Worst Graphics Card Purchases

[sharad]

Also the Nvidia 8600 GTS. Just a weakling of a card but it was my fault for not reading properly before purchasing. I thought GTS would be better than GT version. Oh, how wrong I was.

Now I have a Radeon 4770. Best purchase of this year, so far.

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: sharad
ATI Radeon 9600 XT AGP. I still have that card! This was quite possibly the worst piece of hardware I ever bought. It was ok in 2D but the thing had inexplicable freezes, hangs, lockups and reboots in 3D (mostly games), no matter which motherboard you put in. It was supposed to be an AGP 8X card but you really had to run it at 4X with fast writes disabled to get a few minutes worth of gaming. It hated VIA chipset and both ATI and VIA pointed fingers at each other for not following AGP specs. Lot of disgruntled owners at that time.

Man does this bring back memories. Did you ever seen an error like this when trying to install drivers? I always wondered what the hell was wrong with ATI. Did they even have a driver department? I can understand having terrible Linux drivers since nobody uses that, but I was using Windows XP which was basically the only operating system anyone cared about at the time.

The bolded part of your post brings up an interesting topic. My terrible Radeon 9600XT experience was with AMD processors that had VIA chipsets. Is it possible that all of the people who had positive ATI experiences were using Intel processors and chipsets? I always just assumed it was a video card problem since that same AMD/VIA computer worked great with GeForce 4,5, and 6 video cards.

 

[ajaidevsingh]

5200 xfx

Also a 9600 GT for the Laptop was worthless

 

[sharad]

Originally posted by: ShawnD1
Man does this bring back memories. Did you ever seen an error like this when trying to install drivers? I always wondered what the hell was wrong with ATI. Did they even have a driver department? I can understand having terrible Linux drivers since nobody uses that, but I was using Windows XP which was basically the only operating system anyone cared about at the time.

The bolded part of your post brings up an interesting topic. My terrible Radeon 9600XT experience was with AMD processors that had VIA chipsets. Is it possible that all of the people who had positive ATI experiences were using Intel processors and chipsets? I always just assumed it was a video card problem since that same AMD/VIA computer worked great with GeForce 4,5, and 6 video cards.

I do vaguely remember seeing that error! Yes, both my systems were AMD Athlon XP CPU and Windows XP. One with VIA chipset motherboard and another with nforce2. Neither system was stable with the 9600 XT. I had another Nvidia AGP card at that time (6600 GT) and that card ran perfectly in both systems.

 

[palladium]

FX5200 PCI - I thought it was gonna be better than the GMA 900, but I couldn't notice a difference and in benchmarks, the IGP actually ran ~3% faster. Also 720p MKV files were choppy on the fx but smooth on the IGP. The FX5200 comes in handy only in games that need hardware t&l support, which the GMA didnt have ( the games were pretty much unplayable anyways unless I run it at 640*480 and turn all the settings down to minimum).

The GTX280 that I bought 8 months ago was pretty much a dream come true - all games suddenly run butter smooth at 19*12.

 

[MegaWorks]

Worst: Rage Fury MAXX and the Radeon X1600XT

Best: hmmm... that's a hard one I would say the Radeon 9500 Pro, one of the best mid-range cards of all time.

 

[roguerower]

I bought my 4850 the day it launched and paid $200 for it at BB. Wish I had waited a month so I could have gotten it for $50 cheaper but it was the last component for my rig and I was tired of running a 2600 Pro to get by.

 

[frozentundra123456]

HD4650 at best buy. Was waiting for a 4670 to go on sale for low power consumption and lite gaming. Bought the 4650 because it went on sale, but 2 weeks later the 4670 went on sale for the same price. Not a terrible card, but wish I had waited. (I know I should have ordered online, but I like to deal with stores that are in my neighborhood.)

 

[lopri]

My worst purchase decision in recent years was a pair of 8800 GT's. (from a 8800 GTX, and I have a 30")

 

[Gikaseixas]

PNY Geforce FX5200 - performance sucked big time even for much older games, just garbage. Fan died after 3 months BUT surprisingly it kept working for another year (giving me the worst possible graphical experience)

Saphire Radeon X1600 - was slower than my old Chaintech Geforce 6600GT, struggled running games 1 or even 2 generation older

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: ShawnD1

Originally posted by: sharad
ATI Radeon 9600 XT AGP. I still have that card! This was quite possibly the worst piece of hardware I ever bought. It was ok in 2D but the thing had inexplicable freezes, hangs, lockups and reboots in 3D (mostly games), no matter which motherboard you put in. It was supposed to be an AGP 8X card but you really had to run it at 4X with fast writes disabled to get a few minutes worth of gaming. It hated VIA chipset and both ATI and VIA pointed fingers at each other for not following AGP specs. Lot of disgruntled owners at that time.

Man does this bring back memories. Did you ever seen an error like this when trying to install drivers? I always wondered what the hell was wrong with ATI. Did they even have a driver department? I can understand having terrible Linux drivers since nobody uses that, but I was using Windows XP which was basically the only operating system anyone cared about at the time.

The bolded part of your post brings up an interesting topic. My terrible Radeon 9600XT experience was with AMD processors that had VIA chipsets. Is it possible that all of the people who had positive ATI experiences were using Intel processors and chipsets? I always just assumed it was a video card problem since that same AMD/VIA computer worked great with GeForce 4,5, and 6 video cards.

No, just not Via Chipsets.

 

[nemesismk2]

Originally posted by: adairusmc
S3 Savage 2000. Damn that thing sucked.

2nd place would be a 5900 Ultra. Not that it was a bad card per say, but I had a friend that had a 9800XT that would not work in his system but worked fine in mine and I traded him straight across. Then I knew what I was missing.

I upgraded from a Diamond Stealth III S540 Savage4 Pro to a Inno3D Savage 2000 with a huge 64mb and I was well under impressed

 

[Eureka]

A 9600SE from Best Buy... enough said. Of course this was years and years ago when Best Buy actually had a semi-up-to-date stock.

 

[SammySnood]

Originally posted by: Fox5

Originally posted by: SammySnood
nVidia Quadro FX Go 1400 in my Dell Precision M70.

This isn't entirely nVidia's fault. I got the system with this several hundred dollar ($800, IIRC) optional card for doing some light CAD/CAM work when traveling. It never was all of that and a bag of chips even under Windows.

When I switched to Linux (Debian stable) I found out that with this card I can:

1. use the Open Source drivers and have the operating system work beautifully but with painfully slow graphics, or
2. use the proprietary drivers to get fast graphics but wind up with all sorts of bizarre failures in various components of the desktop environment.

I have three other systems running the same distro. One has a cheapy ATI card, and two have Intel integrated graphics. All of them run rings around the vastly more expensive workstation with the nVidia graphics system. In Xfce they all use compositing with the Open Source drivers, and it flies. The nVidia system is slow without compositing, and a useless, drooling idiot of a system with compositing enabled.

In my estimation nVidia's decision to stay closed source for Linux is a real loser of a policy for their customers on Linux. And it's only going to get worse.

Your problem's might be from running debian stable. Debian stable is only suited for systems that require 100% up-time, unstable is still well-tested and far more advanced. Also, nvidia drivers follow the newest kernels.

Of course. I do need the machine to be very reliable because of the role it plays now. (I write for a living, and I do sysadmin chores with the system, also.)

Nonetheless, the computers with Intel and ATI subsystems run stable with Xfce's compositing enabled more reliably (absolutely no glitches) and quickly. The Precision workstation is a boat anchor in comparison. I use it as my "daily driver" because of the number of spindles and connectors available, and because of its storage capacity.

I did test the system with testing and experimental, but I really fared no better. (Or at least the difference wasn't significant enough to matter to me.) That was using GNOME for the DE. I might have done better to try unstable with Xfce. But it was a moot point. I really should use stable because I rely on the system heavily.

 

[pkilway01]

I regret my ATi Radeon 9600 Pro.

I missed the boat on the Ati Radeon 9500 Pro's (by the time I was ready to upgrade they had already discontinued the 9500 Pro's - and they were impossible to get). My ATi Radeon LE (I think the actual model number was ATi Radeon 7000) with bios mod to a DDR was almost as fast as the 9600 Pro.

Ended up keeping the 9600 Pro for just a liittle while, then getting an nVidia 6600 GT (which was pretty underwhelming also). The 6600 GT was so underwhelming that I bought an ATi X800 GTO2 which I was able to flash and overclock to a X850 XT PE.

The ATi X800 GTO2 (after mods) was probably the best card I ever purchased (as far as getting my money's worth - in performance and in length of use).

 

[ArchAngel777]

I forgot about my Kyro II. That was THE worst card Evah! Missing textures was great.

 

[Axon]

Sapphire 1900XT. It must have had bad memory, as I had artifacts all over my screen. Eventually the colors became washed out, so I dumped it for a BFG 8800 GT OC that I grabbed from Best Buy in desperation. That was actually a damn good card that I only recently resold. Loving my current Radeon 4890 though!

 

[BladeVenom]

8800 GTS 640, those Vista drivers sucked so bad the first year.

 

[EnzoLT]

ATi Radeon 7500: Bought this, later found out that the 8500 was selling for the same price.
ATi Radeon x800xl: Overpaid; x1900 series released a week later (I had no idea....).

Im not saying they were bad experiences, just bad purchases. My x800xl lasted me 2-3 years before it died. My 7500 is still kicking even today.

 

[BolleY2K]

Worst: S3 864 VLB with 1MB RAM - that card was an absolute nightmare with SVGA & VESA Drivers under DOS.

Best: Hercules Radeon 9500 Pro 128MB, flashed to 9700. Lasted me for 3 years and worked without any problems.

 

[Arkaign]

Worst (this was actually my brother's, but whatever) : the truly bizarre Diamond Edge 3d, featuring the Nvidia NV1 3d Chipset, and an onboard audio processor, and to top it off : Sega Saturn game port. What the bleep? Theoretically it should have been semi decent like the old Verite and 3dfx Voodoo 1, but it was utterly useless due to zero developer support. It was like $200 or so IIRC, from CompUSA.

Honorable mention for worst : Sierra 'Screamin' 3d. The only thing accurate about this name is that yes, if you bought one, you were screaming at yourself for wasting a pile of $. Nearly useless in 2d mode, and nearly unsupported in 3d mode. One can only play so much Quake and Tomb Raider before deciding to give up. Support dried up quickly.

Other crappy ones for various reasons : Voodoo3, Matrox Mystique, Riva128, and virtually all onboard video.

 

[Via]

Only regret is probably buying a GTS 320 instead of paying the extra $80 for a GTS 640.

 

[Avalon]

Two regrets...the first was upgrading to a Radeon 3850 256MB from an X1950Pro 256MB. I didn't get as big a boost in fps as I had hoped, and spent $150 on the card. My second regret was upgrading that Radeon 3850 256MB to a Radeon 4850 512MB a week after the 4850 launch day. I paid $190 for the card, and within a couple months it was selling for $125, and now it can be had as low as $90-$100 and we're still on the 4xxx series. Granted, the performance boost was fantastic

 

[nyker96]

can't say I regret any one purchase but my 6600gt wasn't up to my expectations. that's not a regret just a bit disappointment. I think all the cards of that generation was lousy, no big jump in performances but still cost a bundle. so it's the worst purchase for me.

 

[ravsimvan]

HD 4770 for sure. I expected something after reading all those reviews. :Q