Your favourite gpu, ever? Blast from the past..

Defy Belief · 23 Aug 2012 at 21:12

Man, just installed my 8800GT I got off fleabay. I sold mine a while back many moons ago.

I miss powerful single slot cards I think they look so sleak compared to one banged up with fans hogging 3 slots, it's very loud though.

upload picture

For a card that's about 5/6 years old it still runs games at decent looking settings at 1080p, I think the 8800gt is one of favourite cards i've owned in terms of all round performance. No chance of getting BFG RMA nowadays.

Begs the question, what is your most enjoyed gpu you have ever purchased?

Zefan · 23 Aug 2012 at 21:13

6800gt overclocked. Far Cry and Battlefield 2 <3 <3 <3 <3

Be still my beating heart.

Oh Ed not again. · 23 Aug 2012 at 21:16

Hercules 9800pro 128mb with Half Life 2 voucher code.

God I feel old.

agw_01 · 23 Aug 2012 at 21:19

Tough one.

I remember my GeForce 3 Ti200, Radeon 9700 Pro and 8800GT fondly.

The 880GT was just rapid though. Amazing bang for buck at £120 in 2008. Can't believe I sold it a few years later for £35

nitram100 · 23 Aug 2012 at 21:37

Elsa Gladiac PCI..(I know, PCI wtf lol), it was the first card I bought that allowed me to get 60fps in Quake 3. I had a poo computer that only had a PCI slot, so this card was a god send.

Just took this pic

Awahwah · 23 Aug 2012 at 21:50

9800 PRO for me.

Cutshaw · 23 Aug 2012 at 21:55

I hated my 5870 while I had it. But I think it served me the best and I regret selling the noisy beast. It wasn't till I was writing the address for the new owner that I started feeling a bit sad.

So yeah, my 5870 followed closely by my 8800 GT.

stulid · 23 Aug 2012 at 21:56

Geforce2 GTS

PhillyDee · 23 Aug 2012 at 21:57

Biggest performer? Defo the 8800GTS 640mb. Such a fantastic upgrade!

Prior to that? The Voodoo3 and rage add on card that gave direct 3D graphics for quake!

pumaz · 23 Aug 2012 at 21:58

Big game changers for me were the Voodoo 3, GeForce4 Ti 4200, ATI 9700 Pro and Nvidia 8800GT.

Think I saw the biggest return in cash for graphics and had the fondest memories of these

Seems with each new GPU these days there's is less tangible performance difference.

spirits247 · 23 Aug 2012 at 22:00

Good old AGP 9700 Pro.

Actually loved the AGP X800XT, the HIS Iceq one.

setter · 23 Aug 2012 at 22:02

Havent been into pc's for long. But my gtx 470's were absolutely brilliant. Yes they could be hot and noisy, but they oc'd like greased lightning. 820mhz at 1.087v, stock speed was 630mhz.

StonedPenguin · 23 Aug 2012 at 22:03

Loads but a few that come to mind, Voodoo2 16mb, 9800 pro, 8800gtx.

Marshy · 23 Aug 2012 at 22:04

Righteous Orchid 3Dfx, going from VGA graphics to full on smooth 3Dfx Glide was a total game changer

llamadal · 23 Aug 2012 at 22:07

9700 pro, that was awesome!

Drizmod · 23 Aug 2012 at 22:10

Voodoo 3 PCI 16 MB. The difference between onboard and this card was immense

Cutshaw · 23 Aug 2012 at 22:12

I can't remember what my first gpu was. What would have been a common nvidia card around when the 500mhz athlons were new?

Either way, I never got too attached to it. It had it's short life choked out of it by groups of people huddled around the pc smoking jazz cigarettes.

Inferno99 · 23 Aug 2012 at 22:12

Asus 9800XT - the dual fan design looked great at the time.

Rroff · 23 Aug 2012 at 22:13

Not a blast from the past but my 470 SLI setup is probably the best one - got em for basically a song over 2 years ago and they still run pretty much even with or beat the top end single GPUs today aside from in VRAM limited situations which aren't very often unless I'm running 2560x with lots of AA or 3 screens.

Best cards out of the ones I've had:

Voodoo 1 - got my hands on an obsidian board which was much faster than the retail cards

Quake 2 was amazing to play on this.
Elsa Gladiac GeForce 2 MX - before the crippled 200/400 cards - Elsa made a card that basically had the core performance of the full blown GeForce 2 and only a little bit let down by a slower memory bus for around 1/3rd the price.
GeForce 3 Ti 200 - first card where everything just ran silky smoother for awhile with shader effects, etc. about 80% of the performance of the ti500 for half the price.
8800GT - woo no more fixed function and a fraction of the price of the 8800GTX while not significantly slower - the GTX260m in my older gaming laptop is basically a 1GB 9800GT and still cuts it in most games - the odd option you have to turn down from ultra to high and you can't use much in the way of AA above 1680x type resolutions but otherwise handles it fine.

Rroff · 23 Aug 2012 at 22:13

Cutshaw said:
I can't remember what my first gpu was. What would have been a common nvidia card around when the 500mhz athlons were new?

Riva TNT2? maybe early GeForce 1.