Your Video Card Upgrade Ladder

Funny thread BTW

ATI rage 2 mb. Used for Quake 2, Jedi Knight etc
ATI rage + Voodoo 4MB= total 6 MB ;) great 3D looking games like the amazing Unreal, Half Life
Elsa S3 Savage 32 MB (the inventors of Texture Compression included in Unreal Tournament)
Geforce 2 GTS 32MB
Geforce 3 64MB
Ati 9700 128MB
Geforce 6800 AGP 128MB
Geforce 6800 PCIe 256MB
Geforce 7600GT 256MB
Geforce 7900GTO 512MB

The last 3 this year (yeah, I dind't tell my girlfriend!!!)
 
Diamond Viper V770 Ultra
Geforce 2 GTS 64 MB
ATI Radeon 9500 pro

I'm planning a new build with a DX10 card in the next few months. :)
 
Diamond Stealth 64
Matrox Milennium (original)
Diamond Monster 3D (Voodoo1)
Diamond Monster 3D II (Voodoo2 12MB)
Diamond Viper V550
Creative Labs Geforce DDR
Leadtek Geforce3 Ti 200
ATI Radeon 9500pro
HIS Excalibur Radeon 9800pro
ATI Radeon X800XL
EVGA 7900GT CO
EVGA 7900GTO x2

That Diamond Stealth 64 started me on the add-on card upgrade path, back in 1994. Before that it was all integrated video for me. The Stealth 64 kinda sucked, but it played Doom and Wolfenstein pretty decently, which was all I cared about.

I still have my DOS box setup that's running a Diamond Viper V770 that I snagged from my brother when he upgraded many moons ago.

Edit: Forgot my Viper V550 :eek: how could I!
 
486 pc :D
integrated Compaq 2 mb card
Palit FX5200 128/128
GeXcube 9800Pro
Palit FX5200 128/64
Matrox 320
Intel Integrated
MSI GF4 MX 64/64
Intel Xtrem graphix2
Abit TI4600
and now runing Asus 7600GT
next up 8800GTS/GTX
 
Updated and corrected:


Intel Integrated
Diamond 64MB AGP
FX5200
6150 integrated
6600GT
6150 integrated
eVGA 7800GT CO
 
ISA S3 Trident 1MB
Intergrated SiS 530 8MB
PCI NVIDIA TNT2 32MB
PCI NVIDIA Geforce2 MX 400 64MB
AGP NVIDIA Geforce4 Ti4600 128MB
 
Bo_Fox said:
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..
Click to expand...

Am I the only one to do a "nostalgic" article like the one quoted above?

It was fun writing it... any of you guys out there wanna do your own story?
 
2 Diamond Monster 3D II's (Voodoo 2) > TNT 2 > 9800XT > Geforce 7800GTX

Huge improvements everytime I upgraded...still happy with the 7800GTX, but I'm probably going to grab an 8800GTX by the end of this year depending on the performance increase.
 
Intel Extreme Graphics 2 > Nvidia 6800GT

Did this back in 2004. The difference between the two is night and day.... night and day... :eek:
 
Intel Extreme Graphics II
Geforce FX 5200 PCI
Geforce FX 5200 AGP
Geforce FX 5500 AGP
Geforce 5700LE AGP
ATI Radeon 9600XT AGP
ATI Radeon 9800PRO AGP (WHICH OWNED)
Geforce 6600GT PCI-e
ATI Radeon x1300pro pci-e
ATI Radeon x1600pro pci-e
Geforce 7600GS pci-e
Geforce 6800NU pci-e
Now Geforce 6100 onboard lol

all in correct order
 
TNT 2->Geforce 2 MX ->Geforce Ti 4200->Radeon 9600 Pro 256-> Radeon 9800 Pro AIW->7950GX2(sent back to Newegg for replacement, and they have no more :mad: )
 
Bo_Fox said:
Am I the only one to do a "nostalgic" article like the one quoted above?

It was fun writing it... any of you guys out there wanna do your own story?
Click to expand...


Commander Suzdal said:
Dude... just... dude...
Click to expand...


LOL.. Dude, feel free to write yours!
 
intel integrated graphics
all in wonder rage 128 pro
ati radeon 9200 (laptop)
ati radeon 9200 (desktop)
sapphire radeon 9600 pro
ati radeon 9800 pro
connect 3d radeon x850xt
sapphire radeon x1950 xtx
...yhea im an ati !!!!!!, from canada though can you blame me :D
 
Integrated Intel Graphics
GeForce 2 MX200
GeForce 2 MX400
Voodoo 5 5500
ATI Radeon 8500
Voodoo 5 6000 [I only had this for a week!]
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro [Quakecon Edition!] [Best card i've owned]
Integrated GeForce 6100

I haven't bought a new gfx card since the 9700 due to many reasons, but I'm looking at something in the GeForce 7 series at the moment. Hopefully i'll be able to get something soon, the integrated gfx just doesn't perform!
 
Cirrus Logic 1mb >> Riva TNT >> Voodoo Banshee 16mb >> VisionTek GeForce 3 Ti200 >> PNY GeForce4 Ti 4600 >> ATI 9800pro >> BFG 6800gt OC
 
ATi Rage IIC AIW
ATi Radeon VE
GeForce4 Ti4200
ATi Radeon 9700
ATi Radeon 9800Pro
nVidia GeForce 7800GTX
ATi Radeon X850Pro
ATi Radeon X1900XTX Current

All in correct order. I got the 9800Pro for free from my uncle, so I naturally had to use it.
 
Voodoo
Voodoo 2
TNT2 Ultra
Geforce 2 MX
Geforce ti4600
ATI 9600
Geforce FX 5900 Ultra
Geforce 7950gx2
 
infin@ said:
intel integrated graphics
all in wonder rage 128 pro
ati radeon 9200 (laptop)
ati radeon 9200 (desktop)
sapphire radeon 9600 pro
ati radeon 9800 pro
connect 3d radeon x850xt
sapphire radeon x1950 xtx
...yhea im an ati !!!!!!, from canada though can you blame me :D
Click to expand...

so i live in canada and i have only had one ATi card
 
Rage II 2mb (onboard)
Voodoo 8mb PCI
Voodoo II 12mb PCI
Voodoo II SLI 24mb PCI
TNT 2 Ultra 32mb AGP
GeForce 2 MX 64mb AGP (given to me in 2003 when TNT 2 burned out)
FX 5200 128mb AGP (given to me when GeForce 2 burned out)
X800GTO 256mb PCI-E (just purchased 10/30/06 for $95 shipped)

I am building a new computer and needed a PCI-E card to hold me over until the R600 comes out from ATI. Nobody I know had an extra PCI-E card lying around to hold me over, otherwise I would have not bought the X800GTO.
 
Ati Rage < Geforce 2 Gts < Radeon 8500 < Geforce Ti4600 < Geforce Fx5600 < Geforce 5900 < Geforce 7900 GTX .... That's my upgrade ladder, soon will make another change, Maybe another 7900gtx. :)
 
Radeon 8500
Voodoo Somthing
Nvidia 5200
ATI 9200
Nvidia 6800 Ultra
Nvidia 6800 Go Ultra ( Dell XPS Gen 2 Lappy. )
Hopefully G80 Next !
 
Commodore 64 EGA 16 color on-board graphics

Rage 2mb

Voodoo 8mb

TNT 2 Ultra 32mb

Radeon All-in-Wonder 64mb

Radeon 9800 All-in-Wonder 128mb

X1800XT 512 mb
 
GreyMatterTripp said:
why?
Click to expand...

I sold my computer. but I kept the x1900xt, hard drive, and half the RAM. The computer I'm on now only has AGP, and the 9000 was what was in it.

All in all, I went from this

Athlon X2 3800+
ATI RS480/ULi M1573 chipset
2GB DDR-400
ATI Radeon x1900xt 512MB PCIe x16
250GB SATA HD

to this

Celeron 2 GHz
SiS 650GX / SiS 962L chipset
1GB DDR 400 @ 266
ATI Radeon 9000 64MB AGP 4x
30GB ATA-133 HD
 
S3 ViRGE + Voodoo 1
ATI Rage Pro
Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
GeForce 2 GTS Pro 64MB (Quake 3 and American McGee's Alice was the shiznit on this)
GeForce3 Ti200 (Deus Ex, Unreal Tournament, wooo)
GeForceFX 5900XT (POS)
GeForce 7600GT (had to step it up for Oblivion)


Only card I regret buying was the 5900XT.
 
S3 Virage 2meg
S3 Virage 4meg +Voodoo 1 4meg (for GL quake)
S3 Virage 4meg +Voodoo 2 8meg (for Quake II)
Voodoo Banshee (+Voodoo 2 once I installed HL and really needed multitexturing)
ATI Rage 128 (died)
ATI Rage 128pro VIVO
Voodoo 3 2000pci (got rid of as I needed the pci slot) (for Quake 3)
Voodoo 3 3000agp (ran too hot, good old egg boiler)
3DFX Velocity 100 (fantastic overclocker, Shame about the 8meg ram)
G400 Max (loved the bump mapping)
Voodoo 5pci (found new for £30, was a mac version, bios flash solved that)
Geforce 2MX
ATI Radeon DDR
Geforce 2 TI
Geforce 3 TI
Geforce 4 4400 (gave to someone to do some course work for me)
Gefarce 4 MX 440 (sucked, still volt modded it till it died)
Geforce FX 5200ultra (dont laugh too hard)
Geforce 5700ultra (for doom 3, jumped the gun a little)
ATI Radeon 9600xt (for HL2)
XGI V8 (review sample, they gave me the whole range, Drivers sucked)
Geforce 6600 (review sample i kept)
2x Geforce 6600 sli (until nvidia killed off none Nvidia chipsets working in SLI)
ATI Radeon X1800xl (died, never to buy ATI again)
Geforce 6800xt (bargin, managed to get the gpu to 620mhz)
Geforce 7600gs
Geforce 7900GTO
 
Integrated on IBM Model 70 PC
Integrated on IBM Model 90 PC
S3 Virge
Intel i810 onboard
Voodoo 3 3000
Voodoo 4 4500
Geforce 2 MX
ATI 8500
Some crappy SiS card
Some crappy SiS onboard
Geforce 4 4200Ti
Geforce 4 4600Ti
ATI 9600
Geforce 6800GT
Gefroce 7800GTX
 
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