What was your favorite GPU back in the day?

[MegaWorks]

Radeon 9500 Pro

 

[bobdole369]

The original geForce 3. I bought it with Bush 2's tax rebate. No way I could have afforded $300 on my own like that. I played many a round of RTCW MP and enemy territory with that guy. I started on DAOC which delivered oh so much glory.

 

[Motorheader]

Voodoo 2 SLI with a Matrox card for kick ass 2d/3d combination. On a Sony 17" true flat screen monitor it was great all around setup.

 

[GoStumpy]

64MB GeForce 2 Ultra.....it ran Quake 3, Unreal Tournament and Star Trek Elite Force like a boss!

^ This

I remember buying the GeForce 2 GTS 64mb, that thing was unstoppable!

In a Duron 650 @ 850, 256mb ram..

Before that I had a PII 233mhz with a Diamond Monster 3D

 

[Spicedaddy]

nVidia Riva TNT, my first vid card.

ATI Radeon 9700 Pro, it performed so well that I kept it for 5 years.

 

[anikhtos]

my first video card was a matrox millenium card.
pretty amazing card also.
then the 3d age started

 

[sandorski]

Voodoo 2, the Voodoo 5 5500 being a close second.

 

[stag3]

canopus pure 3d 6mb

 

[nemesismk2]

My fav video card from back in the day was my videologic vividxs Kyro 2, msi geforce4 ti4200 8x, msi geforce 6600 gt and powercolor radeon 9700 pro

 

[Madcatatlas]

Radeon 9800 Pro which turned out to be an XT (as far as i could tell). it was the MSI RX9800 version or something i belive.

Before that i was having wet dreams about a Geforce 4600ti or something in that line. crazy times those were..

 

[Stuxnet]

my ti4200. It was my first true performance card and it was a beast at its price point. I had a matrox g400 before that though and played rtcw at 640x480 well. lol.

This. SoF 2 rolled off the presses and I splurged for a Ti4400. The Ti4600 was the card to beat, but my 4400 served me well.

 

[blackened23]

my first video card was a matrox millenium card.
pretty amazing card also.
then the 3d age started

I wonder why matrox left the consumer market. I loved their mystique/millenium cards.

 

[Stuka87]

I wonder why matrox left the consumer market. I loved their mystique/millenium cards.

Because they lost gobs of money on their last "big" consumer card, which was the Parhelia. They still make consumer products (such as the TrippleHead2Go, which I own and love), and they make graphics for servers and enterprise applications. As well as other imaging markets.

 

[Tikerz]

They still make consumer products (such as the TrippleHead2Go, which I own and love)

I wouldn't mind a 'Tripplehead2Go' right about now...

 

[ZipSpeed]

9800 Pro was the first GPU where I splurged. Love that card. I still have it somewhere in my basement!

 

[69Mach1]

My Voodoo 5 was my favorite. I had been trying to run a Diamond Viper 770 ultra, and it just crashed constantly. I finally got fed up and when to Circuit city and got the voodoo 5. Instantly, no more crashes. I ran it for almost 3 years, and other than being too slow at the end , never a single hiccup. My next favorite was my ATI 9700 Pro, it ran nearly as flawlessly as the Voodoo 5, and for just about as long.

 

[Attic]

Without question the ATI 9700Pro for me, first and only time I bought top of the line.

Such a fast card for it's time and was the first time I could use 4xAA in all the games I played at 1600x1200 and maintain incredible fps. Wasn't possible with any other card at the time.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

9700 pro by far. That card was just awesome.

Most significant upgrade for the money I had was an 8800gts 640 to a 5850. That was massive for me.

 

[thegimp03]

BFG 6800 vanilla.

 

[toolbag]

9800pro I bought at best buy for $350. Now I look back and can't believe I spent that much on a VC. I only spent 120 on each of my cards after the 9800, 7900gs and a 9600gt(actually newegg special 59.)

I think I enjoyed my video cards some years back more than I do now.

 

[darckhart]

diamond viper v550

 

[sdgserv]

9800 Pro
8500. I was so cool

 

[djnsmith7]

Radeon 9800 Pro...That was when almost all of the Radeon boxes were just sick looking. Today GPU boxes look like they're designed by 12 year olds.

 

[sandorski]

9800pro I bought at best buy for $350. Now I look back and can't believe I spent that much on a VC. I only spent 120 on each of my cards after the 9800, 7900gs and a 9600gt(actually newegg special 59.)

I think I enjoyed my video cards some years back more than I do now.

The most I have ever spent on a Video Card was $290 for an ATI Graphics Solution back in 1988(ish). Its' main feature was allowing CGA Graphics on a TTL Monochrome Monitor. My Voodoo 2 was approx $280 and my 5870 about $240. All other Vidcards I have bought were <$200.