3dfx Voodoo2
3
Now this is a 3D accelerator
that requires no introduction.
Known far and wide for its
superb performance at the time, the
Voodoo2 is famed for its lasting impact
on the GPU market, great frame rates,
and continued use of a multi-chip
design. A smorgasbord of chips, the
Voodoo2 featured a 90MHz core/
memory clock, 8/12MB of RAM, and –
once connected via a port on twinned
cards – the Voodoo2 could even
support resolutions up to 1024x768.
Dual-wielding cards played a big role
in the past decade of GPU performance.
It was possible for a PC user to connect
two cards together for better
performance back in 1998 – and it was
worth doing, too. 3dfx managed to stay
on top with the Voodoo2 for some time,
but it wasn’t long until it would make a
few poor decisions and be out of the
graphics game entirely.
INFO YEAR: 1998 / CORE CLOCK SPEED: 90MHZ / MEMORY:
8/12MB / PROCESS NODE: 350NM
Nvidia Riva 128
2
A chipset company by the
name of Nvidia would soon
offer competition to the 3dfx
in the form of the Nvidia Riva 128, or
NV3. The name stood for ‘Real-time
Interactive Video and Animation’, and it
integrated both 2D and 3D acceleration
into a single chip. It was a surprisingly
decent card following the Nvidia NV1,
which had tried (and failed) to introduce
quadratic texture mapping.
This 3D accelerator doubled the
initial spec of the Voodoo1 at 100MHz
core/memory clock, and came with a
half-decent 4MB SGRAM. It was the
first to really gain traction in the market
for Nvidia, and if you take a look at its
various layouts – memory surrounding
a single central chip – you can almost
make out the beginnings of a long line of
GeForce cards, all of which follow suit.
But while it offered competition to
3dfx’s Voodoo1, and higher resolutions,
it wasn’t free of its own bugbears – and
neither would it be alone in the market
for long before a 3dfx issued a response
in the Voodoo2.INFO YEAR: 1997 / CLOCK SPEED: 100MHZ / MEMORY: 4MB /
PROCESS NODE: SGS 350NMDUAL-WIELDING CARDS PLAYED A
BIG ROLE IN THE PAST DECADE
OF GPU PERFORMANCE
Image credits (1,2 & 3): Fritzchens Fritz