Worst video card ever...then best

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fasterthanlight

Gawd
Joined
Nov 22, 2005
Messages
677
Okay, so what is the one or two cards that really pissed you off to no end. Card/drivers/installation...

First I have to say mine was the GeForce Ti200. I know that I super-overclocked 2 of them an burned them up, but the third one I had I didn't touch and it caused me many headaches.
 
Worst for me was the ATI X800 Pro. It took a while to fix various performance issues I was having. I spent 400 dollars on it too.

Best so far is my current. After I put it in and installed vista, I did not have a single issue. Everything just worked.
 
Best ever: the Nvidia X800GT series (Sans 9800GT). Are you telling me the 6800GT, 7800GT, and the 8800GT weren't awesome?
 
I used my Ti4600. For quite some time it was a decent card. Also, Voodoo3 was the best PCI card ever!
 
my worst was the 6800 vanilla. Some could unlock the shaders and extra pipes to make it perform like a 6800gt....mine only unlocked the pipes. I ended up just getting a x800xl shortly after

Best card was either the x800xl or 8800gt.

However, the most "needed" card I had was a pci mx440se. It was slow as shit, but my only option with a gateway tower that only had a pci slot(no agp). It allowed me to play bf1942, C&C renegade, and IL2 sturmovik
 
Worst card is the Cirrus Logic VESA card, I can't even run 3d games at all.

 
Best card ever for me was my Gainward Geforce 4 Ti4200, hey it played Doom 3 ;). Also my Voodoo 3 3000 which I still have.

Worst would have to be the Savage 2 integrated on the Intel boards.
 
TNT2 Ultra. Best card ever.

I had an engineering sample that kept up with most of the GeForce 2 GTI cards.
 
Worst card ever: Geforce3 Ti500.. It was actually pretty good, but a few months after I bought it, Nvidia released the Geforce4 series and even the cheap Ti4200 beat my $500 card in every benchmark. Why did they even bother with the Geforce3 Ti if they were going to launch the Geforce4 4-5 months later? They ripped me off and that made me stay away from Nvidia for 3 GPU generations :p

Best card ever? Radeon 9700 Pro - I laughed at everyone who bought the Ti4600 just before that card came out. Then I laughed again when the NV30 was launched because everyone kept saying "Wait for NV30, it's going to be awesome!" and when it finally came out the 9700Pro still blew it away :)
 
Worst: The whole nVidia FX series.

Best: ATi Radeon 9500 Pro 128 MB 256-bit memory soft-modded to eight pipes.
 
Best - 6800NU unlocked + Overclocked, Awwww yea :D

Worst - Anything by nVidia with the GX2 moniker. YOUR DRIVERS SUCKS ASS FOR THE 7950!
 
best card is my current Powercolor x800xl, i love how its got that extra power plug thing on it :)

no worst card yet, as ive only owned my x800xl, and a chaintech fx5600 ultra, and they havent given me any problems at all :)

cept the chaintech's fan died, but it's still running strong :p
 
My first *bad* modern card was the Rendition V2100-based Diamond Stealth II S220. I gave up on it after a year of bugs that were never getting fixed. The next closest was the Radeon 8500. That was back when ATI drivers were horribly unstable and buggy.

Most cards I had never really had any major problems. It's hard to pick out any in particular. I'm generally satisfied with most of the video cards I bought.
 
I would say the worst card I ever owned was an STB Nitro DVD.. It was great for MPEG2 decoding, but was a turd for Gaming..

Best Card was probably my BFG 7900GSOC.. That card lasted me for years and was quite powerful for a budget card. I probably got the most use out of it possible.. I even finished Crysis on it on Medium! It eventually gave way to a good deal I got on an 8800GTS G92..
 
JimmiG said:
Worst card ever: Geforce3 Ti500.. It was actually pretty good, but a few months after I bought it, Nvidia released the Geforce4 series and even the cheap Ti4200 beat my $500 card in every benchmark. Why did they even bother with the Geforce3 Ti if they were going to launch the Geforce4 4-5 months later? They ripped me off and that made me stay away from Nvidia for 3 GPU generations :p
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Remember though, that was back during the whole 6 month product cycle era - so you kind of had to expect it being out of date in short order.

9700Pro was probably the best card - the jump in performance was incredible, they really caught Nvidia with their pants down on that one.
 
Another vote for the Voodoo 3 PCI. My first card ever, and, being a dumb kid I bought the AGP version even though the guy at EB said "you're sure you have the right slot yeah?" :)

Then I went back and replaced it, felt so l33t actually upgrading my lame Time machine. Games all of a sudden sprang to life, played so smooth and took me to a new world. I made some dumb purchases after that, a V5 and GF3 Ti500 which cost 250 and 350GBP respectively. With the GF3 I got some chunky VR goggles that didn't fit and wouldn't even sit on my face without duct tape, but it lasted me until HL2/Doom3.

Then I made my first informed, researched purchase in a 6800GT. I don't know about "worst", but I'll nominate my onboard ATi from 1998. I had to go back to it in an emergency and trying to play DoD on it was... ugh.
 
Worst: My first 6800GS. The card's blue color channel died on me while I was outside the US, and I was forced to use it for half a year. The effect of that part dieing was that everything white became yellow, everything blue became black, and all the other colors became really yellowish. Ugh. Couldn't RMA it either.

Best: Second 6800GS. The card came far cheaper than the first, and lasted way longer than it should've, at it's price. Didn't have a SLI board, though.
 
Best card I ever owned, either my 9800pro or 8800gt. They were both awsome for their time and the 9800pro remained a relevant card for gaming for a long time. The 8800gt was and is still a very relevant gaming card.

Worst 3d card I ever personally owned was the Voodoo Rush. Don't even get me started.

You know, I recently added up what I spent on video cards over the years. Two words, "New Lexus" :D
 
another vote for the 9700pro- it was the best, hands down. There was no competition anywhere even remotely close to it. I bought one right away- that's the first and only time I bought a video card very soon after it launched lol
 
HD4870x2>GTX280>8800GTX>9700Pro>x800>.......................................................................9800gx2. 9800gx2, worst card i've ever used.
 
My 5700LE stank it up pretty badly.

The 6800GS was a killer though, and for just $200 at the time, it was a steal.
 
Worst card: Voodoo2. I ordered one up, installed it and ...DOA. Sweeeeet. So I sent that one back, they sent me a new one. It worked great for about ten minutes and then the 3D demo I was running turned into giant purple pixels. I restarted and by that time it too was dead. Elite!

So I sent that back and instead bought Windows 98, which solved the problem I was originally trying to rectify with a new graphics card! Blech.


As to the best card: I think I've gotten the most mileage out of my 6800, but I enjoyed using the TNT2 Ultra the most. So fast!
 
worst: would have to be the rage 2 C 4mb haha

best: probably the 7900 gto i have now
 
Worst was my parents Ti4600 way back. From the day they bought it, for whatever reason, it underperformed. Consistently got kicked to the curb by my 4200 and I could never figure out why.

Best was probably my 6800GS OC. Ran hotter than Chernobyl Unit 4 since the day it came out and it's still kicking. As chance would have it, it actually replaced the afformentioned Ti4600 when it finally heaved its last breath a week or two ago.My current SLI'd 280s are wonderful but haven't proven themselves in the long term but they get honorable mention just for performance reasons.
 
Worst:
Geforce 4 MX series.... Hey is this a geforce 4 or a geforce 2?!?!?

Best:
Ati 9500... until everyone learned about the soft mod and it cost almost as much as the 9700 :(
 
For me the worst card ever would have to be the Nvidia's first 'real' 2D/3D GPU the Riva 128 (I'm not counting the disastrous NV1 here). No matter what I did I could never get it to work reliably... Windows would always lock up with this weird pattern of green lines across the top of the screen. This was back in like 1997/1998 when the Riva 128 was brand new technology.

The best card I ever had? I'd have to say that it's easily the Radeon 9700 Pro. The Radeon 9700 turned the entire industry for a loop and it took Nvidia quite a while to catch up in terms of performance and image quality. It was an amazing card.
 
One of the worst card ever is the GTX 280 @ $650!
The best card ever is the 8800GTX.
The 4870, X1950XTX, 6800GT are all great video cards.

The 8600GT/GTS really sucks since it was very slow compared to the previous year offering.
The X2900 and X3870 were also very bad.
 
Without a doubt, the best video card ever was the Radeon 9700 Pro. It dominated every card on the market more so any other new card has. It was also the first card that really made AA playable at high resolutions. And it was a great card for years after too.
 
TheAmerican said:
Voodoo3 PCI.

I'll never forget playing Rogue Spear or Delta Force in all it's ancient glory. 1999 ftw. :)
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for me it was an ATI AIW 128 4x AGP 32mb card for my years of delta force!!

worst card..... cant say i ever own a bad one really, they all did what i wanted
 
Best Card I ever had: ATI 9800 Pro 256MB. Lived for that card. Great performance as well. 2 honorable mentions: 6800GT (Best bang for the buck card ever) 8800 GTX Amazing performance, but by no means cheap when bought new.

Worst card I ever had: I have to say with out a doubt was the 5800FX. The damn thing was loud and performance, while good, was no where near what it should of been. Although I wonder how much it would fetch on ebay? I have it sitting on my shelf in the closet. Only spare computer part I still have laying around.
 
Worst: (and i've been through most since 1995)

6800GT SLI, horrible bugs (Widescreen), poor driver support, just not worth it at all..

Best:
X1900XTX, great performance, solid drivers.. (incidentally i got it after the 6800GT fiasco)


Most Fond Of: Voodoo1 ... The CLick!
 
Asus V7700 which was a GeForce 2 GTS or Ultra. I hated it because it would refuse to work with anything but Asus drivers and even those never worked great. All of my other cards have been equally great. My current one, which I just sold has been great for the few years I've had it. It's an XFX GeForce 6800GS.
 
Worst: ATi xpert98/Rage AGP 2x... Nothing worked on that card. Even games that were "Rage" compatible didn't work because the drivers always claimed to be xpert98 and not a Rage so my video games looked like crap for 5 years.

BEST: 9800 Pro. Obvious reasons.
 
450 said:
Worst: ATi xpert98/Rage AGP 2x... Nothing worked on that card. Even games that were "Rage" compatible didn't work because the drivers always claimed to be xpert98 and not a Rage so my video games looked like crap for 5 years.

BEST: 9800 Pro. Obvious reasons.
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LOL, I know what you mean. We ended up with a ton of those at a place I used to work for and I had to find drivers for the damn things after a month of looking I found ones that were actual Rage drivers.

What a PITA.
 
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