Your Video Card Upgrade Ladder

Integrated nothingness -> Voodoo 2 1000 -> Radeon 7500 -> Radeon 9600 Pro -> Radeon 7500 (let's not go there) -> nVidia 6600GT -> Radeon x850XT -> nVidia 7600GS (Seems to be a pattern, really)

Looking into a 7600GT, the system configuration didn't have one at an acceptable price.
 
belmicah said:
Nice friend. See, I wish all people could just give their old shit away, instead of saying, "well it went for $$$$ on ebay, so that's what I'm asking" or something rather. In a world where everyone is money hungry, it's nice to have friends that want to share their gaming experiences.
Click to expand...

You can be my friend too! But on ebay, I saw friendship costs $$$$.. :D

But yeah, he had a real frankenstein of PCs. It used to be a heap of parts that I had lying around, but eventually turned into a AthlonXP 3200+, 9600SE, DVD burner, 20GB harddrive, and 1GB (2x512) DDR400 in dual channel. Didn't have to drop a penny. He takes terrible care of it, so I'm taking it back today to perform some maintenance and throw in my spare 80GB, install some games, and install a 9700Pro a week or so from now. Hope he appreciates it! :mad:
 
belmicah said:
Your prize is you can actually play games instead of watching a damned slideshow!! BTW, did you just develop a new sense of interest in gaming, or were you just broke for a really long time?
Click to expand...

broke for a long time.
 
gf2 mx>gf3 ti200>9800np>9500pro>9600xt>6800nu>x800pro>7800gt>7800gt sli>X1900xt

Had x800 and SLI at the same time and killed the 9800np.
 
SPARTAN VI said:
You can be my friend too! But on ebay, I saw friendship costs $$$$.. :D

But yeah, he had a real frankenstein of PCs. It used to be a heap of parts that I had lying around, but eventually turned into a AthlonXP 3200+, 9600SE, DVD burner, 20GB harddrive, and 1GB (2x512) DDR400 in dual channel. Didn't have to drop a penny. He takes terrible care of it, so I'm taking it back today to perform some maintenance and throw in my spare 80GB, install some games, and install a 9700Pro a week or so from now. Hope he appreciates it! :mad:
Click to expand...


Some people just arn't as technologicly inclined as others. He really, probly doesn't relize what a service your doing for him. None-the-less, your doing it so that is a good deed. Well on you m8.

*On an unrelated note, I just started folding for the [H]orde!
 
On Board > 32mb AGP Kaser something or another > Radeon 9000 > Radeon 9600XT

Looking to up to at least an x800xl though once I exit this state of perpetual poverty.
 
this is as far back as I can remember
ATi 9200 -> BFG 5900XT -> BFG 7800GTX -> BFG 7800GTX -> XFX 7800GTX Triple X (512) -> XFX 7900GTX (two)
and thats where i'm at now. Can't remember exactly why I bought two 7800GTX's (256MB) but I did..I think i fried one or something.
oh well.
 
BR3T said:
GeForce2 GTS > Radeon 9500 Pro > Radeon X850 Pro agp flashed to X850XT PE
Click to expand...

Heh - almost 'zactly the same here. Who are you, my doppleganger?

Actually, put a "S3Virge 2 MB, TNT2 4MB" in there before the GeForce2GTS, and a Rockin' EGA adapter on my original 286 before that.

Only wish my X850 Pro would flash. :(

BB
 
ATI RAGE>Radeon7500>Voodoo3>GeForce2mx>x800pro>7900GTX>7950GX2


yay. had to think back pretty hard.
 
IT began with:

3DFX Voodoo Banshee 16mb - Visiontek Geforce 3 TI200 64mb - Sapphire 9500 128mb - Evga 6600GT 128mb
 
geforce2 pro > geforce3 ti 200 > geforce4 ti 4200 > 9600xt > 9800xt > 6800gt > x850xt > 7800gtx > x1900xtx > x1950xtx
 
geforce2ti-geforce4mx-geforce 4200-4800-geforce 5600-geforce- 7800gt- 7800gtx- ?????
 
1MB Performa Integrated -> 4MB 133MHz Dell Integrated -> Radeon VE 32MB PCI -> 6800NU OC (no unlock) -> 7900GTX SLI -> ????
 
ATI Xpert@Play(Garbage) > Voodoo Banshee > TNT2 > GeForce 2 GTS > Geforce3 Ti200 > Radeon 9500NP Softmodded to 9700 > GF 6600 (it was $70, and I needed a PCIe card) > BFG 7800GTX OC > 7900GT Superclock SLI
 
Some of you people just upgrade too often, wow. I guess I have too many other hobbies (books, DVDs, console games) and responsibilities.

Permidia 2 @ ~$50 ish (slowest cheapest card that could do OpenGL Quake2) quickly flipped

ATI Rage Pro 8MB @ ~$50ish Open box (permidia 2 sucked at Q2)

Voodoo3 2000 16MB (Still for Q2, man, did those 1st couple of cards suck at it) - $150ish

Radeon 7000 64MB? VIVO - $229 - $30 MIR that I never sent in

Radeon 8500 64MB (came with a mb/cpu combo from a friend, say $50)

MSI Radeon 9800pro/XT 128MB $170

Radeon vanilla x800 card - $46 AR, for the move to PCIe

Radeon x850xt - $110 AR

Somehow I always end up with an ATI card. Dunno. I'd do an Nvidia card given the bang/buck was right, but somehow ATI always has the bang/buck edge when I'm shopping around.
 
ATi Rage 128>Radeon 9000 64mb>Radeon 9800NP flashed to Pro>Radeon X800XT (for pci-e)>Geforce 7800GT KO>Radeon X1800XL>Geforce 7900GT KO SC>Radeon X1900XT 512 (died)>Radeon X800XT

i've upgraded a lot in the beginning of the year. decided to try Nvidia, didn't like it much so went back to ATi. i would still have my X1900XT 512 if it wasn't for AC's Accelero X2 and it's super sticky memory pads :mad:. looking at a X1900XT 256 right now and will most likely get one.
 
Cool thread...

As far as I can remember:
Cirrus Graphics 1 MB chip (I think) integrated in my 486 DX2
Some other 2MB on board video card in my p2 133
3DFX Voodoo1 as an add on in my K6 200
3DFX Voodoo2 8MB on the same board
3DFX Banshee on my 300A
Geforce2 GTS 32MB (or was it 64MB) on the same computer
Geforce4 Ti4200 128MB on Celeron 1.6A
Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB on 2.8B
6800GS 256MB same CPU
X800GTO 256MB same CPU
7600GT 256MB same CPU (ya I really need to get a new motherboard).
 
Ati 3drage 4mb ----> 9800XT ----> 6800Ultra ----> 7800GTX ( used less than 10 min total, went bad RMA to 7900GT) ----> 7900GT ( bad one, very limited use, RMA 7900GT coming in the mail, already sold ) ---- X1900XT 512mb should be here on tuesday :)
 
voodoo 3 pci > geforce 3 ti200 > radeon 8500 > geforce 6600gt agp

you might be thinking, why the 8500? Well I got it and it was slower than the geforce 3 until about 2 driver versions. then it blew it outa the water. I basically upgrade when the gameplay is affected by the framerate and last ditch efforts fail. I'm not to that point yet with my 6600 :cool:
 
DarthWombaT said:
voodoo 3 pci > geforce 3 ti200 > radeon 8500 > geforce 6600gt agp

you might be thinking, why the 8500? Well I got it and it was slower than the geforce 3 until about 2 driver versions. then it blew it outa the water. I basically upgrade when the gameplay is affected by the framerate and last ditch efforts fail. I'm not to that point yet with my 6600 :cool:
Click to expand...

Radeon 8500s were great budget cards, near on par with a GF4 Ti4200 card. Just a couple of years ago I was playing CnC Generals and Doom3 @ 640x480 on it. Solid upgrade from a GF3 IMO.
 
Integrated --> Integrated --> Radeon 9600XT --> Radeon X800GT --> ? (in a few months when I've got cash again)

I loved that 9600XT, without even overclocking it I was still crankin out CoD2 at 1024 x 768.
 
Intel onboard > Voodoo > Voodoo 2 > Voodoo 3000 > TNT2 > GF4MX440 > GF4 ti4200 > Radeon 9700 pro > Geforce 6800 Ultra

Now I wait for DX10.
 
From 1989 till today:

integrated on 386> integrated on Pentium > Diamond 4 MB AGP >Nvidia 16 MB AGP > ATI Radeon 7000 LE > Nvidia MX440 > ATI X300
 
2 MB Video-VRAM (ATI), Matrox 4MB WRAM then expanded to a whopping 8 MB VRAM!!! All back then during the end of 1995... ahh.. the golden days during Doom ][, Rise of the Triad, and then Duke Nukem 3D demo in January 1996. Ahhhh.. it was the old days... when I was 16 years old.

Since there was no need for a 3-D accelerator with Quake1, which was software rendered anyway, I waited all the way until 1998 before getting a new computer. It was fun watching Quake 2 run like a slide-show at 1/2 frames per second at 1280x1024 in 1997!

With the new computer, it came with a 8MB Intel something AGP graphics card. Ran Quake 2 at nice frame rates (40-60fps at 1024x768). Didn't want Voodoo2 or Banshee because of complications. Went ahead and got ATI Rage 128 (Pro?) when it was released.. ran 32-bit color very well, better than TNT. Got another PentiumPRO 200 MHz computer with 16MB Riva TNT ($7000 PC during mid 1996 with 128 MB EDO-DRAM!)... But I quickly returned the Rage 128 when Voodoo3 3000 was first released at CompUSA in early 1999. Loved it!!! Upgraded to Voodoo3 3500 with TV tuner in 2000 and loved it! Perfect for the best online fps game of the decade--Unreal Tournament in Glide!!! It also played UltraHLE (Nintendo64 emulated games) beautifully!

Finally upgraded to Voodoo5 during mid 2001 (Twice as fast as Voodoo3) Then got GeForce4 Ti4200 in early 2002 when first released. (4x as fast as Voodoo5). I always had 2 computers so I always had the previous card along with the new one.

The next upgrade didnt come until 2 years later which was early 2004 with the Radeon 9800 PRO! I was waiting for the king Radeon 9800 to come down in price. People were so stupid with buying the GeForceFX series because it did DirectX9 only half-way right (and much slower that it had to revert to DirectX8 in games), when the 9700/9800 series already had full DirectX 9.0 support. The only thing that the FX series was better at was high quality AF (just like with ATI's recent X1xxx series), but that was only at 8X, and with more penalty than ATI's. It also was so noisy compared to the 9800.

Anyway, when I just got the 9800Pro, the X800 and 6800 series were announced right afterwards! That pissed me off, man! Because of that custom-fitted CPU heatsink on the oc'ed 9800 and the fastest Athlon XP-M, I had almost the fastest computer in the world for only a couple months.... argh! $500 sucker for the X800 XT---didn't believe in giving ATI or Nvidia $500 yet!

So I waited until the X800 XT All-In-Wonder dropped below the $350 price mark. It was one year ago. Then got a 6800 Ultra AGP for the second computer, by Leadtek with 3-way surround air cooling heatsink setup. I started hating AthlonXP's when Athlon64's kicked major butt, so ditched the motherboards and upgraded to PCI-Express. That was about 6 months ago.

So I got a new PCI-E 6800 Ultra from a Gateway computer that had silent 4-heatpipe heatsink on it! It was so fly! Overclocked to Ultra-Extreme speeds at only 55 degrees load. Also got a X1900XTX for the other computer so I could play at 1920x1200 with all games on my new 24" Dell 2405FPW. This beauty is the beast!

Now, a few weeks ago I just got a 7900GT with 512 MB of memory to replace the 6800Ultra on my "red" computer. A Zalman CPU flower heatsink ( CNPS6500-Cu ) was slapped onto the 7900GT so that I could overclock it to 7900GTX speeds at DEFAULT voltage!!! So, it's running at 650/1600 at only 65 degrees load. BEAUTIFUL!!!


Hey, before you complain.. I had much more fun typing the memories down and talking about it than just listing the video cards used. Just making a list is a lot less "moving", personally IMHO..
 
All right.. I was a rich guy.... I'll start in 1997. I upgraded whenever there was something faster being released! That's how spoiled-rotten I was, so don't mess with me or my money!


It was the Voodoo1 ($150), Voodoo2 SLI ($500 pair), Voodoo3 3500 ($250), Riva TNT Ultra ($220), Geforce1 ($300), Geforce DDR ($350), Rage Fury MAXX ($275), Geforce 2 Ultra ($500!!!), GeForce 3 ($300), Radeon 8500 ($300), Geforce3 Ti500 ($300), Geforce4 Ti4600 ($300), Radeon 9700 Pro ($450), Radeon 9800 Pro ($430), Radeon 9800XT ($450), X800XT PE ($600), 6800 Ultra Etreme SLI ($1400 pair!!!!!), 7800GTX SLI ($900 pair), X1800XT Crossfire ($1100 pair), X1900XTX Crossfire ($1200 pair), 7950GX2 pair ($1100 pair).

So, you see that the most expensive of all was when I got two 6800 Ultra Extreme's for $700 each. I'm a spoiled brat, aren't I?

Just kidding.. . but I'm sure there's somebody who did just all of the above!!!!!!!!!
You? Or, you? Any of you? Raise your hands if you're one of them. . ha .. HA!
 
psychot|K said:
I say the 9700 Pro had the most staying power.
Click to expand...

Yeah, for almost 3 years... Amen that! The Voodoo2 SLI was probably the next, at more than 2 years. And there was the Geforce 2 Ultra that was almost as good as the Geforce 3 and 4 series (until DirectX 8 games became the norm, at least).
 
Matrox Millenium 8MB PCI --> Gainward Geforce3 Ti450 --> Geforce4 Ti4600 --> 9700Pro --> 9800Pro --> 7800GT --> 7900GTX

I'm sure there was something between the Matrox and the GF3 but I can't remember...
 
(AGP): Riva TNT2 > Sparkle GeForceMX440 > Gainward Gerforce 4 Ti4200 > Hercules 9700 Pro >Albatron Vanilla 6800 > (PCIe) : MSI 6800GT > LeadTek 7800GT >Gigabyte X1800XT.
 
ATI Rage 4mb --> ATI Rage 8mb --> GeForce2 MX ---> ATI 8500 64MB ---> GF4 4200 --> 9500 Pro --> 9800 XT 256MB --> 6800 128MB Extra Pipes Unlocked --> X800XT
 
Bo_Fox said:
Yeah, for almost 3 years... Amen that! The Voodoo2 SLI was probably the next, at more than 2 years. And there was the Geforce 2 Ultra that was almost as good as the Geforce 3 and 4 series (until DirectX 8 games became the norm, at least).
Click to expand...

GF4 4200's stayed popular for a long while, especially in the for sale forums.
 
4Mb Matrox Mystique 220 (best 2D card I've ever owned) ---> Added 12Mb Voodoo 2 (Half-Life on my BP6 running NT4 rocked) ---> 32Mb Geforce 2mx 400 (for £90 at the time it was a great card) ---> 128Mb Geforce 4 Ti 4400 (paid £190 for it on special when it was £225 everywhere else) ---> 256Mb Geforce 6800GT (£315, worth every penny).

Looking at getting a XFX GeForce 7950GX2 SLI 1GB DDR3 for my new games rig (AMD s939 4600+), but its nearly £400!

I've always tried to go for bang for buck rather than raw speed. 6800GT is nearly 3 years old now... holy sh$t does time fly.
 
ATI Rage 2mb(onboard)
Pro Savage 16mb(onboard)
ATI X700Pro
ATI X1800XT (broke after 2 weeks)
ATI X1900XT
 
Ati Rage Pro(onboard)
Riva TNT(pci upgrade)
Skip a few years.....and a new computer in 2001/2002
Nvidia Gf 4200Ti
Ati 9600Pro
Ati 9500NP
Ati 9500Pro
Ati 9800Pro
Nvidia 6800Gt @ Ultra-Extreme
Then moving onto my newest incarnation of my machine and when i had to switch to Pci-e
Nvidia 6600GT
Nvidia 7800GTX

Im extremely happy with my machine the way it is, all bar one of the gfx cards were second hand, im im love with my GTX as its easilly the most powerfull gfx card ive ever had, tho as i have a crossfire mobo, im thinking to get some X1800's and do cableless crossfire, but i think my GTX is enough for me.
 
My memory is a bit hazy but I think it goes like this:

Started if with whatever was in my first PC (some ACER from CC)
Then when I started building them myself:
Powercolor 4mb 2d card
Supplemented the above with 2 Voodoo Monster 12mb cards in SLI
Some sort of S3 based card
Some 3dfx card-can't remember which, but it was my first integrated 2d/3d card
Riva TNT 16mb
GeForce 3 Ti200 64mb
GeForce 6200 128mb
ATI x800xl 256
ATI x1800xt 256

I
 
Without looking through my pile...

Riva TNT -> Geforce 2 -> Geforce 3 (I think) -> Radeon 9800 Pro -> 6600 GT (first PCI-E) -> 7800 GT -> 7800 GT SLI

Not real sure anymore on the Geforce days, was always buying budget cards for around $100. Radeon 9800 Pro was a waste for me, never got it work right and soon after overhauled my computer for S939 and the PCI-E bus. Riva TNT was a great one though, probably the best value I ever got from a card (think I paid around $100 for it).
 
Integrated > Voodoo 3 3000 16MB > Visiontek GeForce 2 64MB > Powercolor Radeon 9600SE > ATI Radeon 9700 Pro > Sapphire Radeon X800 Pro > Sapphire Radeon X1800 XT
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top