Nvidia Mocks Legend.

In what many deemed to be a cynical attempt at April Fool’s humor, as dawn broke on the dreaded day this year, Nvidia published the following article on it’s website, complete with complementary artwork :

NVIDIA Resurrects 3Dfx Brand Name – Announces 3dfx Voodoo 590 Graphics Card.

“For the past ten years, a group of ex-3dfx veterans at NVIDIA have been leading a secret double life. In the day time, they fulfill their duties as NVIDIA employees, designing, building, and marketing GeForce graphics processors. In their spare time, and with the company’s tacit consent, they’ve been working on a revolutionary graphics card based on 3dfx technology. After ten years of secretive development, they are finally ready to show the world what they’ve created.”

“The Voodoo 590 is indeed the most remarkable graphics card we have ever seen. While the most powerful graphics cards today use at most two GPUs on a single board, the Voodoo 590 uses a mind boggling two hundred and thirty-three VSA-100 chips.”

The full article can be viewed at this link:  http://www.geforce.com/#/News/articles/voodoo-revived

Several well known hardware review sites posted their own interpretations, though it is almost certain they were simply playing along.

On the forum front, communities of hardware enthusiasts reacted variably, many had not sampled the delights of the company responsible for arguably the biggest quantum leap in modern PC gaming technology or knew of the sad, yet fascinating truth behind its demise. But for those who had lived and breathed 3DFX’s undeniable greatness, it was less of a laugh and more of a heartfelt lament over wonders that might have been. Oh, what I would have given to own one of the cards on which this gross parody is obviously founded….I shudder to think.

Above:  The mythical Voodoo 5 6000– A card so precious that a man was able to finance expensive leg surgery by selling his on Ebay…and that is no April Fool…it’s a fact!

Perhaps Nvidia’s sledghammer wit is better spent on their own infamous follies….