What video card has served you the longest before upgrading?

Biostar Tforce FTW!!!!

I had one of those MB's too and so did many of my friends.

Kid
 
For me it was the EVGA 8800GTX in the system I built in 2007. I had since given the computer to my fiance and last month it bit the dust, so I gifted the guts of my current machine (560ti, i5-2500k etc.)

I mean, it worked but the old C2D E6600 was showing it's age in a big way HAHA. Why replace JUST the video Card haha. At least now the machine was given a new lease on life. The Fiance Flayer in my sig is what's currently in it hehe.
 
GTX 460. At the time it had one of the best price/performance ratios. Still using the 460 I purchased in 2010. Picked up another in 2011 for SLI. The GTX 460 SLI combination works surprisingly well with BF4 on medium settings.
 
EVGA GTX 570 SC. Actually bumped up to a 660ti and there was virtually no improvement. EVEN saw a few fps drop in one of my pc games so I went back to my trusty GTX 570. ^_^'
 
My GTX 470 has lasted me since I purchased it in 2008. It just went bad last week & I'll need to replace it. I would of done so already but the GPU prices as of late have been wacky. Just waiting for the right promotion to jump on a GTX 770.
 
I'm still using HD 4850's. One powercolor and the other xfx. I think I prefer the XFX. looking forward to upgrading to a 280x once the pricing apocalypse is done.
 
EnhancedInterrogator said:
Radeon 9000... but I didn't really play any games besides stepmania so it didn't matter.
Click to expand...

And another stepmania player here but I also (until recently) played quakelive as well.

I usually regularly upgrade although if anything it seems like its slowed down over the years due to it already being overkill for what I use.

My video card upgrade path over the years:

S3 Virge (PCI)
Voodoo 3 2000 (AGP)
Geforce 256 DDR (AGP)
Geforce 2 Ultra (AGP)
Geforce Ti 4400 (AGP)
Geforce FX 5700 (AGP)
Geforce 6600 GT (AGP) <-- with 2x dual-link DVI
Geforce 8800 GTX (PCI-E)
Geforce gtx 260 (PCI-E)
Geforce gtx 470 (PCI-E)
Geforce gtx 670 (PCI-E)

Pretty much bought all of these when they were the newest Gen. I switched over to Nvidia pretty soon as I started running linux and voodoo 3 did not work so well there.

I remember when I got the Geforce 2 Ultra as it finally allowed me to run quake 3 at 1600x1200 (could get 90 FPS @ 1600x1200 @ 16-bit color on timedemo). Also remember the upgrade to the FX 5700 with the big thing for me being the 350 -> 400 Mhz ramdac that allowed me to go from like 55 Hz to 63 Hz @ 2560x1920 on my 22 inch CRT.
 
Pretty much my entire upgrade path of video cards. My longest lasting by far was the 9800 Pro. For everything else I pretty much get the upgrade itch every year or two.

Voodoo Rush - 1997 - 1998

Voodoo 2 Banshee - 1998 - 1999

Voodoo 3 2000 AGP - 1999 - 2000

Voodoo 5 5500 AGP - 2000 - 2002

Radeon 9700 Pro - 2002 - 2003

Radeon 9800 Pro - 2003 - 2007

Geforce 8800 Ultra - 2007 - 2008

Radeon 4870x2 - 2008 - 2010

Geforce GTX 480 - 2010 - 2011

Geforce GTX 480 SLI - 2011 - 2012

Geforce GTX 690 - 2012 - Present

Probably going to grab a 780ti near taxmas time so I can run it in my main system and replace the aging and loud 480 SLI setup in my old system with the 690.
 
8800GT OC (4years)

Father is still using it to this day so it's been in operation for 7 years now, lol. It's been overclocked and flashed to EVGA SSC speeds the entire time with no hicups or crashes. It's the only GPU I bought an aftermarket cooler for (DouOrb). Time goes by so fast anymore... Can't believe my 560 GTX is over 2 years old already but my new card is in the mail. Doubt I'll go 4 years ever again like with the 8800GT.....
 
ATI 4850 ~2008-2010
AMD 6850 2010-2011 (got fed up with Catalyst drivers not working correctly with City of Heroes)
GTX 570 2011-2014 (Asus DirectCUII triple slot) (worked great in CoH, CoH died Nov 30th 2012 :( )
GTX 570 2013-2014 (went SLI, Gainward OC)
R9 290X (hasn't arrived yet) 2014 -> 2017+
 
Longest for me was an MSI 6970 twin frozr III. Gave me two years of good times.
 
8800GTS 640 or Ti 4200....I had both of them about the same amount of time.

Nothing else has lasted me much longer than a year because I always want to upgrade.
 
my sapphire 4850. the fan died on it otherwise id probably still be using it lol :)
 
The 7970 I am currently using now that I bought on launch day. 2 years is a looooong time for me not to upgrade my vid card. Waiting for Maxwell to see where to going from here.
 
I think it would be 7950 GX2 and 5870 up until now. Its looking like the GTX 680 I got is going to be king for a while. I've had it almost two years and I haven't had a need just yet to upgrade. Now that I'm using a 2560x1600 display I'll probably add a second one in the near future.
 
8800GT SLI 2007-2010
GTX 460 SLI 2010-current

So an upgrade every three years, upgrading to 290 non-X this year.
 
BFG Tech 8800GTX OC2

Lasted 3 freakin years.

BFG8800GTXOC.jpg
 
i suppose that technically my first one.

ATI 3d rage 1995-2002 (7 years)
ATI 7000 (1 month) (it was free to tide me over when I built a new PC)
ATI 9800 PRO 2002-2004 (2 years)
ATI X850pro modded to XT 2004-2007 (3 years)
ATI 3850 last AGP card 2007-2010 (3 years)
AMD 5850x2 2010-current (4 years)

I would have an AMD 280x on here now but it was DOA and then the prices shot up, so I couldnt get a replacement.
 
My tnt2 ultra and my gforce 4 ti4200 lasted me over 2 years each.
My 8800gts was a life changing card. That lasted me 2 generations but it was the most noticeable powerhouse and the first card upgrade that was noticeable. For years I was buying ati cards as upgrades and always had to run fraps to see if there was an improvement, but with the 8800gts, it was such a monster card it just pushed everything else face down and fucked it to death.

Currently I have two gtx 670 cards that I grabbed on release. I can see them going 2-3 years. Absolute Monsters.
 
Two BFGTech nVidia GeForce 8800GTX 768MB OC2 in SLI served me for 5 years. Then one of them died, and the second one died about a month later. Replaced with an EVGA nVidia GeForce GTX 570 2.5GB.

My video card history starts out rough, with the first PC I ever owned for myself being an eMachines pre-built system :(

  1. 1998-2000: STB Velocity 128 4MB PCI
    • nVidia RIVA 128, stuck in Dad's system :D
  2. 2000-2002: *Brand* nVidia GeForce2 MX200 32MB PCI
    • eMachines pre-built system purchased, quickly looked for a discrete graphics solution and cried at limited options. Didn't know any better at the time... :) On a side-note, this PC came with Windows ME pre-loaded, which was quickly "downgraded" to Windows 98 SE by my dad. ;)
  3. 2002-2002: PNY nVidia GeForce4 MX420 64MB PCI
    • Not really an upgrade... but only option I could afford. Again I didn't know any better, but hardware knowledge begins to grow.
  4. 2002-2003: BFGTech Asylum nVidia GeForce4 Ti4200 128MB AGP
    • First custom-built system, eMachines put out of misery. :cool: Windows XP took 5 times to successfully install. :rolleyes:
  5. 2003-2005: BFGTech nVidia GeForce FX 5900XT 128MB AGP
  6. 2005-2006: ATi Radeon X600 PRO 256MB PCI-E
    • Second custom build, kept for college productivity through 2007.
  7. 2006-2007: BFGTech nVidia GeForce 7800GS 256MB AGP
    • Added to first custom build, which then provided more gaming performance than second build. My experience with ATi's drivers has pretty much put my consideration of Team Red to bed for the foreseeable future.
  8. 2007-2012: BFGTech nVidia GeForce 8800GTX 768MB OC2 PCI-E x2 SLI
    • Third custom build, first build finally retired, and second build given to sister. :p System compiles VC++ projects like a boss. Picked up Windows Vista Ultimate retail for $150. :cool:
  9. 2012-2014: EVGA nVidia GeForce GTX 570 2.5GB PCI-E 2.1
  10. 2014-201x: EVGA nVidia GeForce GTX 780 SC 3GB PCI-E 3.0
    • Fourth custom build. AMD Radeon R9 290X was considered, but could not find one at a reasonable price. Windows 7 Professional 64-bit installed.
I never realized how often I upgraded until I typed it all out. :eek:
 
Radeon 9500 with the L shaped ram configuration unlocked to a 9700, took a low profile Intel server cpu heatsink (copper) and machined it to fit my "new 9700" then OC'ed it to hell and back.
Probably lasted me around 3 -4 years.
Oh OC'ing used to be so much fun and so much of a challenge.
We used to have to make our own everything, unlock cpus with superglue and rear window defogger repair kits, set jumpers... Those were the glory days...
These damn kids these days with their unlocked processors and pre-overclocked certified cards and jumper free motherboards... You can buy everything! There's no art left to it!
:D
 
DarkLegacy said:
My GTX 470 has lasted me since I purchased it in 2008. It just went bad last week & I'll need to replace it. I would of done so already but the GPU prices as of late have been wacky. Just waiting for the right promotion to jump on a GTX 770.
Click to expand...
That's interesting, since the GeForce 400 series wasn't released until 2010...
 
Until 2010 I was using an ASUS V9520 MAGIC, AKA GeForce FX 5200. Got the computer from my dad in 2007, I believe, and he had been using it since, oh, 2004? Noticed I really needed an upgrade when it wouldn't run StarCraft II at decent framerates and Oblivion just flat out refused to work, which was probably due to some other complication.
A few months after SCII came out, my dad handed me down his old computer, IIRC equipped with an 8800 GTS. Since I didn't want to split a computer with my twin brother, in 2011 my dad bought me a new computer with a GTS 450. I upgraded it last August to my GTX 660, and plan to upgrade again within six months.
 
Radeon 6950, I think I could still be using it today if I didn't follow my instincts and bought a R9 290 when it was at a reasonable price.
 
I've had so many cards it's ridiculous.
If memory serves me I had a 7970 for 12 months.
That was my longest by a longshot.
My current gtx 780 I have had since launch so 10 months or so on it. I don't see a change coming it's been the best card I've ever owned in everyway. If the price is right i might grab another for SLI
 
My list:

ATi Radeon 9700 Pro 128MB (2-3 years)

3DFX Voodoo 2 12MB SLI (I had that setup for 3 years)

GeForce 8800 Ultra 768MB SLI (2 years)

AMD Radeon HD 7970 3GB Crossfire (2 years)
 
Still running a XFX 8800GTS for the past 6+ years. It's happy and since it's 1.1 and so is my PCIe there is not much reason to upgrade and rock the boat.
Current Haswell using onboard until I see what maxwell brings or a price drop on the 760.
Before that on my old P4 it still has a Abit Geforce4 Ti4400 [modified] that is pushing 10+ years.
Even before that a MX400.

I don't update very often because nothing has died. :)
 
I have had a 5850 on the HTPC since it first released. It has been happily mining for 3+ years as well.
 
Geforce 2 ultra, lasted me about 7 years >.>

My old computer is rocking a GeForce GTX 260 Core 216, bought it when it came out
 
ATI Radeon 5870 - 4 years and still using it playing PlanetSide 2 on Medium to High settings.

Still not ready to upgrade.
 
ATI Radeon 4850 512MB Sapphire brand, this was the best video card of all time IMO. I bought the card new at release (Late 2007/Early 2008) and just took it out of service last week in 2014!

Ive went through so many different CPU's and Motherboards over the years, but the trusty 4850 never skipped a beat. I game on this card HARD and it also has had a decent mining career. From the classics to newer games this card played them all and could produce great graphics and playable framerates even to this day. I finally upgraded my GPU to a R9 290 last week. It goes without saying that its a SIGNIFICANT upgrade!!! The 4850 is still running strong in a secondary system now.
 
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