What graphics card impressed you the most?

I went from Kyro II to a SiS card, then I got a Ti 4200 64 MB with a thermaltake cooler. I thought it was the bees knees.
 
I was hooked on pc gaming long before 3d accelerator cards became available, and nothing was going to change that. However, the one single card that blew my mind would have to be the diamond monster 3d 4mb. I absolutely could not believe what I was seeing. GL quake and i76 with the d3d patch... Not to mention the whole slew of glide games (There was a time when I wouldn't buy a game without seeing the 3dfx logo on the box!). Nothing since has ever been quite the same(I've owned almost every high end consumer 3d accelerator/gpu since then). It's like 3dfx voodoo was my first orgasm. Still chasing that feeling!
 
Most impressive card for the era that I have ever owned is the GeForce 4 Ti4200 64mb. That card completely destroyed any game I could throw at it. At LAN parties everyone was jealous at my amazing 60fps in half-life. :)
 
My eVGA 8800GTS 512MB(G92) is still going strong as ever playing at 1920x1080 in most games, stepped up to it from a eVGA 8800GTS 320MB(G80)
 
I had my 7800GT for 3 years I think. And I was happy it could play CS:S and TF2 right x1050 max with 2x or so AA and get good FPS. Then I'm using the 4870 512mb, and It was a great choice.
 
personally the 4870 1gb in my current computer, it can play anything at highest settings on my 2209WA , most with 8xAA. The last gpu I bought before that was a 6600gt 128mb like 4 years ago upgrading from my terrible fx5200, the 6600gt was decent but I couldn't really crank the settings on BF2 or play much higher than 1024x768 (I also have a mobile x1600 128mb in my macbook but it's pretty much on par with the 6600gt).
 
9600GSO. Got interested in overclock and the original 96SP one is just insane
550mhz default on the core can leap up to 749mhz!
800mhz memory can go 1050mhz!

Anyway I learned how to mod bios using nvbitor or whatever it was. Folder named Whodie showed me all of that.
 
My 8800gtx's really blew me away when I first got em.
When i got the gtx 260's in sli, i was impressed with the scaling (coming off of 9800GX2 in quad sli)
 
For me it was the X800XT PE. The jump in power at that time was insane. I remember I went from med/low detail in Far Cry on my 9500Pro (the one that was just an underclocked 9700Pro) to maxed everything on the X800. I loved that card.
 
I will never forget the jump from an XFX 8600GT to an Zotac 8800GT.

I mean holy crap, games were freaking playable! And plus it was the first card that got me interested in the physical way they look. It had a transparent fan that lit bright red when it was on. Looked like it was on fire... ahh, good times.
 
My ASUS 9600XT impressed me for nothing more than it's ridiculous tenacity. I bought it in about 2003. In 2005 the cooling fan died. I simply removed the fan and ran it passive in a decently well-vented case. I stopped playing WoW on it in 2008 even though it was still working. At that time I got my laptop with the 8800m GTS which is really pretty impressive for a laptop card. My Xfire 4890s are simply unstoppable at 1080p, but should be for the price of admission.
 
Voodoo2 made the trick for me :) When I first connected it to S3, games really looked much, much better. None of the new tricks like new direct or something made that much effect. Pity they ain't makin cards with impact like V2 right now :)
 
MorgothPl said:
Voodoo2 made the trick for me :) When I first connected it to S3, games really looked much, much better. None of the new tricks like new direct or something made that much effect. Pity they ain't makin cards with impact like V2 right now :)
Click to expand...

Well in all seriousness, what could they possibly make?
 
My 9700 pro played everything on max details, max resolution, for 3 full years.

Best card I've ever had.
 
9700 Pro without a doubt. When that card launched it really was the performance leader by a good margin (first card I actually was able to use AA and AF on with decent FPS) and I just had to get me some of that. Other than that I've been very impressed with my 4870x2 for the price I got it at. It just keeps kicking ass on all the latest and greatest titles. I won't be replacing it until DX11 is in full swing.
 
It's been written about already, but the Diamond Monster 3D 4MB was an absolute mind blower. I still remember firing up GL Quake and just sitting back and watching the demo. I was barely 14 at the time GL Quake came out so saving up $200 for a video card add-on was a huge deal back then for me; I've never had quite the same feeling about seeing such a huge graphical leap from a game (Crytek came close with both FarCry and Crysis).

Of course I may have just been easier to impress at that age.
 
I would have to say it was the S3 virge decelerator.

Oh I read the title wrong; I though it was "What graphics card depressed you the most?"
 
My biggest wow factor came from my old Trident 1MB 3d accelerator card. I went from 256 colors to 65k. It made Kings Quest look a lot nicer!

The 16MB that came with my Pentium 90 destroyed that one, but my favorite by far was my 9800 Pro. I saved up for a while for that one (and a couple replacements). I don't miss the smell of burning Molex connectors though :D
 
Haha I had a geforce 2 ti as well that allowed me to play Black and White smoothly. That made me really happy.

Few years later I got a geforce4 ti 4200 which was pretty awesome.

Probably the best card I ever had for its time was the ati 9800 pro. First time I had a beast machine and I loved it.

I was buying mediocre budget cards after the 9800 fried :( but the next one I really loved was my 8800gt 512mb.

I'm using the 8800gt now and it still does me well for the games I play. I don't really have enough money to upgrade anytime soon. (fucking college and their fees and book prices)

So the cards that elated me the most in descending order
ati 9800 pro -> geforce2 ti -> 8800gt -> geforce4 ti
 
Playing Tie Fighter with two Voodoo 2s in SLI was the first time I felt like I had real graphics power. My roommates and I had our computers networked with BNC cable that we hung out our windows. Those were the days.
 
My G92s. While my 850 Pro (unlocked to XT) was great, by the time I got it I still wasn't maxing settings. The G92s brought me to the place where I could happily by any game off the shelf without even thinking if my computer could handle it.
 
Orchid Fahrenheit 1280 VLB with 2MB (my first VLB card, and first card that had acceleration on it (actually maybe the ProDesigner I had, had acceleration, but no VL...)
Tseng Labs ET4000W32P with 4MB (outperformed an 8MB Matrox Millenium in many things)
Matrox M3D Power VR 2 (my first real 3D accelerator, though I did have a Matrox "Mistake" among others)
Creative/NV TnT 16MB (this card was fast, and full featured)
GeForce 256 (was an impressive leap in tech, though by the time games used the tech the GF 2 GTS was way better)
Radeon 9700 Pro was the next truly impressive card. (I was running a Ti 4600 and thought it was tip top, until I picked up the 9700 on a whim.)
I've been impressed with both NV and ATI cards since, but I haven't been surprised or wowed like these older ones.

I should go put these in bold on my post in the "Do you remember your first graphics card?" thread. :D
 
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Voodoo 2 from some crappy S3 card. Quake 2 without massive pixels, whoo!
 
Man. I feel young now. Thanks guys <3

My first 3 computers had onboard graphics (66mhz 486, then 2 more 300mhz K6). Then my dad got a new laptop. It had a radeon 7500 mobility in it (also it had a 2.8ghz P4). I was SO in awe of this thing. The games we had back then (baldurs gate, namely) werent graphically intensive. But going from bottom'ed out crap to full in that game was enough to make me all giddy. (even though a lot of the difference was probably in going from 300mhz to 2800mhz)

2 years later I got my own laptop for college. 3.2ghz P4 with a radeon 9150 integrated card WITH 128MB. I remember bragging about the thing cause it had 128mb. I didnt know anything about it. I tried playing doom3 on it (it worked, surprisingly) which made me feel awesome. but my best friend down the hall had a radeon 9600 pro. I was awestruck. I HAD to upgrade. After months of research I realized how horrible and un-upgrade-able laptops are.
I built my own about a year later. Wound up with 2x 6800 vanillas in SLI (one of them crapped out due to using a lame 15$ power supply). SLI in doom3 made me cry inside with joy.
Years later, I wound up with a 7950gt which always made me happy. and an 8800gt (which is what i use now, but no longer does 3d without BSOD).

I think the first time I launched a game with the 8800gt was probably one of the only times I knew enough about computer hardware to really appreciate it. It made me feel kinda cool to have a relatively fast graphics card. But the 7500 radeon mobility and the 9150 radeon igp were the ones i bragged about the most (sadly): which is why id have to pick the 9600pro radeon as my "most impressed" card
</nostalgia>
 
9600 pro.

bought refurbed for like half the retail price, fan died. i overclocked it and it still lasted for years.
 
ok ok, if you want to go back, my first was a Hercules Monochrome Graphics Adapter on an Amber Monochrome Monitor backed by my XT clone running a whopping 4.7Mhz....
 
Voodoo3 3000. First 3D card. It rocked my world and lasted a pretty long time. Many fun memories from those times.
 
The Voodoo II changed the way I gamed more than any other 3D card I have owned since. I was playing Quake with software rendering @ 640x480 or lower one day and then the next I was playing Unreal and Quake 2 with 3D rendering @ 800x600. It was something.
Aside from that, I would have to say my 9800Pro and the jump to DX9. Really since then, the jumps have just been incremental.
 
dr.stevil said:
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 :)
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You mean Morrowind? ;)

Morrowind drove me to build my first PC, based around a 9700 Pro All-in-Wonder. That shiny red beast of a card is still chugging out there somewhere while a friend of mine plays WoW on my first build.

The 9700 Pro was the first and only ATI/AMD card I've used up until now. Other notables were a 3dfx Voodoo 3, Ti4600, 6600GT, 7950GT, and 8800GT. The 6600GT and 8800GT are definitely spiritual siblings, and as someone said above, I can see the 8800GTs hanging around for years like the 6600s.

I'm now returning to ATI/AMD after several years with a 5850. Hope this card is the spiritual successor to the 9500/9700 Pro.
 
OH man... cant remember the order but.. Diamond Edge 3d, TnT2 Ultra, Geforce, Geforce2, Voodoo1 and 2, the mighty 9800pro, there were some Nvidia cards in there after that 4800? 5600?, but none of notablility. Almost 4?yrs ago I picked up the 7800GT and have been using it till.. well..today when I ordered my 5850. Haven't done much PC gaming the past 4-5yrs that needed anything more.

Lets hope its a trooper.
 
I had a ati radeon 9000 with only 32mb of video memory in my Inspiron 8500, it was okay but I couldn't play battlefield 1942 on high settings without much lag. I found out that I could use the 9600 pro turbo with 128MB of video memory from the inspiron 8600 even though it wasn't officially supported for the 8500. So I think I spent around $150 for the 9600 pro turbo on ebay and I took of the thermal pad and put a thin copper block on it to keep the heat down. When I put the graphics card in and started up the game it was amazing, I could play without lag on the highest settings and I was very proud because I never upgraded a computer before, let alone a laptop. Also, I think the 6800 ultra was an amazing video card, I was amazed that it had 256MB of video memory and I even thought one day what it would be like when video cards have 1GB of video memory and now they do!
 
leahzero said:
You mean Morrowind? ;)

Morrowind drove me to build my first PC, based around a 9700 Pro All-in-Wonder. That shiny red beast of a card is still chugging out there somewhere while a friend of mine plays WoW on my first build.

The 9700 Pro was the first and only ATI/AMD card I've used up until now. Other notables were a 3dfx Voodoo 3, Ti4600, 6600GT, 7950GT, and 8800GT. The 6600GT and 8800GT are definitely spiritual siblings, and as someone said above, I can see the 8800GTs hanging around for years like the 6600s.

I'm now returning to ATI/AMD after several years with a 5850. Hope this card is the spiritual successor to the 9500/9700 Pro.
Click to expand...


nope :) ironically enough, that computer ran obilvion better than it did morrowind lol (albeit, not maxed out or anything).
 
TNT2. It was a sweet spot of IQ and FPS. The 2d and 3d IQ blew the Voodoo out of the water.
 
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