Favorite graphics card of all time

[Skurge]

A mirror of the thread in the CPU section.


Mine would have to be the Radeon 9550 I used for a short while. It overclocked from 250mhz to 510mhz. The memory would only OC 50mhz though. It got that budget card to near 9600XT performance.

 

[boxleitnerb]

8800GTX.
Uncommonly large jump in performance, superb image quality, fairly quiet cooler. Kept me company for almost 5 years.

 

[lavaheadache]

8800GTX.
Uncommonly large jump in performance, superb image quality, fairly quiet cooler. Kept me company for almost 5 years.

I've been pc gaming since the voodoo 1 days. Honestly, I have to agree with you. The 8800 GTX was such an impressive card at release and warranted no upgrade for years.

 

[tviceman]

3dfx's Voodoo1. It made all the difference in the world.

 

[lavaheadache]

3dfx's Voodoo1. It made all the difference in the world.

I wanted to say this was my favorite card but I felt like it is the cliche answer. There was nothing like going from software rendering to hardware 3d.

 

[imaheadcase]

ATI 9700 Pro. That card I used longer than any card ever. It lasted a LONG time on top.

 

[E6700]

love my GTX570,great overclocking card i ever had.

 

[GprophetB]

9800pro hands down the best bang for buck and long lasting card.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

GeForce 8800GT and Radeon HD 4850.

 

[TheAdvocate]

9800GT

Flaw in the diamond was the heat. It ran pretty hot. Best longevity of any gfx card I've owned.

 

[notty22]

3dfx's Voodoo1. It made all the difference in the world.

I wanted to say this was my favorite card but I felt like it is the cliche answer. There was nothing like going from software rendering to hardware 3d.

Watching Quake go from a slide show to playable was the 2001: A Space Odyssey moment , lol.

 

[Daedalus685]

My 9800pro lasted me the longest for sure and as such is the most memorable of all of my cards. Was also the largest boost in gaming quality I've ever had, though likely due to my future income and upgrade cycle compared to my student times (lol). At any rate, the first Dx9 card I ever had and it sure made HL2, Doom 3, and I guess WoW look bad-ass (Kind of sad I can't recall what other games I played back then).

The ah heck still works in the same P4 system I build when I went off to university currently powering my mothers solitaire... Outlived 2 MBs

 

[Arkaign]

Voodoo1 has to be it for me, it was a lot of $ for me at the time (I was around 18 when it came out, consider inflation!), and it was worth every cent. I remember being blown away by the lighting in Quake. GLide worked so well, it took a really long time for Direct3d to really catch on in any meaningful way.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Voodoo 2 introducing sli.

Or the original geforce 256

I srill remember that nvidia map pack for quake 3 that you could only run if your card supported T&L and it was pretty much a slideshow for most lol. Sort of like crysis using dx10 a couple years ago.

 

[videogames101]

ATI Radeon 9800 Pro

Absolutely no question, the card was a monster.

 

[Stoneburner]

9700 AIW

It saved me from buying a tv during college. ANd let me play everquest. Not at the same time though.

 

[Dribble]

8800GT - good price, performance and staying power. Think it was lucky as basically every game at that time was a xbox 360 port and the 8800GT was just the right step up in power that it could run them all at a higher res with whatever enhanced settings devs bothered to put in at a nice high fps.

 

[Arkaign]

ATI Radeon 9800 Pro

Absolutely no question, the card was a monster.

While I can't disagree too much with the assessment, the 9800 Pro wasn't much of an upgrade over a 9700 Pro. IIRC, the 9800 Vanilla was about the same speed as a 9700P.

The guys who bought 9500 and unlocked to 9700 + overclock were golden for a long time, lol.

But yeah, the 9500, 9600, 9700, 9800 really were a golden age for ATI, they blew the 4xxx out of the water, and held up perfectly against the FX5800 and even FX5900 (the 256-bit card that should have been the 5800 in the first place, it actually was pretty decent, but too late to the game). It wasn't until the 6xxx series that Nvidia was competitive again, and arguably took the lead with 6600GT being affordable and fast.

 

[tigersty1e]

bfg 6800.

first time i experienced "unlocking" and unleashing extra performance.

also, last practical agp card that lasted quite a while.

 

[Fear No Evil]

Matrox Millenium

 

[CarpeDiem99]

9800 pro was the card for me and still have it working to this day

 

[kazryv]

I think my ATI 9800 Pro, I used that card for a number of years of solid performance before I felt the need to upgrade.

I am now waiting on the new AMD series and getting impatient.

 

[amenx]

I recall pondering the 9800pro, it was the Ferrari of its time, but cost as much in vid card terms ($450-480). Then all of a sudden the 6600gt showed up which matched it and beat it in some cases. Got that for $225 and was pretty happy I could play Far Cry at very high settings.

 

[skipsneeky2]

8800 gts 512mb...lasted me from the week it came out till the week the gtx280 dropped from $650 to $500...

Friend is now enjoying my old card and that old card is rock solid they don't make them that solid no more cause that card sat in a compaq oem case for 3 years at default fan speed and one case fan and took the heat and never gave a single issue .

 

[Spikesoldier]

radeon 9500 unlocked into 9700

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102271

notice the L shaped pattern of dram chips on the PCB. those were the ones that could be unlocked.