I just upgraded to the 4890 from a 7900GT.

[vj8usa]

My X1900XT->4850 upgrade was great, but it didn't quite compare to my GF2MX400->X1900XT upgrade in '06. Going up five generations was awesome, though I didn't have too many things to compare performance with (damn near nothing recent would even load up on the gf2 by then). Doom 3 went from getting less than a single frame per second to being buttery smooth.

 

[Qbah]

Ahh yes, adding a Voodoo 1 to my old P100 with a S3 card with no 3D was something incredible too. When I saw Tomb Raider and Monstertruck Madness looking amazingly and playing so great I was in shock. Finally dumping my laptop with a 9700 Mobile for a desktop with a 7800GT was also quite the jump

 

[gdextreme]

Intel Integrated Graphics to 7300GT to ATI 4850. Pretty major upgrade in performance at every step.

 

[Shmee]

Biggest bump in recent years was from the x1650 to an 8800 Ultra. But it didnt work, so I returned it and later got an 8800 GT. Still phenomenally better. Before that was when I went from a Pentium III gateway with a Radeon 7500 to the Pentium 4 HT with a 6800 GT.

 

[F1shF4t]

Biggest jump was going from a FX5700 to a 6800Ultra. Going from just managing ok performance at 800*600 to 1280*960 with 4*AA was amazing.

All the other jumps were with high end cards, 7800gt>8800gts 320>8800gtx>4870 512>4870 crossfire

 

[oscar6]

9800pro->X1950XT->HD4890

Each step saw huge jumps in performance.

 

[BFG10K]

The best upgrade I ever did was going from a Ti4600 to a 9700 Pro. When AF + AA was applied, it basically increased my performance by two to three times.

The worst upgrade was going to a 6800 Ultra from (ironically) my 9700 Pro. It was fast but it was also hot, loud, expensive, and I never fully solved the crashing, BSODs or stuttering issues it randomly experienced.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

Originally posted by: Shmee
Biggest bump in recent years was from the x1650 to an 8800 Ultra. But it didnt work, so I returned it and later got an 8800 GT. Still phenomenally better. Before that was when I went from a Pentium III gateway with a Radeon 7500 to the Pentium 4 HT with a 6800 GT.

Nearly the same exact boat as you.

Best upgrade ever for me = Radeon x1650 (non pro) to an 8800GTS 320mb. Bad Ass..

Worst upgrade = 8800GTS to a 3850 512mb. It was a complete sidestep. slower GPU, but more ram for my higher resolution.

 

[Sonikku13]

IGP -> A VIA IGP -> Radeon Xpress 200 -> Radeon HD 4890. My best upgrade was my move from a Radeon Xpress 200 to a Radeon HD 4890. It ended my sidestepping with OEM boxes. Basically, games went from being basically a pile of scrap metal to a Boeing 787 in my last upgrade. My worst upgrades were when I was buying OEM boxes. Never could play games with the GPUs in the OEM boxes, but then I wasn't informed in computers until early 2007.

 

[Golgatha]

Originally posted by: Piano Man
ATI Mach 32 2MB DRAM. Added the Voodoo2 add-on card. Now that was a freakin' upgrade. Not just FPS, but it changed the way everything looked.

I'd have to agree, although the Voodoo 2 was an add-in card and not a replacement. Probably my biggest upgrade was from a Voodoo 2 8MB to a Voodoo 3 3000 model card. My move from a 9800 vanilla to an X800XT PE was pretty substantial too.

 

[Golgatha]

Originally posted by: Dark Cupcake
Biggest jump was going from a FX5700 to a 6800Ultra. Going from just managing ok performance at 800*600 to 1280*960 with 4*AA was amazing.

All the other jumps were with high end cards, 7800gt>8800gts 320>8800gtx>4870 512>4870 crossfire

Well, I suppose my best upgrade then would be going from a single 4870 1GB to having two of them too. In most games anyway

 

[2dt Drifter]

Best jump was a voodoo2 to a Geforce2GTS 64mb

worst jump was 6800NU to a 7600GS... if that 6800 didn't fry up i wouldn't have gotten that damn 7600

 

[Denithor]

9800 Pro ---> X1900GT --> 8800GTS 320 -> 8800GTS 512 -> 9800GTX+ --> GTX 260/216

 

[joutlaw]

Geforce MX420?>Ti4200>6600GT>7800GTX>4890OC


The MX420 to Ti4200 was a big jump.

6600GT to 7800GTX let me run BF2 maxed out.

But the 7800GTX to 4890 was a huge leap since I had gone from 1440x900 to 1920x1080... everything runs great with the 4890.

 

[sandorski]

Virge DX--->Voodoo2 biggest evar
Voodoo 2---->Voodoo5 5500 very nice
Voodoo5 5500------>8500LE decent, but missed AA
8500LE------>9800Pro very nice
9800Pro---->x800xl nice
x800xl----->7900GS meh, did it just for the shader Model
7900GS----->4850 very nice

I don't have to worry about Resolution though...as long as my CRT lives anyway.

 

[daw123]

XFX 7100GS --> 2x HD4870 X2s in quad-fire

 

[Henrah]

Originally posted by: daw123
XFX 7100GS --> 2x HD4870 X2s in quad-fire

Wow... Do drivers do your setup justice in games?

 

[daw123]

Originally posted by: Henrah

Originally posted by: daw123
XFX 7100GS --> 2x HD4870 X2s in quad-fire

Wow... Do drivers do your setup justice in games?

Not too bad so far.

 

[zerogear]

I thought GTX280 was great, haven't felt the need to upgrade at all since it ran everything at native 19x12, too bad nowadays I run all my games in windowed mode (because I multitask while I game now) or I run old games, so I haven't been pushing my card at all.

 

[Grinja]

Of all my upgrades I would say the following made me go 'wow!'
ATI RagePro -> 3DFX Voodoo 2
GeForce MX2 -> GeForce 4 Ti i4200
X1950pro -> HD4870

 

[ronss]

my upgrade with the diamond 4890 was not the best at first....the card was defective for some reason...arti-facts playing games. and had to send it back for replacement...the replacement works great.....the first time i ever had a bad video card...but i quess it happens.....the 4890 is fast for a single gpu card....no complaints,,, and i watch blu-ray moves, i give the nod to ati on that.

 

[BlueAcolyte]

Dell with ATi X300, Pentium D, and 1GB to my computer with 8800GT, C2D, and 2GB of ram... Pretty big difference! Now I have a Hd 4870 and 4GB, but I cant notice a difference over the 8800. The extra RAM is good.

 

[colonel]

I did a lot video upgrades since my first rig but the best one was the Radeon 9700pro, now I got 4850 with 1G memory coming from 3850 and is good enough for me

 

[us3rnotfound]

Not to totally thread jack, but it's still relatively on topic:

I'm one of those that upgraded each generation, each time getting a meh difference in performance, not doing that ever again!

For instance, I even bought a 5800 Ultra :laugh:

So now I'm at an 8800GT 512 MB (been here a couple of years), and I'd like to play Crysis and GTA IV smoothly at my lowly 1280x1024, but I'm really hesitant on upgrading just yet, since I can still "play" those games, but it'd definitely be more fun if I could run them at high settings and much less hiccups and slow downs.

ATI 4890 time, or hold up another generation?

 

[Adam8281]

Either the 6800GT----->X800xt Platinum edition, or the X800xt Platinum edition------>HD 4850