Budget Video Card Comparison - November 2000

The 3dfx Voodoo4 4500

Arriving a nearly 6 full months behind its faster performing Voodoo5 5500 brother, 3dfx's Voodoo4 4500 was quite delayed. Powered by a VSA-100 chip, 32MB of SDR memory, and a 128-bit memory pipeline, the Voodoo4 4500 set its sights on the sub $150 video card market.

Unlike the one other card you will see in this comparison, the Voodoo4 4500's VSA-100 processor is completely unmodified from the version found on the more expensive Voodoo5 5500. Instead of modifying the core, 3dfx choose to make the Voodoo4 4500 a single processor counterpart to its dual processor Voodoo5 5500 brother. Therefore, unlike the 5500's dual chip configuration, the Voodoo4 4500 only comes in a single VSA-100 package.

Since the power of the Voodoo4 4500 hinges on the power of a single VSA-100 chip, it was important that a single unmodified version of the chip be powerful enough to handle the other chips in this price range, a feat quite difficult considering that the VSA-100 was produced to be used in an SLI type setup, as can be determined by its name: VSA stands for "Voodoo Scalable Architecture."

Just how much power does each VSA-100 chip have? Based on an enhanced 0.25 micron process, the VSA-100 chip features two rendering pipelines, each capable of processing one texel per clock. The chip supports T-Buffer effects, full screen antialaising, and FX1/DXTC texture compression. This power is contained in a package of 14 million transistors housed on a 6-layer metal process. Perhaps the most crucial change for the VSA-100 chip over its Voodoo3 older brother is the fact that the chip now supports 32-bit color rendering, 32-bit textures, 32/24-bit Z & W, an 8-bit stencil buffer, and support for 2048x2048 textures. The core is clocked at a conservative 166MHz, most likely as a result of the VSA-100's large 0.25 micron process. The 166MHz core clock translates into a dual textured fill rate of 166 megapixels per second or 333 megatexels per second. And while the VSA-100 chip is able to support anywhere from 4MB to 64MB, each Voodoo4 4500 comes outfitted with 32MB of memory.

As we briefly discussed above, the memory bus in a video card plays a crucial role. As with nearly all other cards found in the sub $150 price range, the Voodoo4 4500 has a 128-bit memory bus that is dependent on 32MB of SDR SDRAM chips. The chips are clocked at 166MHz, providing 2.7 GB/s of memory bandwidth.

Although the raw specs of the Voodoo4 4500 are dwarfed in comparison to some of the other value cards out there, some features of the VSA-100 chip make it special. You have probably heard of all the features 3dfx has been promoting with this chip: excellent full screen antialasing, DXTC texture compression, T-Buffer effect, the works. It is here that we see the cutting edge of 3dfx's budget chip, proving once again that just because a processor is inexpensive does not mean it has to be short on features.

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For more information regarding both the VSA-100 chip as well as the Voodoo4 4500 as a whole, please see our 3dfx Voodoo4 4500 AGP review.