Best Graphics Card Upgrade EVER

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oxy4bf2

Weaksauce
Joined
Feb 17, 2007
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The Radeon 5000 series has been out for months now and has shown us some pretty amazing performance, giving the "fastest (single & dual) GPU" crown back to ATI. Now we've got a buzz around the internet about Nvidia's Fermi 100 GPUs being up to 30% faster than the 5870. With all the speculation about Fermi's potential, I started thinking about graphics card launches of the past.

I only got into hardcore PC gaming five years ago, so the oldest card I've owned was the Radeon Sapphire x850xt pe. I remember finally investing in a desktop PC and installing the x850 so that I could run Battlefield 2 at good fps on my 19" CRT monitor. The step up from onboard laptops graphics was astounding, to say the least.

I occasionally read people's threads asking for upgrade advice from their 2+ year-old graphics cards and, every time, what comes to mind is how impressed they will be if they get anything from the Radeon 4000 series and up or GTX200 series. Could you imagine going from a 8800GTS 320MB to a 5870 or even GTX285?

My biggest upgrade was probably going from my 7800GT to 8800GTS 320MB (the original G80 version). I still envy those who threw down the big bucks for the 8800GTX because that thing stayed competitive for forever. I think that card, the 8800GTX, has been THE BIGGEST leap in graphics computing power. Then again, I've only been around for five years, so what do I know?

So what do you think, people, what's the biggest step up from generation to generation of graphics cards ever???
 
ill soon find out for me. upgrading from an 8800gt to either 5850 or Fermi. Its still a very good card. Im pretty much maxed in Dirt2 at 1920x1080.
 
I tell ya, the biggest upgrade I ever made was from the integrated VIA graphics on my A7V8X-MX to glorious DX9 on my fancy new Geforce FX5200 (non-ultra).

... Oh wait, no, those were about equal :(.

Okay, honestly the biggest jump was from that same FX5200 to a Radeon 9600 Pro because I could actually play things. The 8800GTS that came later might have been a larger jump technically, but not in terms of gameplay experience.
 
Hmm biggest leap for me was from a TNT2 to a GeForce3. Counter-strike never looked so good or played so smooth.
 
i went from a X800 on my pre built dell that i had for 3 years (played BF2 on it the whole time)
to just last year going with a gtx 260.


shit blew my mind.
 
Seems all of my upgrades have been pretty big. I installed my first videocard at age 14 when AVP released and I found out I couldn't play it. It was a Voodoo 3 PCI card in an HP 233mhz shitbox. I'll never forget the purple box http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/71TAHKYG20L._SL500_AA280_.gif

:D

After that I had a Ti4200 -> 9800pro -> current 8800gt. That 9800 lasted me forever thanks to WoW. I plan on picking up a 5850 (or better depending on price) when Fermi drops. I'm pretty impressed by my 8800gt still even though it's about 2 years old. I guess I can thank the consoles for helping me dodge the upgrade. Once again I'm upgrading for AVP :D :D
 
Trident 1MB VGA (yes, 1 megabyte... not a typo) to Voodoo 3 to Voodoo 5 5500 :D then Radeon 9700 Pro and GeForce 4 Ti200! Heck, all of my upgrades have been huge really.
 
from a 6800 to an 8800GTX. didn't actually improve my frame rates but oh the eye candy
 
I did a TNT2 Ultra 16mb to a Go 6800 Ultra. That was...MASSIVE to say the least.

TNT2 Ultra 16mb -> Go 6800 Ultra
Go 6800 Ultra -> Go 7900GSX (GS Flash'd to GTX)
Go 7900GSX -> HD 3850
3850 -> GTX 260
GTX 260 -> 3850 (DOWNGRADE)
3850 -> 5970. (HUGE UPGRADE!!)
 
ATi Rage Pro 4MB to Voodoo 3 3000 16MB AGP

OR

8800 GTS 640MB to Dual GTX 285's in SLI.... but to be fair, the 8800 was on an athlon x2 and the 285's were on a i7 @ 4GHz.... so im sure that had something to do with it.
 
I think I went from some geforce 2 to a 9700 pro... that was pretty sweet. Then I went from my 9700 pro playing bf2 to a 7900gt, such a big difference in graphics quality.
 
Voodoo2 -> Rage Fury MAXX (TWO X's means RAW POWER!) -> GeForce 2 MX -> GeForce 2 Ti -> 8800GT/GTS.

Considering what I was playing at the time, I think the biggest upgrade was the GeForce 2 Ti to the 8800GT/GTS. Although, the MAXX was a complete turd (still have it somewhere)... wish I got a GeForce DDR at the time. Still remember going to CompUSA and having my father talk me into getting the MAXX (he was paying for half of it so he had some say in it) - good times.

Holding out for another generation, I think... then again, since the release of ATi's 5000 series, I've been getting the upgrade itch.

Nice to see the progression of technology.
 
I am going to be upgrade from Nvidia 7800GT to 5850 probably sometime soon.
 
Definitely when I went from my integrated Intel graphics on my 933 mhz HP to a 9800 Pro.
 
The PoS fx5200 to HD 3650. I went from like 20 fps in raids at 1440x900 to well over 70. Second biggest would be hd4670 to 2x hd5770's. Massive jump in performance.
 
I went from an old Zenith 8086 with a 4 color CGA monitor to a 486 DX with a Trident 1 MB 3D Accelerator card. Going from 4 colors to 256 was amazing! :D
 
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440 MX ---> TI 4800 ---> 7900 GS

I thought I had some big jumps until I read this thread.
 
Probably going from my GeForce 7300LE to the GeForce 8800GT which is still ticking now. Hopefully I'll be getting something new soon though.
 
GF 2 MX-200 to 8500LE to X800GTO2 (modified into X850) to 8800GTS512(G92) to HD4850 to HD4890.

Somehow I broke the 8800GTS, there is a chip that got unsoldered by mistake. What happened to the HD4850 afterwards is that the card simply stopped functionning.
 
ATI 9600XT -> 8800m GTS in a C2D laptop.

Before that I went from some S3 card to a GeForce 4 Ti4200
 
The one that seemed the biggest to me was my 9600 Pro to BFG 8800gt OC2, but I also went from a 2.6ghz 3000+ A64 to a Q6600 at 3-3.6ghz at the same time.

I just replaced that 8800gt with a HD5850 and I am very impressed with it so far but I still have to see if it was worth the investment.

I still love my 8800gt, it handled all the games I played at 1680x1050 but I just wanted an upgrade, I am looking for a used Q6600 and decent PSU so I can use some spare parts and build a dedicated folding rig so I can still put this awesome card to good use. I may actually have a second 8800gt OC2 with a coolink gfxchilla, completely matching with mine, coming into my hands so I could run two GPU clients :D

PS: come fold for team #33 [H]!
 
The biggest upgrade for me was when I augmented my onboard VGA with a Voodoo2 card.
 
I'm ashamed to say that I think I have got all of you beat...

Radeon 7000 -> 8800GTX

My brother is going to have me beat once Fermi comes out though...

Radeon 7000 -> 5770, 5850, Fermi?
 
kuyaglen said:
7950GX2 to 8800GTX
Click to expand...

I made the exact same jump. The 7950GX2 was late for its generation and actually sported a lot of power, when it came for the 8800 cards it was about as fast as a 8800GTS 320

I went for the GTX and it was a decent jump in power. But for anyone running anything less than a 7950GX2 the 8800GTX was probably one of the biggest leaps on power in recent gaming history, certainly the biggest I remember going back to the voodoo days.
 
1) Integrated graphics on a celeron 500MHz
2) Geforce 4 mx series card on a crappy gen1 p4 with RDRAM
3) 9600XT, went up to X800 Pro till it artifacted in games and video then reverted to the 9600xt on a northwood HT 2.8GHz P4
4) 3.4GHz X3350, 8800GT --> soon to be replaced with Fermi/5850
 
Sep 2008 my 9600 Pro was bricked, and I replaced it with with my good ol' GeForce 2 MX for 3 good months, that means I jumped from GeForce 2 MX to Radeon HD4830.
 
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