voodoo5 pci and "Y" cable

[romtech]

what is the y cable all about do i have to put it on i did but just wondering will it work without it....

 

[Noriaki]

The "Y" Cable, you mean the Red/Black/Black/Yellow power splitter?

You don't need it at all it's just a 4 pin molex splitter.

You need to plug a 4pin molex (hard drive/cdrom power connector) into the V5, if you don't have a spare one you can use the Y-Splitter to make a spare one. If you have a spare one now (as I did) toss the Y-Splitter in a drawer somewhere.

 

[Vinny N]

The Voodoo5 needs power.

The Y-cable is just for your convenience in case you don't have an extra 4 pin power connector coming from your powersupply, it's so you don't have to buy a new powersupply or a splitter

It would not be good to just plug the Y cable in.

It would be fine to just plug a 4 pin power connector right into the Voodoo5 though.

 

[romtech]

but i pritty much need a power source to the voodoo5 i have never seen this in video cards usaully the pci bus provides enough power to run the card....

 

[Noriaki]

Yes you need to power the Voodoo5 externally. It's not really a downfall.

The GeForce 256 sucked so much juice it caused instability in alot of motherboards becuase they weren't equipped to supply that much power through an AGP slot.

3dfx just avoids this potential problem and draws none, they add an extra power cable.

I happen to have a board that is notoriously bad with GF256's and for one am quite glad 3dfx chose this route, kills a chance of instability, and puts less stress on your mobo.