The Short Lived Return of 3dfx

By Ian Evenden
published

The show appears to be over

A woman bith blue eyes and colorful facepaint
(Image credit: Photo by Sharon McCutcheon from Pexels)

The day we've been waiting for (opens in new tab) is finally here. August 5th. 3dfx Day. The moment long promised (opens in new tab) when '90s graphics card manufacturer 3dfx Interactive would rise from the ashes and present us with a stunning new range of video cards. And what did we get? Tweets (opens in new tab).

See more

For those who have been following this saga, what we're now being asked to believe is that a Voodoo 6 graphics card running on the PCI bus (not even AGP) will be available this winter, accompanied by a smart TV, Bluetooth speaker, a phone, and a tablet. Alleged product investment figures show that just 10% is earmarked for GPU development, with the remaining 90% shared on smart tech and consumer devices. A diverse product portfolio, but this is all just smoke and mirrors.

Image 1 of 8
Alleged 3dfx Q3 2021 Announcements
(Image credit: Twitter: @3dfxofficial)

Furthermore, a company sinking potentially billions of dollars into these products apparently can't afford a proof reader, nor can they spell CES - unless of course by CEC they mean the Congress on Evolutionary Computation in Poland, which would be a novel place to launch a GPU.

So that's it, @3dfxofficial had some on Twitter. Until we see some actual products, this remains an amusing sideshow in the long hot summer of 2021.

Maybe look at one of the best graphics cards instead.

Ian Evenden
Ian Evenden
Freelance News Writer

Ian Evenden is a UK-based news writer for Tom’s Hardware US. He’ll write about anything, but stories about Raspberry Pi and DIY robots seem to find their way to him.

18 Comments Comment from the forums
  • ET3D
    They can't even afford a domain name, so they certainly won't spend money on a proofreader. I'd have bought a domain for trolling.
    Reply
  • Soaptrail
    ET3D said:
    They can't even afford a domain name, so they certainly won't spend money on a proofreader. I'd have bought a domain for trolling.

    Will these be for sale at Circuit City or CompUSA? Which one do I have to camp overnight at?
    Reply
  • GenericUser
    This is either the work of a really bored troll, or a lengthy scheme to maybe scam some potential investors by capitalizing on nostalgia.
    Reply
  • vern72
    Soaptrail said:
    Will these be for sale at Circuit City or CompUSA? Which one do I have to camp overnight at?

    Fry's
    Reply
  • JarredWaltonGPU
    vern72 said:
    Fry's
    Software Etc.
    Babbages
    Not GameStop, though!
    Reply
  • warezme
    This is where 3Dfx , Nvidia and AMD missed the boat. If 3Dfx owns the Voodoo marketing why not sell it to Nvidia an AMD where they can market it as their Uber high end custom line of GPU's the Voodoo series.
    Reply
  • bigdragon
    Looks DOA to me. Hyping up a big reveal that's just a series of PowerPoint slides is the hallmark of vulture capitalism. Some investors are looking to make a quick buck by taking advantage of nostalgia, branding, and pre-bankruptcy successes. I can't see 3DFX going any further than re-branding generic Chinese tech products that regularly flood Amazon. Sad. We really could use more serious competition in the GPU space.

    warezme said:
    This is where 3Dfx , Nvidia and AMD missed the boat. If 3Dfx owns the Voodoo marketing why not sell it to Nvidia an AMD where they can market it as their Uber high end custom line of GPU's the Voodoo series.
    I think Nvidia or ATi would have bought the Voodoo brand if they wanted it. Their Geforce and Radeon brands were already strong enough, and AIB partners have their own sub-brands. The real value was in the tech IP, not marketing.
    Reply
  • thisisaname
    Joke or a scam, which it is I do not know.
    Reply
  • waltc3
    Just another Internet scam...as predicted. There were so many logic holes in the original Tweet that I'm surprised it was regurgitated anywhere...;) If it had been something real then we'd have seen it today, maybe--and today would have been the day to run it as a "news" item. It's easy to fool the Internet pundits. Good rule of thumb--Internet sites should require a lot of corroborating evidence before taking stuff like this at face value. It's not worth headlining.
    Reply
  • Scooter70
    PCI bus as in the old school pre-AGP PCI bus?
    Reply