This is my first posting on these boards.  I'd like to thank FalconFly for his work and for keeping the file archive available. 

This is in response to the VSA-101/VSA-200 is really Rampage debate. 
http://www.falconfly-central.de/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=offtopic;action=displ...

I figured I'd start a new thread.

The short version:  anything with a VSA-xxx is a variation of the VSA-100.  The Spectre line of cards would not have used any VSA chips of any type. 

The longer version:

First off, realize that Rampage was the internal code name for the project.  Such as Napalm (VSA-100), Avenger (Banshee II, renamed Voodoo3 for marketing reasons), and Daytona (VSA-101).  To be a little more specific, Rampage is the code name for the rasterizer.  Once NVidia came out with their TnL unit it was understood that 3dfx needed to meet the technology, hence the Sage geometry chip.  Rampage is a little unique, in that the chip name probably would have kept the internal project name.  The reason is that there had been enough hype regarding the Rampage project that the name itself had some recognition ...the side of the boxes on the Spectre series would have proudly proclaimed that the cards were powered by Rampage technology. 


I believe this happened with Banshee as well, that the internal project name was kept, and the chip became known as it (somebody please correct me if I'm wrong on this).  Much as if we never called the Voodoo3 by that name, but as 3dfx Avenger.

Anyone remember the Voodoo3 4000, with AGP 4x, 32bit color, and large texture support?  It was announced not too long after the Avenger chip came out and came under fire for not supporting those features.  The Voodoo3 4000 never materialized, but the Voodoo4 4500 did, which supported all of those, and had the approximately the same performance.  That's because they're basically the same thing—Voodoo3 4000 turned into the VSA project.  They added the T-buffer (a concept borrowed from the Rampage project) and enhanced SLI support (the Avenger chip did support SLI, a few SLI Avenger based boards were made by Quantum3d.  They were the earlier AAlchemy boards.)

In answer to the theory that Rampage supported more than one chip, therefore it went under the VSA name:
Voodoo Scalable Architecture was designed for massive clusters, the design spec was for 1 to 32 chips to be linked together.  Rampage held on the the multi-chip architecture to a more reasonable level; 4 rampages could be SLIed together and two Sages.  Multi-chip architecture was not unique to the VSA series; all 3dfx cards were either of multi-chip design (the early Voodoo Graphics and Voodoo^2, and the unfinished Rampage + Sage combination) or SLI capable (Avenger, VSA-100, Rampage chips.  It was possible to SLI Rampage chips without Sage, although it would have made no sense to do so.)  The only chip that does not, as far as I know, support SLI is Banshee.