http://www.thedodgegarage.com/3dfx/8meg_banshee.jpg

Anyone have any thoughts on where this came from? I thought it was a Phoenix card but now I'm not so sure.... has BANSHEE 3DFX INTERACTIVE INC. down at the bottom and a build date of 2498.... which is a really damn early build date for a Banshee card... They were not sold till June or July of '98 correct? Most of the Banshee boards I have here have much later dates.

Bios is 1.00.03, has 8 megs of SGRAM (3dfx tools states it's SDRAM but it doesn't detect the TV out either) I have run the card with the TV out with Gainward drivers and it does work.

That's really an unusual Card.

All I have are the "close" Model Numbers for the known Banshee Variants (their PCB's look all different, though, and they're all 16MB Standard designs) :

600-0035-03 (InnoVision Mighty Banshee)
600-0035-05 (Quantum3D Raven)
600-0043-01 (A-Max ColorMax VA-513)
600-0044-02 (Guillemot Maxi Gamer Phoenix)

600-0027-03 was assigned still to the Voodoo2 Design.
(Trust Voodoo Dragon 2 / Skywell Magic 3D II)

So it looks like 600-0033-03 is the earliest Banshee assigned Model No. I've seen so far. No Info available on the Internet though, but almost for sure built for the Asian Market.

Found only one reference and Images of it here, on the excellent Asian "Old Hardware" Site :
http://www.yjfy.com/oldhard/list.htm

(many of the rare/odd 3dfx Variants unheard of are in their Archive)

wrote on 23.07.04 at 20:47:04:

Found only one reference and Images of it here, on the excellent Asian "Old Hardware" Site : http://www.yjfy.com/oldhard/list.htm

Same build date too, how odd!

wrote on 23.07.04 at 20:47:04:

That's really an unusual Card.

whatdoya trade me for it?  ;-)

Pick something and we'll see ;D

http://www.nera-x.de/elist/eBay%20item%202731081367%20(Ends%20May-26-03%20161500%20PDT%20)%20-%20Rare%203dfx%20Voodoo%20Banshee%2016Mb%20TV%20out%20S-video.htm

If I'm not mistaking, the person who auctioned this card said it was custom-made or so by a 3dfx engineer. But then again, that could have been about another card I saw on eBay (V4 4500 DVI/TV out).

Hmm, seems they're not the same. oh well.

wrote on 24.07.04 at 12:38:07:

If I'm not mistaking, the person who auctioned this card said it was custom-made or so by a 3dfx engineer. .

I'm doing some research now... There is a very good chance this is a pre-production card just based on the date. As of July of '98 the Banshee was still not for sale to the public and the PCB date on this card is 2nd week of June'98.

From some Hardware sites-

August'98

"Back in August, Sharky Extreme tested an early version of what at that time was Diamond's first alpha card based on the 3Dfx Banshee chipset. "

Guru3d

"The dream of a lot of users became reality in November 1998. The 1st real Banshee card had arrived, a very strong 2D card combined with the mighty power of Voodoo2 and Voodoo graphics/Glide compatibility."

wrote on 24.07.04 at 14:13:21:

I remember perfectly on Ebay USA in feb. 2004 a seller (JustDeals 2004) selling at least ten cards like this one. Was really amazing.

I wonder where they came from? Just like those V-4200 cards to pop up out of nowhere after 4 years.