What Is Your Personal Favorite Video Card of All Time?

[Mega6]

AMD R9 290. Playing BF4 with Mantle was the best experience I have ever had with gaming. 144 fps gaming with no dips. I don't what happened with Mantle since, but I don't think Vulcan can hold a candle to it.

Still on an R290. : D
DirectX 12 and glNext (later renamed Vulkan) implemented Mantle features close enough in performance, making Mantle obsolete. Porting Mantle to DX12 was rather easy as well.

 

[cybereality]

Mantle basically became Vulkan. The core of Vulkan was donated by AMD to Khronos, and they used the base of Mantle and standardized it into the Vulkan API.

I think the reason BF4 was so well optimized is that AMD and DICE worked together to create Mantle, so both the game developers and the driver developers were tuning the code for optimal performance.

Vulkan has a lot of potential, but most developers haven't been able to tap into it. If you look at DOOM (2016), you see a result that is as impressive as BF4 was. But lots of games are based on older APIs (like DX11) and don't have the architecture for the low level Vulkan/DX12.

 

[Auer]

Mantle basically became Vulkan. The core of Vulkan was donated by AMD to Khronos, and they used the base of Mantle and standardized it into the Vulkan API.

I think the reason BF4 was so well optimized is that AMD and DICE worked together to create Mantle, so both the game developers and the driver developers were tuning the code for optimal performance.

Vulkan has a lot of potential, but most developers haven't been able to tap into it. If you look at DOOM (2016), you see a result that is as impressive as BF4 was. But lots of games are based on older APIs (like DX11) and don't have the architecture for the low level Vulkan/DX12.

FWIW, No Man's Sky is Vulkan, and is absolutely one of my fav games for looks. It got a very decent boost for AMD users when they switched over from OpenGL a little while back.

 

[Wat]

8800gt was such an improvement over the 6800 sli it replaced. Oddly enough that was the last nvidia card I have bought.

The voodoo 5500 was great for the 4x aa at the time.

 

[Reaperkk]

This is a tough one but here is goes.

Voodoo 3: I never got to own this card but it was the first video card I was first interested in. My parents didn't have the money for it so it was only a dream. A part of me wants to build a voodoo system just for my inner elementary school kid

GeForce3 Ti500: My first real card and I loved it. It played everything I wanted and then some. This card also survived more many years until I lost it in a move. I wish I still had it

Radeon 7970: I bought this card as a present to myself after getting my first job out of college. It's the card that got me back into gaming.

 

[cybereality]

I had a Voodoo 3000. It came with Unreal, OMG was that great back then (still don't understand why Epic is sleeping on this IP).

That was the first machine I built for myself in 1999. I had been building computers for several years and selling them, but never had my own PC until that point.

Also had a Geforce 4400 Ti, I believe it was. I original bought a Radeon 9700 Pro, which was a huge splurge for $400 (luckily my pops paid for it), but it didn't work with the ELSA Revelator 3D glasses I just got. So I exchanged for the 4400 Ti so I could play Alice in 3D.

Good times.

 

[GhostCow]

Nostalgia winner: The Voodoo Rush. My first graphics card. I learned to love Mechwarrior 2 and Interstate '76 on this card

Runner up: The first Geforce card. It was the first card with hardware T&L and it was a huge deal at the time. I was playing Tribes in way higher fps than my high end CRT's refresh rate

Honorable mention: The old Matrox cards. They were the first to have bump mapping! I wish they were still making competitive PC cards today.

Longest relevancy: Radeon 9700 Pro. I used this for five years until I got an 8800GTS

Runner up: My 980 that still has another year left in it

 

[70 Polara]

I've owned more video cards then I can possibly keep track of, but my personal favorite is the card I just recently got lucky enough to find a cheap one of for my retro system.....a Geforce 3. I bought a Geforce 3 when it first came out in early 2001 and got a solid four years out of it in my various systems. First card to bring programmable pixel/vertex shaders to the masses.....

That and I have a soft spot for low end AMD 'Cape Verde' 2GB/4GB variants......have used a lot of them in budget builds and they still can do OK at low resolutions if you don't mind some tuning and tweaking, and they can be found dirt cheap these days.

 

[cybereality]

GhostCow Wow! Interstate '76, that was a dope game.

 

[Karant]

nVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT 256MB (AGP) - Remember this running Battlefield 2 and Call of Duty 2 at MED / HIGH settings, like a charm!
nVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB (and the 512MB model, a tad bit less) - Remember dumping $600+ on this and eagerly picking it up from the Purolator warehouse by the airport on a sunny spring day. Guild Wars, Crysis, Day of Defeat: Source were all on rotation.
ATi Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB (AGP) - Finally had Battlefield Vietnam running smooth as butter!
ATi Radeon x1950 Pro - Remember picking this up for sub-$200 and being shocked with the price / performance ratio. Incredible value at the time.

 

[jpangelo]

The current card, a 960TI, is 7 years old, as is the rest of the rig (AMD A8-5500/ 960TI/8GB ram/1TB spinner) and has given me great service, so maybe this one.

I really liked my first real perf vid card setup, a Riva TNT, paired with 2 8mb Voodoo 2 cards in SLI- picking from Glide or DirectX or OpenGL, etc. The racing game that came with the TNT advertised the new "lens flare" effect! (and used it to death)

Then Geforce came out and obviated the 3DFX cards. Played Quake 3 Arena for hours. Days. Months. Hello carpal & repetitive etc, etc.

 

[empirebuilder1]

GTX970. I have one right now, was actually my first real GPU that I ever purchased used two years ago. Doesn't cook my room yet still runs modern titles just fine at medium settings. Aside from the VRAM issues (which I haven't actually had a problem with) it's probably one of the best video cards made by Nvidia, from a value standpoint anyway.

 

[OhSigmaChi]

GTX970. I have one right now, was actually my first real GPU that I ever purchased used two years ago. Doesn't cook my room yet still runs modern titles just fine at medium settings. Aside from the VRAM issues (which I haven't actually had a problem with) it's probably one of the best video cards made by Nvidia, from a value standpoint anyway.

100% agree. Very underated video card.

 

[RazorWind]

100% agree. Very underated video card.

Until the kvetching about that last .5GB of the memory, the 970 was The performance darling. I think it would be remembered a lot more favorably anyway if Pascal hadn’t been such a major leap forward.

 

[Mloot]

I think my favorite was the 9100 PCI by Visiontek (based on the Radeon 8500). It was my first real card, and it gave my AGP-less Dell (my first home pc) the ability to actually play the modern games that were out at the time.

 

[SamuelL421]

9700 PRO aiw and the x800 aiw after that.

honorable mention is the 6800go - my first high end laptop and being able to play any dx9 title at the time was incredible on something I could untether from the wall and take with me.

 

[Ripskin]

4600 Ti and 6800 GT though my 1080 Ti has been the best since the 4600. My 7970 was top notch out of the box.

 

[theonedub]

9600GSO. Yeah there are something like 100 different versions of them out there lol they were one heck of a card in my early Folding@Home days. First card I folded on (before that I folded on a PS3) and would set me on the distributed computing path long term. I owned at least 4 or 5 of them. Pretty sure I still have one in the closet, too.

For cool factor I liked my 780ti Classified HydroCopper. Weighed more than a bag of concrete left out in the rain but always stayed ice cold. That card is retired to the closest, too.

 

[j8x]

The 8800 GTS 640 back in '06 had me hook line and sinker. I made the big jump to Windows Vista 64 bit, 8 gigs of ram, that card and an Athlon 64 x2 just so I could play Crysis. (I think I got the intel Quad 6600 soon after) I bought the card the first week they were available in my area at a show. That and the GTX768 were stacked up behind the vendors table, long line buying them up. I think I paid 50 bucks more than retail at the time but didn't care. Just too anxious. But I was off and running playing that game and making levels for it. The real kicker was going back and playing all the BF2, BF1942 and Vietnam games. Everything maxed, smooth as butter for the first time ever. Haven't posted here in a while, thanks for the trip down memory lane. Need to update my sig lol.

EDIT: Not that it matters but I had the timeline a little messed up. I didn't get Crysis until '07. I think I played the demo before that, so after all these years everything's a little fuzzy.

 

[Violator]

I was very fond of my Voodoo 2/3 and my 9800Pro. Both gave me an incredible improved experience in games.

In saying that, my 1080ti kicks the crap out of anything else I've tried

 

[Armenius]

Until the kvetching about that last .5GB of the memory, the 970 was The performance darling. I think it would be remembered a lot more favorably anyway if Pascal hadn’t been such a major leap forward.

GTX 780 performance for $380. It was a positive hot topic for a good while until the RAM issue came up. If I remember correctly, many outlets were saying the 980 wasn't worth the extra $170 over the 970. NVIDIA deserved the criticism leveled their way, but in the end the extra half gig that almost all games couldn't utilize didn't make a significant impact on how the card performed. If they had been honest up front then the 970 would have been remembered much more fondly.

That said, I think it was the shortest lived video card in my PC. I got a job promotion a few months before the GTX Titan X dropped and picked one of those up on release. 6 months from GTX 970 to GTX Titan X .

 

[FlawleZ]

The 8800 GTS 640 back in '06 had me hook line and sinker. I made the big jump to Windows Vista 64 bit, 8 gigs of ram, that card and an Athlon 64 x2 just so I could play Crysis. (I think I got the intel Quad 6600 soon after) I bought the card the first week they were available in my area at a show. That and the GTX768 were stacked up behind the vendors table, long line buying them up. I think I paid 50 bucks more than retail at the time but didn't care. Just too anxious. But I was off and running playing that game and making levels for it. The real kicker was going back and playing all the BF2, BF1942 and Vietnam games. Everything maxed, smooth as butter for the first time ever. Haven't posted here in a while, thanks for the trip down memory lane. Need to update my sig lol.

I have 2 or 3 of these still. 1 is the rare SSC 112 SP 8800GTS 640MB card. Definitely beastly for their time.

 

[That_Sound_Guy]

My first purchased gaming card was a GeForce 2 TI 200 that I used to play UT99 in competitive clans. Many found memories back in the day with clans/friends along with LAN parties. Will never get rid of it. Next after that is a 8800GTS.

 

[crazycrave]

I believe my 8800GTS 320Mb has maybe 1 month run time and replaced with 8800GT just for Crysis .. as to have been in that box all these years !

 

[Harvestor]

My BFG 8800GTX, i think i had it for 4 or 5 years in my main rig, best value for sure

 

[Ripskin]

I was very fond of my Voodoo 2/3 and my 9800Pro. Both gave me an incredible improved experience in games.

In saying that, my 1080ti kicks the crap out of anything else I've tried

I still have my Voodoo 2 in its box looking almost brand new Sadly I sold the SLI expansion for that whopping 4MB bonus lol.

 

[Greyarea40]

4200 Ti. That was the golden age.[/Q

I became a member of the forum just to tell you how much i agree. I loved that thing and the cost/benefit ratio.
Modded it 2 times: first with a new fan and later I installed a completely passive solution. Can't remember who made it, but it was the first time i saw a heatpipe.

 

[/dev/null]

Verite V1000. 2d & 3d in one card!

 

[SpongeBob]

8800GTX...it was a relevant high end video card for YEARS. I don't remember what brand I had...I think a PNY XLR8.

That generation was also priced like you were paying for it for years.

 

[McDork]

My favorite card was an XFX R9 280X, second would have been an EVGA 8800 GTS 512. I'm running an RTX 2070 right now, and so far so good.

 

[harmattan]

I'd say mine is a tie between 8800GTX and 9700 Pro. These cards really made you feel like you were a major step above anything else, and they both had massive staying power. 1080 ti, while its staying power has been superb, it always existed in a universe where faster Titans x... existed so didn't really give the "I'm cock of the walk" feeling that 8800GTX and 9700 Pro did.

Another one I'd add to the list, although perhaps unconventional, would be the mutant hybrid 1800/1900 xt in the Xbox 360, Xenos. Unified architecture available (a few months) before it was cool.

 

[FlawleZ]

That generation was also priced like you were paying for it for years.

Nothing compared to the price gougery Nvidia is doing with the 2080TI. The 8800GTX price adjusted for inflation would still only be $765 vs $1000+ of the 2080TI.
Mind you, the 8800GTX also released a full 6 months before ATI had their answer (which still couldnt compete). The 8800GTX was typically over 100% faster than ATIs fastest card at the time, the X1950XTX. The 2080TI is nowhere near that much faster than Radeon VII or 5700 XT even.

 

[harmattan]

Nothing compared to the price gougery Nvidia is doing with the 2080TI. The 8800GTX price adjusted for inflation would still only be $765 vs $1000+ of the 2080TI.
Mind you, the 8800GTX also released a full 6 months before ATI had their answer (which still couldnt compete). The 8800GTX was typically over 100% faster than ATIs fastest card at the time, the X1950XTX. The 2080TI is nowhere near that much faster than Radeon VII or 5700 XT even.

The 8800 GTX was crazy. Literally doubled performance from the prior gen flagship. Imagine if 2080 ti was twice as fast as 1080 ti -- it was like that.

I had two of them in SLI in an i680, which was ironically one of the worst motherboards chipsets ever. It was a mad machine when the mobo wasn't about to blow up (you could literally smell ozone coming from the northbridge and a low hum of stressed transistors)

 

[SPARTAN VI]

Upgrading from a GeForce 7900GT to a 8800 GTS 640MB in the day was yuuuge. Easily a 80-100% bump. Don't think I've seen a generation-to-generation increase like that since.

 

[Armenius]

Upgrading from a GeForce 7900GT to a 8800 GTS 640MB in the day was yuuuge. Easily a 80-100% bump. Don't think I've seen a generation-to-generation increase like that since.

Pascal was close (60-70%).

 

[reaper12]

I loved my R9 290, interesting card and Mantle was brilliant when it was introduced. I also really liked the Vega 64, looked great and had loads of fun to trick around with to get extra performance.

Back in the day the two cards I remember best were the 9800pro and the 8800 GTS 640MB. It was a great era for graphics cards.


But, I am going to be controversial here. My favorite video card of all time to date is my current one, the 2070 Super. It's good at everything with no real weak points. Compared to other Turing cards, it has great price/performance. There are new features been introduced all the time, like Integer scaling and VRSS. And it's at the dawn of Ray Tracing becoming an actual thing in gaming.

 

[CruisD64]

9700 Pro, 8800GTS and 1080ti.

 

[Killahurtz]

hard question to answer...so I will honorably mention my wife's NVIDIA GeForce FX 5800 Ultra...because I like all the hatin' and fun it created in the PC website world

it is a preorder white box ...and we still have it

 

[FlawleZ]

hard question to answer...so I will honorably mention my wife's NVIDIA GeForce FX 5800 Ultra...because I like all the hatin' and fun it created in the PC website world

it is a preorder white box ...and we still have it

View attachment 214038

Quick! Hide it from Erek!

 

[Killahurtz]

Quick! Hide it from Erek!

hahahahaha