Most spectacular failure in video card history

[Acanthus]

The savage hands down, but crossfire is horrendously dissapointing.

 

[sandorski]

S3 2000, no contest. I owned one and it only worked properly and performed well in 2 games, UT(which also used the High-res textures and looked fantastic) and Q3. Every other game had some kind of glitch and that's no exageration.

The Voodoo 5 5500 doesn't really belong on this list as it was a fantastic card. 3dfx's demise was caused by other factors.

Crossfire doesn't belong on the list either, it has just officially been launched and only a true fanboy can conclude its' success/failure at this point. Others have mentioned the more obvious reason, that being it's not really a Video card, but a chipset platform. Other things could cause it's' success. 1 thing that stands out is IDE performance compared to NForce chipsets, though that shouldn't matter as much with SATA taking over.

 

[MegaWorks]

5800 piece of garbage.

 

[crazydingo]

Nothing can top NV30. :laugh:

 

[BenSkywalker]

The x850 Master Card must be in the running- paying more for less performance, lower feature set and insanely low resolution limits is utterly absurd.

The Voodoo5 also is a strong contender- it was bad enough to kill off 3dfx. I know an argument can be made about the extremely poor management but if 3dfx didn't decide they were going to keep telling the industry what they wanted instead of the other way around they would have canned the V5 when they should have and brought out Rampage instead(which would have been an extremely competitive offering). As I stated back when they were stumbling through that embarassment- it doesn't matter if customers decide that video cards must come with bumper stickers. Argue until you are blue in the face- you put the bumper sticker in the box and ship it- period. If you don't, you are dead.

Rage Fury Maxx- no Win2K support just when Win2K was becoming the dominant enthusiast OS. It isn't like that was a big surprise to anyone either- a NT based OS with full DX support was a given to be huge with the hard core set(the same people Maxx was aimed at).

5800U- for the same reasons Rollo mentioned. For those that keep bringing up performance- until the R9700Pro ATi pretty much always showed up last and slower then everyone else(prior to nVidia whipping them it was 3Dfx). The 5800U had other serious issues that kept it out of the running. Being a bit slower then the comp would have us listing every part that wasn't king of the hill at launch, that would be hundreds.

My perspective the biggest failure in video card history would have to be the NV1. For those not familiar the NV1 was the 3D chipset used in the Sega Saturn. It launched prior to the Voodoo1 and actually had performance levels that were vastly superior to its competition. The major problem was that it used quads instead of polys for 3D primitives while everyone in the industry was moving to polygons. This was much like 3dfx with the Voodoo5- they didn't listen to what developers(and by extension customers as this was the dawn of 3D gaming and customers wanted whatever would run the games hitting) wanted and paid dearly for it. Luckily for them they made the mistake in their first part which also was backed by a console contract(assuring at least low millions for sales) and they learned from their serious error.

 

[imported_Rampage]

Originally posted by: Lonyo
I've never had a problem with ATi drivers, maybe little niggles, but the same can be said for nVidia drivers as well.
Also, doesn't Vista have a PS2.0 requirement, which means cards older than R300, which don't support PS2 CAN'T work in Vista anyway?

As a result, it was implied, there will be two levels of Vista-supporting hardware: one for DX9, the other for DX10,

No, Vista still works fine with DX6/7/8 hardware. Just not aeroglass. Doesnt mean driver support needs to be dropped, and the luna styled interface works better with optimized drivers as well. Its a cost cutting measure, one as an ATI owner I dont appreciate.
This happens everytime a new Windows is released, crappy companys dump their support duties for their own hardware on MS and MS ends up writing drivers that do basic functionality and it ends there for that product.

The movement to the two levels of support for aeroglass and vista is due to the fact that DX9 will be "backwards compatibility" and DX10 will not be backwards compatible from that point forward.

 

[Creig]

The Crossfire platform may have disappointed people who wanted to run dual X800 series cards, but it appears that as an overclockers motherboard it shines.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2542&p=13

The ATI Crossfire AMD has every option a serious overclocker could wish for. This extends from CPU voltages that will even excite water cooling and phase-change enthusiasts, to memory voltages that will give an overclock voltage reserve to the most demanding OCZ VX and Mushkin Redline memory. In between are voltage adjustments for the chipset, HT Link, PCIe 1.2, and PCIe 1.8. Add a CPU clock frequency adjustment range of 200 to 500, PCIe from 100 to 200, a slew of memory settings from DDR200 to DDR500, and every memory tweak known to exist and you have an incredibly serious board for the overclocker and computer hobbyist.

In case the message is not crystal clear, it doesn't matter whether you want ATI Crossfire or not when you are considering buying an ATI chipset motherboard. Crossfire is slated for mainstream pricing, so it is definitely worthwhile to consider an ATI Crossfire AMD motherboard to drive your nVidia 7800GTX or 6800 Ultra or ATI X850 or the upcoming ATI X1800. They will all perform very well with any Athlon 64 processor on the ATI Crossfire AMD motherboard.

In the end, the ATI Crossfire AMD is without a doubt the best enthusiast-oriented Reference Board that we have ever seen - with performance to match.

The Crossfire motherboard looks to be one of the top considerations for overclockers and enthusiasts. And I suspect that dual R500 series cards will not have the resolution/refresh rate limitations that the X800 series suffers.

So much for being on the "spectacular failure" list.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: ElFenix
meh, the V5 wasn't that big a failure. it was at least competitive at some things, and the AA really moved the industry forward (although nvidia managed to do the same thing in drivers by the time the V5 was released). they had an extra featureset, it just wasn't what the market (being large OEMs trying to sell checkbox features to the average idiot at best buy) wanted.

the disappointment was that 3dfx was a terribly run company

The 5800U was competitive at everything, at most games it would have been indiscernible from a 9700Pro at any setting that was playable.

It was loud though, and costly to produce.

 

[EightySix Four]

Originally posted by: Rollo

Originally posted by: SolMiester
Cuse me, but I believe every generation of Nvidia card was a step up thank-you, more than can be said about ATI! The 5800U wasnt the best Nvidia produced, however the next generation has still to be bettered by ATI let alone Nvidia's current generation.

I didn't add 5800U because it was a bad card, I added it because it was only released in very limited numbers, gained a lot of notoriety for noise, and nV probably lost money on them. (they built all cards and distributed them to OEMS, and cards were a 3lb brick sh*thouse of high quality components)

I loved my 5800U. It was a big failure though, mostly due to the noise. I think people would have got over the second place performance if not for the fan noise.

I don't think so. I'm sorry but the performance of that card was way too low for anyone. Most nvidia fanboys would even conceit defeat that generation. The fan was loud, but the performance was just flat out horrible.

Originally posted by: Rollo

Originally posted by: ElFenix
meh, the V5 wasn't that big a failure. it was at least competitive at some things, and the AA really moved the industry forward (although nvidia managed to do the same thing in drivers by the time the V5 was released). they had an extra featureset, it just wasn't what the market (being large OEMs trying to sell checkbox features to the average idiot at best buy) wanted.

the disappointment was that 3dfx was a terribly run company

The 5800U was competitive at everything, at most games it would have been indiscernible from a 9700Pro at any setting that was playable.

It was loud though, and costly to produce.

don't know what your smoking, but the 9700 pro OWNED the 5800U in almost every game.

According to Tom's VGA charts, the 9700 Pro gets 2284 in 3dMark05, the 5800 Ultra? 1007, less than a friggin 9600 Pro. The 9600 Pro outscores the 5950 Ultra for that matter!

How about a little Unreal Tounrey 2k4?
9700 Pro- 104.3
5800 U - 87.3

Doom 3 and Half Life 2 are pretty much even.

Riddick
9700 Pro- 30fps
5800 U - 16

Sims 2
9700 Pro- 31
5800 U - 21

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

I think people would have got over the second place performance if not for the fan noise.

Second place? Hang on, I thought you wanted the best possible hardware?

The word "bias" doesn't do you justice.

I never said the 5800U was the best hardware at the time, only that it was comparable.

It lost more benchmarks than it won, albeit by a small margin usually.

People like you who only buy one card to last years took my using the second best card at the time as some sort of "bias", while ignoring the fact that the Rage Fury, MAXX, VIVO, and 8500 were all steps down for me from better nVidia hardware I had. The Savage 2000 was for sure a step down for me, and when I went from a GF3 to a Voodoo 5, I wasn't upgrading.

Although you are apparently too obtuse to realize it after all these years, I don't always "upgrade". Computer gaming is one of my hobbies, and I'm lucky to have the means try any hardware I please. As I can afford to have whatever I like in my box at any time, and waste a but of cash doing so, normal rules of "buy the best bang for buck" don't apply to me.

You've been told this time and time again, yet you ignore the fact that I have no brand loyalty and will pretty much try anyones product. I bought the X800XT PE late last year knowing I would likely be replacing it with SLI, where were you hissing "Bias! Why would you buy the slower ATI card when you KNOW you'll be buying the faster nVidia cards soon?!?!?"

Give it a rest BFG. I'm an adult who's entitled to try out video cards if I enjoy that. Hobbies aren't always about having the "best" at any given time. Ask a gun or car collector.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: jazzboy
Well I voted 5800U - they really did did seem a bit pants at the time.

But what about an option for the Rage Fury Maxx

I liked the MAXX a lot, despite it's shortcomings. (and have posted this several times, oh noes, where's my nVidia "bias"?)

It wasn't as spectacular a failure as Missfire, but you're right, it's close. It was always fun to watch the walls on buildings start flashing as you approached them with the MAXX.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: crazydingo
Nothing can top NV30. :laugh:

As I've said, the nV30s downside to the user was the tiny hairdryer sound. I'd take that over looking at 60Hz any day. 60Hz causes actual pain, the tiny hairdryer sound was mildly annoying. (and if you had some big OCer fans sort blended in)

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: crazySOB297
I don't think so. I'm sorry but the performance of that card was way too low for anyone. Most nvidia fanboys would even conceit defeat that generation. The fan was loud, but the performance was just flat out horrible.

The 5800U can't compare on modern games because of it's shader limitations. On the games of the time it was much more competitive:

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=1821

You are correct in that the useful life of the 5800U was one year due to the shader limitations. I never keep a card more than a year, so for anyone who upgrades annually, the 5800U wasn't as bad as it looks now.

 

[BFG10K]

I never said the 5800U was the best hardware at the time, only that it was comparable.

I never said you did. The problem is that the last year you've been blasting the R420 for everything under the sun when it was not only comparable to a single NV40, it was actually faster in many situations.

You've been told this time and time again, yet you ignore the fact that I have no brand loyalty and will pretty much try anyones product.

I ignore it because it's a big steaming pile. Your reason for trashing the R420 was because you "only supported the vendor with the best hardware" and because you "refuse to pay for the same thing over and over again because you feel ripped off". Funny, that didn't stop you purchasing a 5800U three times and "kicking ass at 1024x768 in UT2003".

Incidentally, take a look at these UT2003 results running at the same settings you claimed to have seen no difference between the 5800 and 9700 Pro. You were running 1024x768 with 8xAF and 4xAA weren't you?

5800U: 45 FPS.
9700 Pro: 74.9 FPS.

Yup "no difference there". "When it matters, there's no difference". "I'm kicking ass at 1024x768 and there's no difference between the cards".
-Rollo, the GPU "collector".

I bought the X800XT PE late last year knowing I would likely be replacing it with SLI,

SLI didn't even exist at that time and still didn't exist when you picked up a vanilla 6800. Likewise you deemed titles like HL2 and Far Cry irrelevant until nVidia started winning thanks to SLI. SLI wasn't even a factor, you just changed your tune when it arrived.

As I've said, the nV30s downside to the user was the tiny hairdryer sound.

Tiny? Hahaha. Perhaps if you're deaf. XBit summed it up well:

This fan is the main noise source of the working GeForce FX 5800 Ultra. The card has already earned the nick-names like ?hair-drier?, ?vacuum-cleaner? and the like for this loud and irritating noise. It is truly the most unpleasant issue about it. The fact that the fan only starts up in 3D applications doesn?t save the day: people buy these cards exactly for 3D, not for work in office applications. By the way, this noise from the working card is nothing compared to what you hear when the fan slows down. You see, the control circuitry doesn?t slow down the fan smoothly by reducing its rotation speed to a halt. It seems that the card doesn?t reduce the voltage sent to the fan little by little, but sends recurrent pulses of full voltage changing its on-off time ratio step-by-step. As a result, the rotation frequency of the fan collides with the power impulses sequence frequency, there arise beats and pulses and the card sets up a rich sound performance that could have waken 3dfx back to life .

Of course I imagine a deaf "collector" would have no problems at all with that sound.

 

[ddogg]

the 5800U wasnt a bad card, it was just made to look bad by ATI's excellent 9700Pro. NV over-hyped it and many people were expecting big gains over the 9700pro but were disappointed by the end result. it offered a good performance increase from the GF4 and had ATI failed with the R300 it would have been another win for NV. ofcourse the fan was a piece of crap.

 

[crazydingo]

Originally posted by: Rollo

Originally posted by: crazydingo
Nothing can top NV30. :laugh:

As I've said, the nV30s downside to the user was the tiny hairdryer sound. I'd take that over looking at 60Hz any day. 60Hz causes actual pain, the tiny hairdryer sound was mildly annoying. (and if you had some big OCer fans sort blended in)

Damage Control, eh ?

I do not need to clarify my choice in this poll.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: ronnn
but I am weird.

Well said.

 

[knyghtbyte]

im going for the Voodoo5 as it wasnt anything fantastic despite what they tried to say and it killed the company.......

im not going to go for crossfire, reason being i often play on my DLP 1280x720 native projector, so the 60hz limit is perfect as far as im concerned, and i can drive everything at full blown levels (ie all AA, AF etc etc) with high fps as on an 8ft screen you really need things to look good....lol

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

I never said the 5800U was the best hardware at the time, only that it was comparable.

I never said you did. The problem is that the last year you've been blasting the R420 for everything under the sun when it was not only comparable to a single NV40, it was actually faster in many situations.

You've been told this time and time again, yet you ignore the fact that I have no brand loyalty and will pretty much try anyones product.

I ignore it because it's a big steaming pile. Your reason for trashing the R420 was because you "only supported the vendor with the best hardware" and because you "refuse to pay for the same thing over and over again because you feel ripped off". Funny, that didn't stop you purchasing a 5800U three times and "kicking ass at 1024x768 in UT2003".

Incidentally, take a look at these UT2003 results running at the same settings you claimed to have seen no difference between the 5800 and 9700 Pro. You were running 1024x768 with 8xAF and 4xAA weren't you?

5800U: 45 FPS.
9700 Pro: 74.9 FPS. LINK? And not one to Rage3D if you don't mind

Yup "no difference there". "When it matters, there's no difference". "I'm kicking ass at 1024x768 and there's no difference between the cards".
-Rollo, the GPU "collector".

I bought the X800XT PE late last year knowing I would likely be replacing it with SLI,

SLI didn't even exist at that time and still didn't exist when you picked up a vanilla 6800. Likewise you deemed titles like HL2 and Far Cry irrelevant until nVidia started winning thanks to SLI. SLI wasn't even a factor, you just changed your tune when it arrived.

As I've said, the nV30s downside to the user was the tiny hairdryer sound.

Tiny? Hahaha. Perhaps if you're deaf. XBit summed it up well:

This fan is the main noise source of the working GeForce FX 5800 Ultra. LOL!! as if any other part of the card made noise!! The card has already earned the nick-names like ?hair-drier?, ?vacuum-cleaner? and the like for this loud and irritating noise. It is truly the most unpleasant issue about it. The fact that the fan only starts up in 3D applications doesn?t save the day: people buy these cards exactly for 3D, not for work in office applications. By the way, this noise from the working card is nothing compared to what you hear when the fan slows down. You see, the control circuitry doesn?t slow down the fan smoothly by reducing its rotation speed to a halt. It seems that the card doesn?t reduce the voltage sent to the fan little by little, but sends recurrent pulses of full voltage changing its on-off time ratio step-by-step. As a result, the rotation frequency of the fan collides with the power impulses sequence frequency, there arise beats and pulses and the card sets up a rich sound performance that could have waken 3dfx back to life .

Of course I imagine a deaf "collector" would have no problems at all with that sound.

 

[VIAN]

Well, I think the fact that some people did buy the FX 5900 is proof that his statement is true. I actually replaced a 9700 Pro with an FX 5900, which was the last ATI card I have ever owned (I've built rigs for others with ATI cards since though). You can call it inherent bias or whatever you want to call it, but I had my reasons. Primarily, I got tired of ATI making me look like an ass for spending top dollar on a card that barely worked with Linux, I just didn't feel like I was getting my money's worth. Look at it this way: even if you get 50% more performance, but it works on 100% less OS'es, you are't coming out ahead. Basically, if you only look at the two horse race as you call it from only one perspective it may seem like a no-brainer, but when you look at the entire package there are different angles to consider than just DX9 shader performance under Windows.

If you're talking about Linux, then it would be a different horse race all together, I think most of us were talking about Windows shader performance.

It needed 2 cores to be somewhat competitive, and because of this couldn't yield them much profit.

You make it sound like the VSA-100 sucked and had to double them for it to be competitive, but I doubt it. It was the plan all along to have 2 cores for the V5. That was the scaling plan. The reason they failed is because they were late to the show and came into it with an expensive product. If they arrived on time, they would have still survived.

 

[Acanthus]

Not to mention the Voodoo 5 5500 brought Antialiasing to the mainstream :thumbsup:

 

[ronnn]

Originally posted by: Acanthus
Not to mention the Voodoo 5 5500 brought Antialiasing to the mainstream :thumbsup:

Think that is the interesting thing, is how failures often bring changes with them. The whole 5800 - 5950 ultra debacle did make for some nice inovations in cooling design and really brought the issue of sound to the forefront.

 

[Chadder007]

Umm...you forgot the Matrox Parahelia....or whatever its called.

 

[Avalon]

Originally posted by: southpawuni
Without doubt, Crossfire. Many old video cards can display above 16x12@60hz.
For me, even the 1600x1200 is useless if it cant go above 60hz. Too low, flicker fest.

All those other solutions are long in the past. Crossfire is not only historys greatest trajedy, its history in the making.


I think an option needs added to the list though that would top them all
ATI Video Drivers. Why? Because they are the greatest tragedy, its a continuing let-down.
The rest, including Crossfire, are one shot failures (hopefully).
While NV supports all the way back to the TNT in their drivers, the same can't be said for ATI. Now, ATI is dropping support for all their products older than the R300 in Vista.

ATI drivers? Give me a break. If you're not a linux user, then you have just as much to complain about with Nvidia drivers as ATI drivers. They are practically the same.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: southpawuni
Without doubt, Crossfire. Many old video cards can display above 16x12@60hz.
For me, even the 1600x1200 is useless if it cant go above 60hz. Too low, flicker fest.

All those other solutions are long in the past. Crossfire is not only historys greatest trajedy, its history in the making.


I think an option needs added to the list though that would top them all
ATI Video Drivers. Why? Because they are the greatest tragedy, its a continuing let-down.
The rest, including Crossfire, are one shot failures (hopefully).
While NV supports all the way back to the TNT in their drivers, the same can't be said for ATI. Now, ATI is dropping support for all their products older than the R300 in Vista.

nvidia quietly dropped support for TNT and other old gfx chipsets last year, iirc