What graphics card impressed you the most?

l88bastard

l88bastard

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This is not a thread about all the graphics cards you have owned, rather its a thread about the ones you had that changed the way you gamed, the cards that caused you to educate yourself more on tech, the cards that really moved you to the next level.

Back when grandtheft auto 3 came out on the pc I really had no idea what a pc graphics card was or how they worked lol. But somehow or another I did enough reading and discovered that the game was running choppy because my integrated graphics card was not cutting the mustard.

NVIDIA SOMETHING Geforce 2 Ti 64mb Thanks killing2live, the TI 64 was my first card!
I dont remember what card I bought, I know it was an nvidia and I know I got it at comp usa and I believe it was 64bit something, but thats it, cant remember what it was called but it opened up the world of pc gaming and appreciation for me.

9700 Radeon Pro
The next game that hit my graphic card requirement in the balls was Battlefield 1942 and after doing some research I ended up buying a Compaq pc with an agp slot and then I stuffed a Sapphire Radeon 9700pro in it. Purists on forums called me a noob for using a compaq as a base computer, but I didnt know any better, i certainly did not know how to build my own pc and I was so impressed with myself for being able to actually install another graphics card successfully lol. With that compaq I had another first for myself with hardware installation when I bumped up the ram from 512 to one gig o ram. Yes, to successfully install that ram I spent hours reading up on what I had to do....looooool looking back at that now!

That compaq lasted me until 2007 when crysis came around. At this point, it became obvious to me that the cookie cutter HPs and Dells just would not cut the performance requirements or match the performance standards that could be had with a custom built rig.

8800 Ultra
So I saved my money, did countless hours of research and built a rig based around a MSI 8800 ultra. I do not think I could have picked the most wrong components if I tried. The MSI 8800 ultra had major stability issues due to its crappy factory overclock and it took me a good year to figure that out! I used a striker extreme 680i mobo and that was a frikin disaster of a mobo! I went with Vista 64 as an early adopter and that was a HUUUUUGEEE mistake. And on top of all of that I water cooled the rig! My first build and I had to make it a living fawking nightmare with all of the complex components and untested software!
Despite all of the issues, I later fixed it by replacing the mobo with an evga 750 ftw and then I added an xfx 8800 ultra for sli and then I was finally able to really game at 2560x1600 comfortably! However, stability and crashing issues continued to plague me all the way to the end of that system. Nearing the end of that build I upgraded to twin GTX285s, however I sold em after only a month and went back to the ultras because the $800.00 cost did not justify the performance gains over my ultras.

XFX 5870
I am one of the idiots that payed $500 for a factory sealed 5870 XFX on ebay, however, it was money very well spent. In addition to the 5870 I bought a new P5Q Pro Mobo and a Q9650 processor and completely reinstalled vista 64 and my new rig runs perfectly! Gone are the constant instability issues that I had for the last two years with the Nvidia rig and the frustration and aggrivation that I am now saving by having a stable system are priceless! Because of the 5870 I have now purchased a third 30" 2560x1600 monitor for massive eyefinity and am waiting on Newegg to send me back a replacement for my Rmad 5970!

So yea, that is how I have grown in the last 8 years from pc gaming. I went from being scared to take the lid off a computer case to being able to rip a computer completely apart and build it back together blindfolded! The adventure has cost me a whole lot of money, but it also has saved me a whole lot of money as well. It has been one of the best and most enjoyable learning experiences that I have ever had!
 
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l88bastard said:
XFX 5870
I am one of the idiots that payed $500 for a factory sealed 5870 XFX on ebay,
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It's paid. ;)


But, the 8800GT and 6800GT as well as the 9700 PRO(Didn't own one, but they seemed beastly at the time.)


Both the 8800GT and 6800GT yield more than acceptable FPS maxed out in Steam style games.
 
Voodoo2
It prolonged the usefull life of my Compaq Pentium 200MMX far longer than it would have been possible without it. It was also my first experience with hardware accelerated graphics and was completely blown away at the difference when I fired up Need For Spped II SE. It was this card that really got me hooked on PC gaming. If I had to pick a SINGLE card, it would be this one.

ATI 9800 Pro
The little card that could. It held the performance crown for a good while and even when it wasn't top dog, it held it's own for a long long time to come, especially when combined with an arctic cooler (around $15 at the time) and overclocking.

Radeon 5870 1GB
While it's still too soon to tell, I think this will be another one of those cards like the Voodoo2 and 9800Pro that I'll hang on to for a good while. It blows through every game I play on my 19x12 screen and have no plans to move up to larger resolutions anytime soon. Seening that the vast majority of todays games are console ports, I don't see myself needing more power for a long time.
 
The Voodoo 5 prompted me to learn about video cards so that I could play Unreal with decent performance over some crap vlb graphic accelerator I had at the time. Sure I've learned more cards after that, but that was the card that started me.
 
3dfx voodoo1 with 8megs of ram.

It changed the way I played video games specially Quake2, and NHL 97 (or 98 cant remember) Also FF7 was a 3dfx game as well.

went from software mode on a S3 Virge (decelerator) to a voodoo1.

It changed the way I looked at video games on the PC, and I realized the PC was a better gamer then a console (and still is)

Once you go 3D you never go back.
 
DASHlT said:
3dfx voodoo1 with 8megs of ram.

It changed the way I played video games...went from software more on a S3 Virge (decelerator) to a voodoo1.

It changed the way I looked at video games on the PC, and I realized the PC was a better gamer then a console.

Once you go 3D you never go back.
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I remember the 3dfx Voodoo1. Still have it. :D Should probably throw it out.
 
My first graphics card was a geforce 2 gts with 32mb of ram. while it was a good card, i was too young to really appreciate what it could do. My first real graphics card was the ati radeon 9700 pro. man what a beast! it introduced me to AA and AF. Such an awesome card!
 
I remember messing around with TNTs and Voodoos in high school. That was my first time opening up a computer and swapping out components. I mostly played Duke Nukem 3D, Interstate '76, Quake 2, and Asherons Call. After that I owned a geforce3 that I liked quite a bit. I was playing Medal of Honor: Allied Assault at that time. Then I upgraded to a Radeon 9800 Pro... which is still the card that I run on. Wow. I haven't bought a video card for 6 or 7 years... I guess that would make the Radeon my favorite card. Its still fine for playing Battlefield 2 every now and then. Heh. I guess I'm not as much of a gamer as I was in high school.
 
Voodoo2's in SLI for sure. It was nice not only because it was fast at the time and continued to hold it's own once the Voodoo3's were out, but they were true add-on accelerators so even after I'd upgraded to newer videocards I could keep using them. Even as late as the Geforce 3 or so I still had them in my PC and games like the origional Unreal Tournament still looked amazing in Glide on the Voodoo2's compared to DirectX or OpenGL on the Geforce.
 
Intel Extreme 2 was the first, but the nVidia MX440 Go was the real gateway. I know it wasn't anything compared to previous generations, but it was the gateway to real graphics cards, for me.

HD4350 - the card that could
 
AMDXP said:
I remember the 3dfx Voodoo1. Still have it. :D Should probably throw it out.
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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
 
My unstoppable 64mb ATi Radeon 9000 agp vanilla. I ran it at a mad 60% overclock on core and memory while it remained passively cooled (by a 120mm casefan velcro'd to the bottom of my Compaq :D). It pushed my crippled Thunderbird chip through UT2004 and Far Cry.

I ended up replacing it with a friend's discarded 9600XT that lasted all of a couple months before artifacting and refusing to boot. :eek:

The x850 Pro I got to replace that was BEAST and lasted me till Shader Model 3 games. At that point the card had the horespower, but none of the tech unfortunately.
 
(All are cards I owned at some point or another)

Cards that impressed me: 3DFX Voodoo 2, adding another card for SLI was equally impressive, Diamond TNT2 Ultra, Geforce 2 GTS, Radeon 9700 Pro, Geforce 6800GT, Geforce 8800 GTX, and now, my Radeon 5970 :)

Cards that didn't impress me but also didn't disappoint: Geforce 1 DDR, Geforce 4 Ti 4200, Radeon 9800 Pro, Geforce 7800 GT, and Geforce GTX 260

Cards that didn't impress me: Voodoo Banshee, Voodoo 3, Riva 128ZX, TNT1, Geforce 1, ATI Rage Fury MAXX, Geforce 3, and Geforce 5900XT
 
Ha, this is a cool thread idea. The first discreet video card I ever purchased was a PNY Verto GeForce FX5500 (regular ol' PCI). It had 128mb of DDR memory. It played The Sims 2 on medium settings, and I always played a Medal of Honor game (forget which one) on med-high settings. At the time, AGP was in it's prime, and the earliest PCI-Express cards were being released. Before I got the card, playing games was extremely choppy and this card opened up a new world to me.

I suppose my most recent card, a GeForce 9800gt xlr8 (PCI-E2.0, 1024mb), was the next big jump. I can enjoy Far Cry 2 maxed out @ 1920x1080, and that impressed the hell out of me, seeing as to how I spent $80 on the card, brand new.
 
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.
 
cards that were uderated or over looked

rendition vertite 2x00 series
Radeon LE
Radeon 8500
Radeon 9500Pro
Radeon 3X and 4X series
 
I am not old school like some of you so my most impressive card is pretty recent.

It was an Nvidia 7900GS. Super cheap and overclocked like a champ. It was a simple card and not very fancy but it was the first card that allowed me to play games at full settings. I liked it so much that I got another for some SLI action. Was really great for how much I paid and how well it handled almost every game.

My favorite pc setup was:

e6300 at 3.2ghz
asus p5n-e sli
2x 7900gs
4gigs ram

selling off that board and the cards were the only hardware ive been sad to see go. they served me well. an 8800GT replaced the cards and it was pretty funny how the 8800 was significantly faster then them but still I liked the SLI setup more.
 
Most impressive card I ever had? Undoubtedly my overclocked Radeon 9800 XT, 256 MB. It performed well forever and ever (actually, I'd probably still be using it if it had SM 3.0+ support, but it is good old SM 2.0 only) and initially it destroyed everything else on the market by far. I remember playing Far Cry, Doom 3 and Battlefield 2 very fine with it. I also paid quite a lot of money to get it. Yes, those were the days... it's kind of sad that I can't use this card anymore (AGP, SM 2.0 as I said). Of course I didn't dare throwing it away, it is now in my bedroom on the wall (like some picture, just that it is a GPU) :(

Before my ATI R360 days (as described above :D) I once had a GeForce 3 TI 500; it was an upgrade from a crappy GeForce 2 MX, so it felt like a huuuge upgrade. I had this game which had kind of fancy graphics and my GeForce 2 MX couldn't handle it. The first time I played with my new card I was just like "Wow" & "Wtf" at the same time :eek: I thought about what kind of a person could possibly have the idea to "pollute" a PC such as mine with this GeForce 2 "cancer".

I think the GeForce 8800 GTX was also very impressive, but sadly I didn't have one, so I can't say anything about it except for the many good things I've heard...
 
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The 9600GSO 384MB is pretty impressive, but only because it was $36AR last year. Otherwise, I'd have to say the G80 8800's. They weren't even comparable to the previous generation.
 
Definitely my first 9800 series, the 9800 Pro All-In-Wonder. It played anything out there, even the Doom 3 Alpha leak and Far Cry, overclocked like a beast and it gave me TV!

I really do miss that card. :(
 
My first 3D card was the Monster 3Dfx Voodoo 1 4mb, awesome card playing quake, carmageddon 1 and Splat Pack, and other Glide titles.

From there the next really hard hitters was the Voodoo 2 12mb, TNT2 32MB, and the very first GPU was my Creative Geforce 1 DDR 32MB, loved all of them!

In recent memory I had the pitiful Geforce FX 5700 Ultra. To my awesome 7800GT then 7800GT SLI rig which was great for Doom 3, Quake 4, Farcry, Prey. Then replaced with my GTX260 which just plays everything smoothly and haven't seen a reason to upgrade yet and have a large backlog of games to get through!
 
My Voodoo I, maybe slightly for nostalgic reasons, but after seeing Quake, Quake II and Unreal on this card, I never wanted to go back. Really changed gaming for me forever.


Other great cards would be the 9800 XT, 8800 GTX and now my HD 5850.
 
The NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTX was definitely one of the best cards I've seen, though I never owned one, I got the 8800 GTS 640MB instead but that card was pretty good.

Also, the 4870x2 impressed me and I paid premium price for it. It was worth my money.
 
Most impressed: Voodoo3, Radeon 9700 Pro, Geforce 6800GT, Radeon 4850 512mb

Didn't disappoint: Geforce Ti4200, Voodoo5 5500, Geforce 8800GTS 320mb

Disappointed with: TNT2 Ultra, Geforce3, Geforce2 GTS 32mb

I liked the Geforce2's speed, but the 2D filters on Nvidia cards up until the Geforce 3 were HORRIBLE. Damn cards hurt the hell out of my eyes, whereas 3dfx cards used higher quality 2D filters.
 
My favorite card is the one I consider the best mid-range card of all time, the Radeon 9500 Pro. It was ATI's mid-range product that killed Nvidia's TI4600 with AA/AF across almost all resolutions. This was around the time it became possible to run AA/AF full time. God, I still remember the good 'ole times I had with that card, an AthonXP clocked at 2.3GHz and 3Dmark01 SE. I really miss that system.
 
my first card: 7600gt XXX edition from XFX. Sick brand, Sick card. I still have it in another computer and use it. <3 it
 
7900GTO. It was a great bang for the buck card. 7900GTX performance for like 1/2 the price.
 
6600GT. Haven't had a card since that hit that same sweet spot of price/performance in the same way.
 
Most impressive? Geforce 4 Ti 4200, but that's back when I was easily impressed. From a performance standpoint it's obviously the 8800GTX, nothing else has ever come close to its complete domination over the prior generation.
 
VooDoo II SLI.

It made my Pentium 200 a gaming box. Sort of.
 
It was the 3dfx Voodoo 3 2000 that pretty much started it all for me.
The Voodoo was my first foray into add-in components for PC's. Before that I generally knew very little about computers buying only pre-built OEM systems, ...now I build my own :D

Funny enough I still owned that card right up until about a week ago when I donated it to work (We have a number of older PC's that run various machinery. Every now and then the on-board video fails on some of these PC's... so having some extra PCI video cards laying around tends to come in handy).

Other significant milestones in my never-ending upgrade path: ATI 9700 Pro, GF3 Ti500, GF 8800GTX, GF GTX280, and current GF GTX285 in SLI.
 
For me the first real break through was in the form of a GeForce TI 4600. Remember how expensive those things were at the time? The next significant step came withe the ATI 9700Pro. It was worlds ahead of anything that came before. I can still remember the guy I bought it from, driving from San Jose to deliver it to me. I think it was like $300 at the time. The next milestone was the 6800Ultra...that was a Christmas gift from a couple of friends. It was the 'cat's meow'. When I look back at those three cards, I think that was my turning point.
 
Geforce 3 - This was the first time I got top of the line hardware, and was very happy with it. Between this and my 1.33Ghz AMD Thunderbird, my PC gaming hobby originated here.

Radeon 9500 Pro - 85% of the performance of the 9700 Pro for 2/3's the price. I was blown away when I upgraded to this from the Geforce 3.

Geforce 6800GT - Since ATI was taking it's sweet time with the X800, when I built my Athlon 64 rig I decided to go with this. Boy was I pleased, before this I had a Radeon 9800XT and the Geforce 6800GT was a leap ahead of that in performance.

Geforce 8800GT - I loved this card so much I got two of em! After the 6800GT I had some mild upgrades here and there (7800GT, 7900GTX) I even got the 8800GTS(G80) but felt something was missing, like it was too detuned from the 8800GTX. Well, the 8800GT fixed all that in my eyes with 80-95% of the performance of the 8800GTX. The 8800GT was an impressive card that was available at a very reasonable price. It was such a good card that it lives on today.

Radeon 4870 - Just when I was going to give up on PC gaming (the ATI was becoming a joke and the GTX260/GTX280 were ludicrously overpriced, Xbox360/PS3 were looking like great alternatives) in Rides the 4870. When the GTX260 came out I was impressed with DX10 but, my SLI 8800GT provided about the same performance and I already had it. The Radeon 4870 inspired me to build a mini-lan pit in my basement, with what ever cards I had and a few of it's siblings (4850, 4650, 4670, 4890). This card was amazing, for half the price of the top of the line GTX280 you got 85-105%(Grid was faster on the 4870 than the GTX280) of the performance. This card, I feel saved PC gaming from becoming too expensive for the average person, by forcing nVidia to lower prices to a realistic level.

Radeon 5850 - In my mind this is the spiritual successor of the Radeon 9500Pro. Looking forward to the 5890 as an upgrade.
 
Rauelius said:
Radeon 9500 Pro - 85% of the performance of the 9700 Pro for 2/3's the price. I was blown away when I upgraded to this from the Geforce 3.
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Best part of the 9500 Pro was that many of them were able to be flashed to become 9700 Pro's.
 
450 said:
Best part of the 9500 Pro was that many of them were able to be flashed to become 9700 Pro's.
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Only the 9500 non-pros became 9700s. With the 9500 Pro, the mem bus would still be 128-bit even though Windows saw the card as a 9700. I know, I tried this with both cards. In fact, in order to unlock the full memory bus, the card had to have the ram in a L shape around the gpu. No 9500 Pro's released ever had this configuration, only early Non-Pros. There's my random, useless computer hardware history trivia for the day.
 
my first video cards were a canopus tnt and voodoo2 sli. thatywas pretty good, the only games i remember are unreal and quake. the gf4200 was a good one too, took a shitload of abuse. then 9800 pro was a good one. then the 8800 gts g92 i think it was, was a big bump over 7800gt.
 
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