thing is, the 6000 would have never come out if Rampage was on time. Even Napalm probably wouldn't have existed.

True to some degree, both Voodoo 3 and Napalm were fillers till Rampage was done.

A low end part was still needed in the market though for OEM's, Daytona was to fill this segment.

gdonovan wrote on 11.02.10 at 04:16:11:

Tim wrote on 11.02.10 at 00:52:00: Thing is, the 6000 would have never come out if Rampage was on time. Even Napalm probably wouldn't have existed. sign True to some degree, both Voodoo 3 and Napalm were fillers till Rampage was done. A low end part was still needed in the market though for OEM's, Daytona was to fill this segment.