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3DFX gear: what drives the value?

K

kishy

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Hey folks.
This marginally hovers around relevant for this forum, but I figure of the communities to which I belong, this one will have the most perspective.

It has come to my attention that 3DFX Voodoo5 graphics cards (among the last, if not the last model released by 3DFX before they disappeared) sell for impressive amounts ($200+ US) on eBay and that seems to be the going rate for years now. I happen to have one of these cards, a Voodoo5 5500 64MB AGP, and had no idea this card held any value. Because of how early AGP cards were keyed, it doesn't fit anything I have with an AGP slot. I think it's keyed to signify voltage compatibility.

Similarly, Voodoo2 accelerators seem to clear $50 easily, and sometimes $100. I have some of those hanging around too...no idea they had any meaningful value.

What I'm wondering is...what exactly drives the value of these cards? Plenty of period graphics cards (or a bit newer) will play period games decently. Is there some performance edge to 3DFX gear? Or is it purely just collecting it for the sake of being able to say you've got 3DFX stuff?

This is not a veiled attempt to stir up interest in my cards, I'm undecided on if I'd part with them anyway. Just curious if anyone has a view into the specific attraction to these cards.
 
Is there some performance edge to 3DFX gear? Or is it purely just collecting it for the sake of being able to say you've got 3DFX stuff?
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A mix of both. Some games shipped with multiple graphics API's supported, GLide being one of them. In some cases the GLide implementation was better than that of DirectX or OpenGL. The rest just seems to be garnish. Even the empty boxes for 3DFX products seem to fetch a real premium beyond what I have seen for boxes or complete boxed products from the likes of ATI, Nvidia or any of the other major graphics card OEM's of the time.

I can however tell you the prices are mainly speculative and don't entirely reflect supply and demand. A chunk of it is people being nostalgic. FreeGeek Vancouver for over a year had two Voodoo 5 5500 AGP cards for sale for $250 each. A major spot for people searching for cheap computer hardware and one of....two places in the BC Lower Mainland that can supply that kind of hardware on a walk-in basis and nobody was interested. I ended up buying both for $25 each.
 
NeXT said:
A mix of both. Some games shipped with multiple graphics API's supported, GLide being one of them. In some cases the GLide implementation was better than that of DirectX or OpenGL. The rest just seems to be garnish. Even the empty boxes for 3DFX products seem to fetch a real premium beyond what I have seen for boxes or complete boxed products from the likes of ATI, Nvidia or any of the other major graphics card OEM's of the time.

I can however tell you the prices are mainly speculative and don't entirely reflect supply and demand. A chunk of it is people being nostalgic. FreeGeek Vancouver for over a year had two Voodoo 5 5500 AGP cards for sale for $250 each. A major spot for people searching for cheap computer hardware and one of....two places in the BC Lower Mainland that can supply that kind of hardware on a walk-in basis and nobody was interested. I ended up buying both for $25 each.
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Not so sure about the speculative bit. I'm seeing auctions that have closed at +$200 bid amounts: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=3dfx voodoo5&LH_Complete=1

I am aware that 3DFX stuff is the go-to for Glide support, but just didn't imagine there was that much demand for it.

For me, there's sentimental value in the Voodoo2 (my first 3D-gaming-capable computer had one and accordingly it introduced me to the entire world of 3D gaming), but there's no well defined exchange rate between sentimentality and dollars, so I never thought much of their cash value.
 
but there's no well defined exchange rate between sentimentality and dollars
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Stupid people pay stupid money. I'd be less hostile to these people if even half of them could properly use the word "vintage" in a sentence. These people either want to feel like they were 90's kids or refuse to let go of their childhood and instead build on something they never got as a kid. In this case that's maxing the Visa on a video card to make their "Ultimate Vintage Retrogaming PC" with nothing but the finest sound, video and CPU available.



Also, to be on the record in case I just sound snobby I went through a lot of this hardware in the early 2000's when all this was still considered junk so while stuff like the Voodoo series is hot product these days I've been there, done that and never really paid anything to have the experience and now have to sift through blog articles of people who never really used the hardware tell me how godlike it was and forums of people (not here) who jump in the wagon and either expect way too much for their financial investment or put the bar so low that the craptacular Circuit City Celeron desktops they find behind a garbage can was like finding the holy grail.
 
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Prices for everything computer collectable are going up, why I don't know.

Anyway 3DFX was the major driving force in early 3D period. I joined the bandwagon the second the first card (Voodoo 1 by Orchid) was for sale online (way before you could buy ones in a store) and had to wait for patches to come out to even use it (Tomb Raider 1 DOS was the first I recall). The quality was outstanding and it caught on big time. Go compare the first versions of Mechwarrior with vender specific 3D patches and see why everyone wanted a 3DFX card (I have the 3dfx and matrox versions I think, there are others).

As far as prices go I can list thousands of pieces of old computer hardware that I got free or dirt cheap 10-15 years ago that are now worth some money. I collected when people were dumping most of this stuff as old junk, stuff you either can't find anymore or it costs some cash if you do. For me it was either snagging stuff I sold along the way as I upgraded or things I wanted and didn't have back then. While I owned voodoo 1 and 2's I didnt have a SLI setup until a later date and missed out on things like the Voodoo 4 and 3500 with TV so I snagged those. My original V5500 AGP is back in its box (glad I kept it along with the complementary 3dfx mousepad they included for being late to market). That 5500 is probably worth now what I paid new for it.

Next you sound like you have a stick up your ass about people being new to the hobby spending money to buy things you got for free. I don't see what cash has to do with enjoying a hobby, and there is no time frame of jumping in to weed "good/bad" collectors out of the hobby.
 
Next you sound like you have a stick up your ass about people being new to the hobby spending money to buy things you got for free.
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I didn't say I got anything for free and no it was not. I just strongly oppose those kinds of prices for commodity PC hardware of all things. It's extremely intimidating for anyone who wants to look into this as a hobby and only sees people with high taste obsessions.
 
Who knows why prices go to where they go. Perhaps a large affluent Haitian contingent has settled in the states? It reminds them of home :). Who really cares anyway. Anyone that pays more then 20$ for an old graphics card is either bipolar or has money to waste. Especially hello a late 90s card. Just live life, and fully realize there's bargain priced vintage equipment that you can own (or borrow) and you can gain mastery of to prove your a bad ass. Even if you managed to log a stick in yours. Ouch.
 
well 6000's (there were only limited numbers) are expensive because Trevormacro had a torture lab that basically destroyed them.. so they have mostly been hoarded now.

6000's were selling at like $1k prices.
 
I thought there was another thread on this, but basically some games were specifically designed for the Voodoo cards, and may not look or feel 100% authentic on third party emulations.
 
Didn't we just get done hashing this subject recently

EDIT @SomeGuy you beat me to it.
 
My apologies...yes, it did just come up apparently, nearly verbatim (d'oh). I didn't think that what I assumed was such an obscure subject would have been discussed so recently to the same extent. http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?62163

I see valid points. It looks like the buying market for these consists of people who may collect them to put them on a shelf for geek cred (I can't really argue with that), and also people who may want to build or upgrade a period gaming computer (I can't really argue with that either). I just find the ending prices to be kind of crazy. For $200-300 I'd be hoping to get more of the computer (or perhaps 3-4 of the computer) than just the video card, but that whole sentimentality-to-USD conversion is highly volatile I guess :)
 
Games that use the special Glide API. Let's not forget one of the many internet communities that popularized this habit in the first place; VOGONS. Let's also not forget that people who play video games exist.

Which is one of the major reason why the vintage computer hobby thrives today: games. Not productivity, but games. There were a finite but plentiful amount of compatible cards made, and that's that. Anything about one card being sold for $150 or greater is probably personal to the seller.
 
My first 3d graphics card was a Diamond monster 3D II, I hold a nostalgic place in my heart for them because of that I suppose. I upgraded to a second card which gave me SLI and 12MB video ram, And a PCI Voodoo 3 card next. By the Time the voodoo 5 came out the 3d card scene was exploding and imploding all at the same time. I think I stayed with the voodoo 3 for a couple years because it suited my needs just fine (then it overheated and burnt out)
 
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