It's no mystery to anyone that the upcoming Voodoo3 3500 will be 3dfx's performance flagship. However, when 3dfx briefed us on the final specifications of the board last week, we were a bit surprised to find that the video card now boasts a whole new list of desktop entertainment features. The card's core remains largely unchanged, with 3dfx's 183MHz-clocked Voodoo3 chipset still powering the 16MB board. Gone, however, is the LCDfx digital-to-analog DFP controller and out-ports. "After talking to a lot of retailers and systems integrators we found that Digital Flat Panel sales just aren't what we expected," 3dfx's senior VP of marketing, Michael Howse, told GameSpot News.

　　Instead, 3dfx has opted to make the 3500 a complete entertainment package, adding a TV tuner, an FM tuner, MPEG 2 capture abilities, and a whole slew of video editing utilities, making it a prime competitor of not only the TNT2 Ultra, but ATI's All-in-Wonder 128 as well. "More consumers than ever are outfitting their PCs with both high-performance graphics cards and TV multimedia components," said Greg Ballard, president and CEO of 3dfx Interactive. "By coupling the highly integrated Voodoo3 architecture with award-winning video and MPEG 2 technology, we have been able to surprise the market with a Voodoo3 3500 card that delivers all the multimedia features consumers want with the ultimate in 3D graphics performance. Voodoo3 3500 TV establishes an entirely new product category for PCs, delivering to consumers the industry's fastest and most comprehensive desktop entertainment system."

　　3dfx's Voodoo3 3500 TV will let users surf television channels on their computer, and record TV programs digitally and play them back at a later time, much like a VCR does. The card's TV tuner, a Philips FM 1236, also comes with a built-in FM tuner for radio recording and playback. The card also comes with a dongle assembly with ports for S-Video in, S-Video out, composite video in, composite video out, left and right audio in, and left and right audio out. Additionally, the Voodoo3 3500 TV comes with a sizeable bundle that includes the VisualReality video editing utility, an undisclosed game, and other desktop software.

　　The Voodoo3 3500 TV AGP will ship for US$249 sometime in July. Pricing and availability for a PCI configuration will be available sometime after E3.