I've searched the forum for dedicated topics regarding this video card, found none and so here I am:

I found on ebay two pieces of Voodoo 3 - 1000 (8MB). One is here.

From what I remember regarding the sales history, I can't recall any official numbers about the selling of this version. I thought that only V3 2000 and up were released on the market.
Was it economically efficient to manufacture an 8MB underclocked version with all the ongoing hype about the rising of nVidia & Ati at the time ?

Pardon me, but I really can't remember any 1000's in computerstores  at the time. All they were selling (in my country to say the least) were 16MB Vantas, some outrageous 32MB Ati rage and V3-2000 to 3500.

as far as I know, the voodoo3 1000, if I'm not mistaken almost identical to the Velocity 100, was an OEM part only.

I have a Voodoo3 1000, Compaq branded, without heatsink, as it doesn't need one.

As far as being economically efficient, maybe they were 2000's and some parts were defective, maybe they disabled that part and sold it as a cheaper version, much like for instance AMD does with their quad and triple core cpus.

But that is speculation, I don't know if they already did that back in those days.

Are you saying that the triple-core versions of the CPU's in the market are chips that most probably have failed electronics in the disabled core ?
I've heared this rumour one time only, and I didn't believe a word then. Now it's begining to make sense.

Although... come to think about it... I know a few people that bought themselves X3 Phenoms and successfully unlocked the 4th core, without experiencing any problems.

Makes me wonder  :-/

I am one of those people as well.

I bought a Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition, unlocked the 4th core and had been running it @ 3.6Ghz from that day on. No problems whatsoever.

On one hand they disabled the 4th core because of defects, but also to handle the market, more request for triple cores made them disable the 4th core, just so they could sell it as triplecore.

Considering the price at the time, and the fact that when Phenom emerged there weren't many apps optimised for 4 cores... I guess it was quite a good investment (in my country the price of a tricore was with minumum 30% cheaper than a quad).

Glad you managed to make it work.

Ontopic : I remember reading a story somewhere about someone who said he had been able to mount 32 megs of memory on a Voodoo3.
I recall reading here on the forum that the Avenger core can address only 16 megs.

Guess it was a hoax.

on the voodoo3 I am not sure, I do know that a certain someone has managed to make a 128MB Voodoo4, where as the max ram for VSA-100 was supposedly 64MB.

This ofcourse opens the door for 256MB Voodoo5 5500 and to top if of a 512MB Voodoo5 6000 :o :o :o

look around in the general discussion forum, there you should be able to find it.

The Voodoo3 1000 was indeed an OEM part. There are two versions; the 8MiB 143MHz version and the 16MiB 125MHz version (without a heatsink).

Though the 8MiB version uses the Velocity 100 layout, it is just a V3 2000 with only 8MiB of memory. Both TMU's are enabled on both cards.

The 8MiB version had less memory chips and thus a less complicated PCB, which made the card cheaper to make.

The 125MHz version; I've never seen any statements about it, but the graphics chip on these cards probably wasn't stable at 143MHz or higher.

NitroX infinity wrote on 30.11.12 at 12:26:32:

The Voodoo3 1000 was indeed an OEM part.

Oh... I think I remember something related about some motherboards being made with onboard Avenger graphics.
Cool pieces back in '99.
But I guess the price was a little bit of an issue back then.
:-/

Read up about "Binning" in chip manufacturing..

the Voodoo3 1000 was most likely a heavily binned chip.

A quick run down of Binning.

Your design is full speed.. in 3dfx case

Voodoo3 3500

you produce the 3500 chip then you test..  chips that run at full speed are binned into 3500's.. then you test for lower speed.. chips that pass that are binned into 3000's..

test lower still - those are 2000's and even lower still are 1000's

binning makes it so you can still makemoney off 90% of your chips rather than only 30%

dafuq...  :o

So all the rumours were true !

Dexter wrote on 19.12.12 at 09:27:50:

dafuq...  :o So all the rumours were true !

what rumours you talking about?? the binning?? that's no rumour, that's fact, almost every company that produces this kinda stuff does that.

I was arguing with a friend several years ago about the way that CPUs are made and why the price per model differs (in some cases, very much).
I claimed that different architectures were implemented in different frequency procs, while he was saying that all the CPUs are the same, made on the very same assembly line, but on the tests only a few could whitstand the highest frequencies. The rest were supposed to serve stable underclocked.
It seemed a bluff.

Now after I've read about the process... it's making sense.