Worst GPUs of All Time?

[poofyhairguy]

We often talk about the best GPUs historically and they are mostly agreed on, but what about the flip-side? Which GPUs, due to software incompatibility or terrible timing relative to the market, can historically be considered the worst?

I am thinking like the Voodoo 5, Matrox Mystique, or even the GeForceFX 5900 Ultra.

I feel safe making this thread because I don't think any modern GPU applies, but let's say they have to be at least three years old to qualify just to be sure.

 

[master_shake_]

8800 ultra people paying over the odds for an overclock.

Signalling to Nvidia that the market will bear 800 plus dollar cards.

Also the 590 blowing up on a couple reviewers has got to be a first.

 

[n0x1ous]

HD 2900XT was a real let down - though it probably looked worse than it truly was next to the once in a generation G80

 

[IllogicalGlory]

I haven't been following the industry long enough to really say, but the GTX 480 and RX 460 stand out. The 480 wasn't all that fast compared to 5870 and apparently it was ridiculously noisy.

The RX 460 is controversial, but it's simply slow, overpriced and doesn't overclock. It's always at the bottom of performance charts even when the RX 480 and RX 470 do very well.

 

[tynopik]

some of those earlier intel integrated graphics chipsets

 

[whm1974]

S3's(remember them?) Virge GPUs were petty bad.

 

[Red Hawk]

HD 2900XT was a real let down - though it probably looked worse than it truly was next to the once in a generation G80

Yeah, that's my thought too. ATI did not make the jump into unified shaders gracefully.

 

[UsandThem]

My vote goes to the Intel i740.

So much hype about it's performance from Intel before it launched, and it landed with one big thud.

 

[IllogicalGlory]

You could probably include any cards like the GT 740 or R7 240. Simply no reason ever to buy them.

There is a place for cards like the Radeon 5450 and GT 710 as being useful as drop-in, cheap video adapters, but the 740/240 type cards are about as useful, just more expensive.

They probably don't qualify as their lack of any value isn't devastating or all that notable. Something that was hyped or was important chip is a better choice. I don't really know any examples of that. I can only think of Bulldozer, but that's a CPU. OG Bulldozer definitely qualifies as one of the worst CPU archs ever. Piledriver was a huge improvement, though still nothing to write home about.

 

[poofyhairguy]

some of those earlier intel integrated graphics chipsets

If we talk integrated the list gets huge and horrible, I was more thinking add-on cards.

Now on that note the Intel740 was a disaster, so that has to go on the list. The prime example of an integrated GPU maker went out into the dedicated market and flopped, what a legend.

Or the SiS Xabre 600 for the same reason.

Or the VIA eH1, same reason.

 

[n0x1ous]

Yeah, that's my thought too. ATI did not make the jump into unified shaders gracefully.

Which is interesting since Xenos in Xbox 360 was unified shaders before G80 IIRC. Xenos was a great part for that time - better than the 7900GT derivative in PS3. I wonder if ATI spent so much engineering time on that custom part that it negatively affected 2900xt

 

[Insomniator]

5900 ultra wasn't terrible, you may be thinking of the Geforce 5800 series which was basically DOA.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

S3 Virge, Intel i740, S3 Trio. If memory serves, I didn't like some of the early Trident Micro and Tseng Labs cards as well.

 

[poofyhairguy]

S3 Virge, Intel i740, S3 Trio. If memory serves, I didn't like some of the early Trident Micro and Tseng Labs cards as well.

All terrible. Only the Intel was kinda expensive though. How much money got flushed down the toilet is maybe an important consideration?

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

All terrible. Only the Intel was kinda expensive though. How much money got flushed down the toilet is maybe an important consideration?

Out of those, only cards I owned were the Trident Micro POSs and Tseng Labs, but I do love my ET6000.
S3 Virge DX/GX, i740 and S3 Trio64s were all in other people's machines thankfully!

Still remember my brother giving me sh*t about blowing $$$ on a Canopus Pure3D II back in the day. At least until he saw the "graphics" in Freespace running on a Virge GX!

 

[Cookie Monster]

The NV30 has to take the cake. With the kind of performance nVIDIA was showing from the previous 2 generations along with a new process node (130nm), more transistor budget, DX9 and I think they also hyped up their next gen cooling as well.. and it turned out so bad. Nothing was good about the card i.e. price, size (dual slot to boot), noise, power, performance.. everything sucked and it was late as well! (sorry for the language)

This is why the NV40 was such a surprise imo and a huge turn around for them.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

Hell, if we're talking nVIDIA, the Riva128 was a letdown as well.

 

[sandorski]

Voodoo 5 was actually quite a sweet card.

 

[luhai]

S3's(remember them?) Virge GPUs were petty bad.

I had one, the virge in PCI133, it came with the Micron PC and the original pentium at 166MHz... The original Age of Empires would often stutter and the Rome expansion was completely unplayable. So I mostly stuck to dos games...


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[dogen1]

It's gotta be the Geforce 5800.

 

[Krteq]

From my side of view - nv30

 

[NTMBK]

NVidia NV1. Who thought that quads were a good idea?!

 

[Carfax83]

NVidia FX series, and the Titan Z.

 

[vissarix]

In recent history one of the worst cards ever is the r9 290x.... pretty ridicolous...runs hot as hell 95+ degrees, 300W, sounds like a plane taking off...and if that wasnt unfortunate enough it was even slower compared to the competition..

 

[Pottuvoi]

NVidia NV1. Who thought that quads were a good idea?!

Indeed.
Apparently rendering quadrilateral quadratic patches and workflows required were less than perfect.