Matrox Mystique TNT TNT2 32mb Geforce 256 DDR 64mb Geforce 3 Radeon 9700 Pro Radeon X800 Pro 640mb Geforce 8800 GTS 1GB GTX 460
Not even gonna bother with my history before the real 3D era Voodoo 2 Voodoo 2 SLI (it counts!) Geforce 2 GTS Radeon 9700 Pro Geforce 6800 GT Geforce 7800 GT Radeon 4870 1GB
I had one 2d card (I remember) so that's easy Trident ##### 1.5mb yo!! Vesa logic bus YO!! REPRESENT!! Trident Blade3D 4mb (and later on 8mb) 3DFX Voodoo Banshee 16mb PowerVR SG2 8mb (iphone!!!) S3 Savage4 16mb S3 Savage2k 64mb Radeon 7200 (SE) Matrox Millennium G200 8mb various generic unnamed cards -------end of my hall of impotent videocards!! (voodoo banshee not withstanding )---- Radeon 9600 Radeon x800 AIW (to my surprise it was not much better in 3D ) Radeon x1500 (PCIe it was MUCH worse... this is where I FINALLY caught on to marketing procedures) Geforce 6800se (the one you had to activate the tmu's... I got a steep discount used, since mine didn't activate for the seller... it didnt for me either but thats ok.... I got painkiller for my 150 bucks :x) Geforce 9600gt (I thought the box said 9800!! :x I was a little tipsy...) Geforce GTS250 Geforce GTX260 (wanted powersli, nvidea dumped it, I was PISSED)
Really testing my memory here. Diamond Stealth 3D 2000 S3-ViRGE 2MB (Awesome name but pointless card) (Something missing here) Nvidia Geforce 2 MX 16MB (I saw the water reflections in Morrowind!) Radeon 8500 (Don't remember this card at all) Radeon X800XL (still running to this day) Radion X1800XL All-In-Wonder (killed this card) Radion X1900XT (Oblivion looked so fine) Radion X2900XT - (returned it after a few weeks) Nvidia GeForec 8800GT (Best Value Ever) Radion HD 5850 (In Use)
I think that card is tied with the Geforce FX 5800 (aka the Dustbuster) for biggest flop/worst misfire of all time in the GPU market. They both had scathing reviews.
It did okay until you turned AA on. There was some kind of flaw that just crushed the frame rates. I got it refurbed on a great deal. The next guy probably got an even better deal.
Trident 1MB Voodoo2 12MB + SIS 4MB 2D Geforce 2MX 200 64MB (yuck) Geforce 2 GTS Geforce 4 Ti4400 Radeon 9800 (RIP - overclocked the crappy low speed mem too much) Radeon 9800Pro 128MB Geforce 6800GT Geforce 9800GT Radeon 4870X2 (RIP - "black" CPU HS flaked off "black" coating onto back of card) Radeon 5870
Yeah that card kind of sucked but at the time but I didn't care. Put it in and played Morrowind. I was happy even though it stuttered horribly. I remember that brief period when the cards had separate 2D and 3D chips. My Stealth 3D was supposed to have both I think but it never worked with 3D.
I just got back into PC gaming recently after a lengthy hiatus. I didn't have a PC during my time in the military (no time for that) or as an undergraduate or graduate student (used computer labs until around 2008). My cards since jumping back into the PC scene: HIS 4850 IceQ Turbo EVGA GTX 460 1 GB I have a 5730 in my laptop. My next card will be the EVGA GTX 580 if nothing else catches my eye by the end of 2011.
Voodoo 2 16MB (Played Turok pretty well) Geforce 2MX 200 32MB (Its even slower then a Geforce 256, but still ran games such as GTAIII, Max Payne and BF1942 'pretty well') Geforce 4 Ti 4200 128MB (Best card for the price ever, even better then the 8800GT was for most ppl) Radeon 9600XT 256MB (Got CSS and HL2 for free with it, the card still is somewhere) Nvidia 6800NU 128MB (Great card for its time and great bang for the buck again) Radeon X1900XT 512MB (This thing is LOUD, but fast, very fast, for its time, even ran GTA4 pretty wel, and that with a FX55 CPU) Nvidia GTX275 896MB (My current one, not really a great card but it runs every game @ 2560x1600, except Crysis, offcourse.
It was a big win for power supply manufacturers aswel i think X1900 drained alot of power and it got hot, very hot. Ofcourse it was loud too, but performance was top notch. Still have the card sitting in my old pc, till 1280x1024, performance is suprisingly good.
I don't do incremental video card upgrades. A card has to be really revolutionary, earth shattering stuff to get my attention, like the original Geforce, Radeon 9700 Pro, or Geforce 8800.
I'm quite young so my list is devoid of cards from the 2D era and early 3D era, though the that's mostly because I didn't game when I was younger, so I was unaware of the older PC's GPU's. Gefore 4MX (Piece of crap it was, lacked pixel shader hardware apparently) Radeon 9500 ( Also crap, but still better than the MX) Radeon X850XT ( I got ripped off bad on that card, payed $450 for it in 2006) And now in my laptop I have a Mobility Radeon 5870 (it's around about a desktop 5770 hardware wise)
Ripped off, thats kindly said. Card from 2004... you coulve have gotten an 8800GTX for that price in 2006. Raped, i would say
Two-Dee / ISA: Some EGA with 64kB (w00t, it's 16 colors!) Some Trident VGA with 256kB (yay; I don't think it's VLB) Two-Dee / PCI: Trident 9600 series 1MB Matrox Millennium I with 4MB of WRAM Desktop / AGP: nVidia Geforce 256 SDR 32MB (Asus with 3D Glasses) nVidia Geforce Ti4400 128MB nVidia Geforce Ti5200 (useless card) ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon 9700 Pro 128MB nVidia Geforce 7800 GS 256MB Desktop / PCIe x16: nVidia Geforce 9800 GXT+ 512MB ATI Radeon 5870 1GB Notebook: A bunch of Intel GMA series nVidia Geforce 6600 GT 256MB ATI Radeon 5650 1GB