What graphics card impressed you the most?

Voodoo 1&2, 9700 Pro, 6800 Ultra, 8800GTX, and finally HD5870
 
Killing2Live said:
Going from a Geforce 2 Ti 64mb to a 9700 Pro was a graphical orgasm.
Then the jump from the 9700 Pro to a 7600gt was good but not unexpected performance gains.
The jump from the 7600gt to the 8800gt was wonderful.
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Ahhhhh thats it!!! My first card was the Geforce 2 Ti 64mb! Thats the one and yep, it was a graphical orgasm for an upgrade lol!
 
8800 in terms of lifespan, that was probably the single most impressive card I've owned.

Other than that it's hard to say, I always buy high end cards and I'm always impressed with the technology leaps it's hard to rank any above the others, I think for power on a single PCB the 5970 i really going to take the cake, especially overclocked.

I actually liked my Geforce 7950GX2 because it was fast as hell and also it came with a dual PCB design for a 1 slot card, brilliant little design I thought.
 
the card that impressed me the most was the old monster 3d voodoo 1 card. First time i ever played a game (dark knight II) with 3d acceleration and it was awesome.
 
After messing around with the TNT and some other cards (I worked at Best Buy at the time and just kept buying and returning cards until I got one I liked), I ended up with a Voodoo Banshee. My next upgrade was an Elsa Gladiac GeForce 2 GTS 32MB, for $350 the week they came out.

The most memorable moment was at a LAN party shortly thereafter. I cranked my Trinitron up to 1600x1200 and ran the Crusher demo in Q2. I got over 50fps. I used to have a screenshot up at http://images.invisibill.net/crusher50.jpg but it looks like the file got corrupted somewhere over the years and host changes. I'll have to see if I can find it on a CD backup somewhere...
 
InvisiBill said:
After messing around with the TNT and some other cards (I worked at Best Buy at the time and just kept buying and returning cards until I got one I liked), I ended up with a Voodoo Banshee. My next upgrade was an Elsa Gladiac GeForce 2 GTS 32MB, for $350 the week they came out.

The most memorable moment was at a LAN party shortly thereafter. I cranked my Trinitron up to 1600x1200 and ran the Crusher demo in Q2. I got over 50fps. I used to have a screenshot up at http://images.invisibill.net/crusher50.jpg but it looks like the file got corrupted somewhere over the years and host changes. I'll have to see if I can find it on a CD backup somewhere...
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I did the same thing when I got my Geforce 2 GTS. Slot 1 P3 700 @ 933, 256 RAM, and a Geforce 2. I ran the Quake 3 default benchmarks at my buddy's LAN Party (about 20 people) at 80 frames per second and blew everyone's mind. Definitely a memorable moment!
 
i remember my first card was a geforce 4 mx or something, i also put it in a compaq computer just so i could play some gta 3

The card that was a PITA for me was the GeForce 5200, after that the 6800 ultra was awesome,

i bought the 7900gx2 and i couldnt get it to work at all i was really disappointed
9600gt i actually kinda liked after which i got the 4870 which was my first ati card and i was pretty satisfied
 
Cards that have literally turned the tables:

Nvidia TnT: proved somebody could make a 2D/3D comb card with the same/better image quality as 3dfx and better single-card performance. Validated the future of gaming on DirectX over GLide.

S3 Savage 3D: Marked S3 throwing their hat into the ring of real 3D gaming, and also blessed us with S3TC (what would become Direct X Texture Compression).

Matrox G400 MAX: the first card with chart-topping performance in 32-bit color, plus introduced mainstay features like Dual Head and Environment Mapping. Really helped to change the emphasis from performance to image quality.

Nvidia GeForce 256: not the first consumer card with T&L acceleration, but the first one to force DirectX to include it (only OpenGL had support previously).

Nvidia GeForce 2 MX: the first budget-oriented graphics processor that actually matched the performance of it's predecessor in some games. Up until that release, "budget" literally meant "2 years old parts" to most gamers.

GeForce 3: introduced programmable pixel shaders (DX8.0) and multisample AA.

Radeon 9700 Pro: introduced DX9 Shader 2.0, high-performance and higher-quality (6x) MSAA modes, and single-handedly got ATI back into the performance market.

Nvidia 6600GT: champion of both AGP and PCIe, this was one of the best-selling graphics cards of all time. It managed to best the GeForce 2 MX by being faster than it's predecessor in ALL games, and delivered decent game and AA performance to the masses.

Nvidia G80: surprised the industry with the first fully-programmable DX10 pipeline, introduced real high-quality AF for the first time on Nvidia hardware, and was so good Nvidia is still shipping variants of it it three years later.

ATI 4800-series: another surprise to the industry, introduced new high-efficiency ROPs which brought 8xMSAA to the masses with only a small performance hit. Prices completely destabilized the video card market, and left prices low up un til TSMC dropped the ball and failed to deliver 40nm for anyone (today).
 
Voodoo 2: Unreal/Unreal Tournament + Glide. Enough said.

Radeon 9600: 2004 was one of the best years ever for PC gaming, and this card let me play every game that came out at reasonable settings and resolutions.

GeForce 6800GT: Shader Model 3 led to some pretty big graphical improvements in games that took advantage of it, especially in terms of HDR. Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory probably took better advantage of this than any other game I can think of.

Radeon HD4870: First card I bought that let me really max out just about any game that I wanted. Not to mention that this card was an absolute bargain at the time (even for $300). The 4870 and 4850 basically did for the GPU market what the Core 2 Duo did for the CPU market.
 
8800GS. At the rate everything's going at right now, this card's going to last me maybe until 2011.
 
Geforce 3 - I'd had several cards before it, but it was the first to bring modern 3d graphics to my desktop imo.

Geforce 4400 - It introduced me to GPU overclocking. With a relatively easy tweak you could get the performance of a much more expensive card (e.g, the 4600)

Geforce 8800 GTX (probably the winner here) - revolutionary performance increase over the previous generation. Lasted me longer than any other card I'd had. The card's going on three years old now and it still plays new games respectably well.

Radeon 5870 - A good bump in performance over the previous gen, and introduced the first tangible evolution in gaming for years, Eyefinity.

Honorable mention: Geforce 6800 GTO - you could both OC it like crazy (at least mine did) and unmask pipes to make it a higher end GT.
 
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My 9600pro and 8800gt are two that impressed me the most.

I was most impressed upgrading from my single core S939 A64 3000+ at 2.6ghz with an ATI9600 Pro to the Q6600/8800gt combo I use right now. I probably was so impressed because I also gained a much faster cpu at the same time.

I went from a gf3 ti500 to a gf4 ti4600 with my Athlon XP 1500+ thanks to a Leadtek RMA and that wasn't really a big difference. I then got the 9600Pro for DX9 and switched that TI4600 to my brothers computer and I happy with that. Once my Athlon XP died and I got the A64 3000+ was when that 9600pro really woke up. That card really lasted me a long time and was one of the reason why I didnt upgrade until Nov 07 (Money being another reason :D)
 
Voodoo 1 and Quake. Seeing someone play a game with, and another without, was a mind blowing experience. That was a huge technology jump. Every GPU since then has been more of the same, just faster. Faster is nice, but not as impressive as that upgrade.
 
By far for me would be the 6600gt. It has been a WORKHORSE since its release.
What other card that old is still in use. I mean, check out the steam stats. Its still one of the most used and can be used (somewhat) to play even modern games. I think the next card to really have that kind of legacy will be the 8800 series. I think we will see them around for another 5-6 years easily.
 
Nice Topic!

Voodoo32 MB on my Packard Bell 166mhz (OC'd from 150mhz) blew me away on quake1. Being a poor high school student at the time i was unable to afford anything decent until mid year of college. I built a rig w/ a Geforce3 Ti 500 and it ran everything flawlessly.The Radeon 9700pro also made my jaw dropped when I saw it running BF1942.

after a short hiatus i'm building another PC gaming rig and eye'ing the 5850 once supply issues are worked out.
 
Elsa Erazor.2
Read the review here on HardOCP and baught some Frag tape from here and did the same thing to mine.
Also went well with my Prinston Graphics EO2010 at the time it ROCKED with stereoscopic glasses and a refresh rate of 120mhz..ROCKED! Nothing since has got my loins as tingled playing Quake 3 and AVP in 3D.
 
geforce 3 ti 200, overclocked to ti 500ish speed :D, twas awesome
radeon 9500 non pro, unlocked the extra pipes made it a 9700
geforce 8800 gt I paid $300 w/ tax and shipping for mine, was worth it at the time
 
I would have to say the 7900GT KO I got from eVGA (before it had to RMA'd and I got the 8800GTS I am sitting on now) for the fact that before that, I had never really bought expensive hardware for my computers. The prior video card to that I purchased was a MX 4000.
 
DASHlT said:
Me too :) I aint gettin rid of it, It's my first 3d card :).

I also have my first 1ghz AMD on my keychain. I also still have my first 2400 baud US Supra? modem too.

I am an old school gamer 0_o
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That sadly seems like yesterday. :(
 
3Dfx Voodoo2 - The card that truely started my 3D gaming pc experience!
Geforce 256 DDR - :D
Radeon 9700Pro - Battlefield 1942 with AA FTW!!
8800GTX - The only card worthy to be call the Heavy Champ!
 
Most important was the FX 5900 XT. I bought it without doing sufficient research, thinking it would be a great upgrade to my Vaio's onboard GeForce4 MX440. It wasn't, and the 2.2GHz Pentium 4 I had ended up being the bottleneck for UT2004 (when all this time I was worrying about the 4X AGP on my machine being responsible for the issues). I always regretted having not gotten the 9800 Pro for a couple of bucks more, of the 9700 Pro for a little less. The mistake of blowing $150 into the worthless FX series inspired me to thoroughly research all of my options before committing to a purchase, extending beyond computer components and into my everyday consumer decisions. So this FX card pretty much changed my life, despite it being useless.

As for the 6600 GT. 110nm was a breakthrough for its time IIRC, and it's been five years and it still plays games it has no right to be able to play.

Time will tell how much the G80 architecture pleases me, but it also seemed to really push the performance envelope when it was released, and still holds its own to this day (as constant refreshes affirm).
 
It definitely had to be the 6800 GTS. Oh boy was that thing fast.
It changed my idea of what a PC could potentially do, despite my console fascination, and since then I became a PC addict.
 
- Diamond Monster 3D Voodoo 1 4Mb. I bought it exclusively for GLquake, played competitively way back in the day. I have a demo of me playing GLquake2 over DWANGO with Thresh (The founder of www.Firingsquad.com). Memories lol.

- Radeon 9700Pro. The sheer jump in performance from previous generations of cards was simply stunning. It brought usable 4xAA and 8xAF to every game out there at the time.

Since then nothing has really been as impressive as those cards.
 
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I loved my 7600gt. Was great because at the time it was amazing price/performance. Now the price/performance of cards are absolutely absurd (in a good way!) We can thank Ati and Nvidia for having a nice battle last time around.
 
Voodoo 2 SLI was a leap

TNT2 was a leap

Geforce 256 was a leap

Radeon 9700 Pro was a leap

Geforce 6800 GT was a leap

Geforce 8800 GTX was a leap

Radeon 5870 / 5970 is a leap
 
Diamond Monster 3D (original 4MB voodoo)
2x 12MB Orchid Righteous 3D (12MB Voodoo 2 in SLI)
9800 Pro
GTX280
 
Voodoo 5500
First AGP card i owned and dual GPU! lol. This card is probably the reason why i game today.

nVidia 6600GT
Small, powerful for the price, overclockable and the first card i took the heatsink off to investigate and re-apply paste. Kept me gaming more, loved this card so much.
 
I have to add that the nvidia 6600GT also really impressed me. I remember when it first came it out was still quite expensive but still quite a bit cheaper then the 6800 but it could still play most everything cranked. I couldn't afford it at the time (lol hs student). I always wanted one. A few years back I was checking out craigslist and I found one for only $10 and I thought finally I can get one and it can also serve as a perfect back up for in between sales or RMA's.

Every time I need to make use of it its still impressive. It can play CS:S at 1920x1200 with medium settings... pretty badass. Its being used in my HTPC these days and whenever I feel like playing some css or tf2 it doesn't struggle. A very impressive piece of hardware by nvidia.

My current 4870 is also very impressive but its too soon to make a judgement but I have a feeling the 4800 series will be looked upon with great respect.
 
GeForce FX 5900XT would have to take the top of the list, honestly one of the best performers I've had, still going strong, and handles most games I actually still play (with about four exceptions, that it can't even approach), and the thing overclocked like a banshee (530-540 Mhz on the core with no mods, stock was/is like 370 or 390)

Radeon HD 4870X2 would take second place, I've had it for about 14 months now, and I've yet to see a single performance issue, I like that kind of return on an investment
 
Voodoo1/2, of course. GLQuake was almost like playing an entirely new game.

9700 Pro. I bought this out of necessity (dead Ti4600) but I was amazed at how much faster it was.

X1900XT. This was the first card that could drive 1600*1200 on my old CRT without sacrificing a lot of image quality.

8800 GTX. Same thing, but up the rez to 1900*1200. Bought this around the same time as my flat panel.

And, I have to say I'm impressed with my current 5850. The IQ that this thing can produce while keeping up framerate is fantastic. Overclocks like a champ as well.
 
Voodoo2 was most impressive because it was my first. Going from software rendering to hardware rendering was a bigger step than anything else. The Radeon 9700/9800 series would definitely be second though. I was using some of those in systems for many years.
 
TNT2 Ultra.

I was playing Hidden and Dangerous with a pair of 12MB Diamond Monster IIs (3dfx voodoo2) in SLI (back when it stood for Scan-Line Interleave), mated to a Number Nine Revolution IV AGP card.

There was a level in the game where you are coming up to a fortifiied position by river. On the voodoo2 rig, I would get miserable framerates and the game was basically a slideshow at that point. I could not progress further into the game.

A friend of mine (whom we lovingly nicknamed Saggy Tits) had a Diamond Viper V770 Ultra, but otherwise an identical system, save for his HDD config (I had 2x Seagate Barracuda 9.1GB SCSI Ultra-40 drives, he had an IBM DeskStar). At that point in the game, his experience was smooth, while mine suffered.

I bought a Viper V770 Ultra (NV TNT2 Ultra) the next day.

That was the only video card I've ever felt like I really had to have NOW, until the Radeon HD 5870 and EyeFinity.

Now, I curse every day that goes by that I am not playing SHIFT with triple-monitor love.
 
hands down the 9700 pro


going from my old celeron/5200 FX build to an AMD athlon64/9700 pro setup was unreal. Ran oblivion like a champ :)
 
Voodoo 3500. because you could hook it up to your television.
 
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