What was your most awesome video card purchase ever ?

[Annisman*]

I started building my own PCs back in 2006. I've probably had 25 different graphics cards over that time, some upgrades were bigger than others, some were more expensive and others were more cost conscious.

I look back fondly at the periods of time that each card brought with it. For example I remember splurging on a GTX 8800 to play Crysis, that was a bittersweet experience because of course it really couldn't 'play Crysis'.

Here is a list of my best and worst card purchases over the course of these 8 years. And I would like to hear yours !

The funnest card(s): 4870X2 & 48701GB

The cards that I had the most fun messing around with, benching, overclocking, installing new coolers etc. Was my ASUS 4870X2 + HIS 48701GB in Tri Fire. I just had a blast with these cards. The 4870X2, I installed an arctic cooling beheamoth triple slot triple fan cooler on to tame the beast. I did benchmarks of the Tri Fire madness, giddy to see even a few additional fps with the third gpu installed. It encouraged me to splurge on a Quad core processor to see if that was holding me back at all (Q9650). Praying that Catalyst drivers would support it. Ah those days were fun.

The worst purchase: TIE : 9800GX2 & ATI 1950XTX

Anybody else remember the long slow wait after the 8800GTX/Ultra was released for Nvidia's next best thing ? I sure do. I bought the GX2 simply because I was bored with the GTX 8800, it sometimes wasn't even more powerful and relied on some pretty shoddy drivers. Both Nvidia and ATI just couldn't seem to get anything going that year and the consumers were better of waiting it out.

As far as the 1950XTX goes, I actually loved it when I first got it, unfortunately the release of the Nvidia 8 series soon after made it a poor purchase in retrospect.

The MVP purchase: GTX 4601GB SLI

What can I say about such beastly cards at such a low price ? Coming from a (800$+) CF 5870 setup, down to a pair of cards for 300$ less, I was simply in love. It all began when I saw this article: http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/08/09/geforce_gtx_460_1gb_sli_vs_radeon_hd_5870_cfx#.VDYU_sN0x9A

I had to see for myself. Going with the 460's also enabled me to check out Nvidia's latest technology at the time, 3D, which led me to purchase an Asus 120hz monitor the same day, which unknown to me would be the single biggest game changer for my poor eyes. These cards ran cool, they overclocked like wild animals, they traded blows with any of the other top offerings for some time, and they did it all at a very very small price. I will always remember the GTX 460 days with a smile, even today I don't think my games have ever run smoother

Tell me your best and worst video card purchases !

 

[sandorski]

STB Blackmagic Voodoo 2 12 mb
runner up Voodoo5 5500

 

[Annisman*]

@ Sandorski Why ? I wasn't around back then to know much about them.

 

[Carson Dyle]

The IGP in my i5-3570K. Does everything I'll ever need, without a card that collects dust and has a screaming little $3 fan (that will fail) attached to a too-small heat sink, like every video card that I've ever owned.

 

[tviceman]

Diamond Monster 3D. Experiencing 3D acceleration for the first time was mind blowing.

 

[Annisman*]

It's interesting hearing about other cards that don't start with 'ATI' or 'GTX' I certainly missed out on the more than 2 video card vendor days.

 

[sandorski]

Voodoo2, because it took a pretty decent looking Software rendered Unreal, improved performance by >2x and improved graphics to a stunning level. Took a crappy looking Quake 2 and made it beautiful, while again improving performance >2x.

Voodoo5 5500, because of FSAA which was generations ahead of the competition.

 

[adairusmc]

RivaTNT2 + Voodoo2 8mb setup that I bought from a friend. Going from no acceleration to that was mind blowing.

 

[Carson Dyle]

Matrox Mystique

 

[Carfax83]

Elsa Gladiac Geforce 2 Ultra with 64mb of VRAM, my first high end card :awe:

I paid more than $600 for that puppy, and I played Baldurs Gate 2 Shadows of Amn on it, plus some other games at the time..

 

[SlowSpyder]

My 4870 was the first card that laughed and anything I threw at it. I had the Sapphire Toxic model. I think I ran it at 850MHz.

But, my 7970 has to be the best card I've ever owned. I bought it nearly three years ago, I'm happy it has 3GB of memory, it has given me no reason to want an upgrade yet. I hardly have to compromise on settings. Really getting my mileage out of this one.

 

[alcoholbob]

Original Geforce because before then i was using onboard S3 Virge which could barely accelerate 240p video.

 

[SimianR]

My 2 most memorable GPU purchases for me would be the Voodoo3 2000 and my Radeon 9500 Pro (R300).

The Voodoo3 because it was my first video card purchase and playing Tribes in Glide instead of software rendering was mindblowing.

The 9500 Pro (basically the middle of the road card a step down from the 9700 Pro) was amazing at the time for me. Being able to play games with FSAA and most of the details cranked up was a huge step forward.

 

[PenguinJim]

Matrox Mystique

The original, or the 220? The original was my first 3D card, back in the days when MW2 meant Mechwarrior 2. (I still get confused when articles today talk about "MW2", and it takes me a few seconds to realise they mean Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.)

But I digress. Most awesome card purchase: Ti 4400. Ridiculously overlooked, as it didn't cost much more than a Ti 4200, but was exactly an underclocked Ti 4600. I never could understand why the Ti 4200 was so much more popular - almost every article at the time either talked about the 4200 (cheap), or the 4600 (fast)!. Mine was a Gainward card from back when Gainward were special, too! Ahh, walking in water in Morrowind and having my mind blown by an absolutely awful wave effect. It truly was the future. Especially going from a GF2 MX.

 

[swilli89]

Best ever was probably my GeForce 6800 GT. Huge upgrade from my 9700 non pro. It murdered far cry, doom 3, battlefield 2 and ever quest 2.

Worst ever was probably the Radeon 6970 that I'm still using. Twice ATI/AMD has gone with hardware gimmicks to increasing performance via increasing shading power but not other parts of the card. Those two times were the Radeon 2900xt and the Radeon 6970. The 6970 wad about 15% faster than the old flagship and I bought mine right before the 7970 came out.

 

[Chaoticlusts]

Oh a nostalgia thread, I love some good nostalgia ^_^

Mine would have to be a draw between a Geforce 256 (my first 3D graphics card) and the card that replaced it the 9600XT, probably the biggest performance leap I've had between cards (which makes sense given how young all the tech was then). Not only was it a great performance jump it came with the amazing orange box which just made a brilliant value card exceptional

I still remember watching the original tech demo's that came with the 256 to show off what T&L could do and my young self being absolutely stunned by how gorgeous it was The first time I'd seen 3D graphics that didn't look horrible (I loved 2D graphics...still do really ^_^)

 

[h9826790]

At this moment, my current 7950 is the best graphic card I've ever own.

 

[RussianSensation]

For games, 9700 really impressed me at the time. Otherwise my 7970s hands down:

1) Nearly 3 years later they slice through 95% of games with ease at 1080p;
2) These cards made me tens of thousands of dollars in Bitcoin mining. The best GPU ever for me since it paid for itself, made $, and is still fast.

If I had to pick the best GPU of all time without mining, it would be a tie between 8800GTX and 9700Pro.

The worst would probably be my 8800GTS 320MB. It was good at first and then it couldn't run most games within 1 year with AA due to lack of VRAM. I could only sell it for $60 on resale despite buying it brand new for $290. From that point on, I tend to favour cards with more VRAM within reason.

 

[Wild Thing]

Radeon 9600XT 256MB was the best performance upgrade for me...the IQ was just brilliant on those early 2000's games.HD5850 a close 2nd.
Worst card:NVidia FX5600S 128MB...weak performance,noisy and troublesome.

 

[Shmee]

Evga 8800GT, XFX 6950 crossfire (both unlocked) and my ebay sapphire 290 Tri X's are all up there. My first 5870 XFX XXX edition and my EVGA 260 were also pretty good. Worst: DOA BFG 8800 Ultra from ebay

 

[XiandreX]

Diamond Monster 3D Voodoo 1 4mb

No jump will ever compete with that era

 

[Smoblikat]

GTX 470 SLI, picked up a pair for 250$.

Runner up is the 5850 I upgraded from to that setup.

 

[Qbah]

Voodoo 1 Added it to a Pentium 100 with a 2MB 2D card. Mind blown after seeing bilinear texture filtering and the smoothness in general. Everything else was iterative from that point for me.

One more thing blew my mind in computer graphics - the first Crysis, especially the distant elements and foliage. The jump was insane in that game, where it really was messing with your head in terms of realism. But that's not about graphics cards

 

[Maximilian]

HD5850. I got kind of ripped off initially by paying £250 for one, but it lasted around 4 years. Didnt even need an upgrade tbh,

Definitely edges out the 9800PRO which was my first graphics card. Although that card was awesome 1 year later it struggled, 2 years later and I needed an upgrade.

 

[Keysplayr]

Riva TNT. Nothing to this day has beaten the initial wow factor way back then.
6800GT was a great launch.
9700 was touch and go for me, but an awesomely powerful card.
Jeez there have been so many great cards, I can't really pick one.