What was your most awesome video card purchase ever ?

[Hi-Fi Man]

Easily my BFG 7800 GS AGP card, the last great nVIDIA AGP card (those 79xx cards from XFX don't count) and the end of an era. There's just something special about that card. Runner up would be my EVGA GTX 260 core 216 55nm card, once OCed to 713/1548/1116 I was able to get GTX 280 performance and a little more but at a much cheaper price.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/1937/3

 

[Piklar]

Most memorable graphic card purchase goes to 9700 Pro and Battlefield mod - Desert combat. My first experience of Silky smooth FPS with AA @max resolution in a cutting edge game of the time.

Biggest WOW factor so far = 4k gaming on 70" display with Gigabyte 970 G1s.


Some of my upgrades over the years with fond memories of the games of the time..

Geforce 2 GTS Pro 64mb -Quake 2
Geforce 3 Ti - CS , unreal tournament
Geforce 4 TI 4400 - castle wolvenstein, Half life,
9700 Pro - BF1 - Desert combat , Half Life Blue shift
9800 AIW- Warcraft3 and Frozen throne
GTX 6800 - Raven shield vegas
8800 GTS 640mb - WoW (most addicted to a game ever!)
2008 to 2010 away from PCs
HD 5770 - Supreme Commander
HD 5850 CF AvP - Dead Space , Dragon Age
HD7850 CF - Skyrim n BF3
GTX 780 SLI - DayZ n BF4
GTX 970 SLI - Need 4 Speed rivals on 70" Sony 850b @4K :thumbsup::awe:

 

[Subyman]

I remember being most excited about the Voodoo 3 3500, but I was young so that's probably why. I remember staring at the box in awe.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

While we're at it, I'm am really impressed with my new GTX970. There is a certain... satisfaction... in cranking every setting in Rome2 to Extreme and getting 52.2FPS@1440P in the built-in benchmark...

Uses less power then my previous HD7870 too.

 

[XiandreX]

While we're at it, I'm am really impressed with my new GTX970. There is a certain... satisfaction... in cranking every setting in Rome2 to Extreme and getting 52.2FPS@1440P in the built-in benchmark...

Uses less power then my previous HD7870 too.

Is that stock or overclocked and if overclocked what core/memory?

 

[Annisman*]

Except Rome 2 is a jagged mess no matter what settings

 

[dawza]

Still fondly remember my 6600 GT, since that was my first real, dedicated card back in the day (although not as far way back as some, clearly). The performance improvement of Morrowind on that card was absolutely massive compared to the integrated graphics I was accustomed to.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Is that stock or overclocked and if overclocked what core/memory?

ASUS GTX970 Strix @ 1114MHz(1254 boost)/7010MHz memory.

No OC apart from the factory one.

 

[Z15CAM]

Toss-Up between the the ATi Mach 64 with TV and the the Matrox Marvel and then the 128-Bit ATi Rage 32 Colour blew everything away and the rest is just icing on the cake - Sorry TNT 24 Colour lovers

 

[Squeetard]

Riva TNT. It slaughtered me when I installed it and then fired up AvP.

 

[skipsneeky2]

Easily my BFG 7800 GS AGP card, the last great nVIDIA AGP card (those 79xx cards from XFX don't count) and the end of an era.

Wow that is the same exact 7800gs i had as well, god did i love that blue led on that card.It sparked the purchase of a Antec 900 case with its blue led fans and a asus silent knight cpu cooler and well i went from a moderate gamer to a diehard hardware fanatic.

 

[GoodRevrnd]

Probably have to be the Radeon 9700 PRO. That was such a huge leap at the time and carried me through for a long while.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Easily my BFG 7800 GS AGP card, the last great nVIDIA AGP card (those 79xx cards from XFX don't count) and the end of an era. There's just something special about that card. Runner up would be my EVGA GTX 260 core 216 55nm card, once OCed to 713/1548/1116 I was able to get GTX 280 performance and a little more but at a much cheaper price.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/1937/3

Heh. I had something similar, the BFG 6800 n/u OC

http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=140&pgno=3

 

[jackstar7]

X800XL. My first PCI-E card (never used AGP).

BF2 was so great when I was younger...

 

[Tequila]

3dfx Voodoo 3 was my first taste of awesomeness.
Ti 4200
gtx 970 current.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

I have consistently doubled my performance for $200 or less, so basically every card I ever bought new/full price was the best card I ever bought.

Geforce 2 mx440 (used)
Geforce 4 Ti 4600 (used)
Radeon 9800pro (used)
(Got a real job)
Radeon X800 (new)
Geforce 7900GT (new)
Radeon HD4850 (New)
Geforce GTX460 (New)
Radeon HD7950 (New)

+ a mountain of used cards for less than ~$50 for S&Gs or secondary PCs.

Rooting around for a used GTX570/560TI for the wife's Sims 3 PC. Upgrading her 8800GTS 320MB ($40 used off a friend). It'll be the best card she's ever had.

 

[ColonelBlimp]

I was relatively late to PC's, sticking with my Amiga 1200 in the 386/486/Pentium days, and I've never really been in a position to spend a lot on upgrading so, for me, getting the most card for the least money has always been my goal until recently.

So my list goes something like this

GeForce 2 mx
GeForce 3 Ti200
Geforce 4 Ti4200 128mb
GeForce 6600GT
GeForce 6800
GeForce 7600gt

All on AGP.

Managed to blag a free PCIe 7600gt which kept me going for a bit then,

ATI Radeon 5770

Last Christmas, however, I went a bit overboard and got a

ATI Radeon R9-280x, mainly because I had a bit of spare cash and I got BF4 free with it.

My whole machine is going to be upgraded in a years time so then? who knows!

 

[BurnItDwn]

The biggest upgrade/most impressive/coolest was adding a voodoo card to my PC. I had a cheap old 4mb S3 Virge card which did 2D tolerably well, but no real 3d support. I added a Canopus Pure3d. Carmageddon and Quake looked frickin AWESOME. the difference between software rendering, and glide is the biggest jump in graphics Id ever seen. Since then, games have gradually gotten better and better graphics, but, the difference between any game today, and Quake 1 with 3dfx is nothing compared to Quake with 3dfx vs Doom/Duke3d.

 

[Avalon]

Voodoo 4 4500 was my first card, so kind of have to give that one the most awesome award, since coming from software graphics to hardware rendering was such an amazing leap forward.

Runner up goes to Radeon 9500 "L" card, because you could softmod it into a Radeon 9700, and mine overclocked pretty darn well, too. That thing screamed and was so much fun to tweak.

 

[raasco]

4890, I still have it somewhere. Collecting dust I'm sure.

 

[Annisman*]

Beautiful card, my favorite asthetically is a tie between the 4870X2 and the Titan

 

[weevilone]

Mine was definitely my Voodoo 2 12MB SLI setup.

Before that, my Orchid Righteous 3D card was pretty awesome too.