Question Show and tell: Your all time favorite gpu?

[mopardude87]

I thought this may be fun to do, usually people post about what they have used but never which one has been their favorite. Maybe share the reason you got the gpu, did it max out a particular game or did it go beyond all your wildest expectations? Share a picture perhaps of your favorite? I think most of the older cards are just amazing, they have their own unique style which we may never see again.

For me it was this pretty much except i had a Evga model, i pulled this one out of a build i found last year which had like 20 odd hours on the disk . Back in the day this thing did 100 fps easy at 1920x1200 in BF2 and destroyed UT3/Bioshock. Took a 7700k/1080 ti/1080p setup to finally find a spiritual successor in a setup that just destroyed everything as equally good for its time period if not better then the Q6600/GTX285/1200p setup.

https://imgur.com/a/i48TdVN

 

[AtenRa]

Doom Eternal is the new poster child for how poorly those old GTX cards have aged.

Hell, GTX780Ti is the worst card of the last decade. Flagship card with MSRP of 700USD is getting crashed by half priced HD7950.

 

[AtenRa]

It certainly doesn't work universally, but this shows the AMD advantage of having so much influence on the development of modern API's.

Yeap, GCN was designed for those APIs from the start.

 

[Staples]

TNT2 Ultra. Because it was the first real video card I ever bought.

Quake 3 Arena and Unreal Tournament were great games in 1999.

 

[mopardude87]

Where did you see this ??? 290 was way faster in BF4 and with Mantle later on , 290 had the absolute performance and smoothness advantage over any NV card at the time.

I got it during like the first day or close to, was before the 290 was fully matured i guess. Was faster then it in a few games i play but i guess i can't help they are nvidia bias. Eventually got a gtx970 and had no regrets and didn't care i had a 770 over a 290. The 770 did what i needed it to do, hold 60fps in BF4 at 1080p without msaa and it did just that.

 

[maddogmcgee]

My 7970. What other 8 year old gaming GPU still plays most games well at 1080P?

 

[Headfoot]

I got it during like the first day or close to, was before the 290 was fully matured i guess. Was faster then it in a few games i play but i guess i can't help they are nvidia bias. Eventually got a gtx970 and had no regrets and didn't care i had a 770 over a 290. The 770 did what i needed it to do, hold 60fps in BF4 at 1080p without msaa and it did just that.

That sounds right to me. I remember in that era the propaganda machine was unreal, there was an incredible amount of fud flying around. Easy to mislead people who only look into this kind of stuff once every 3 or 4 years when they do a new build. You don't see a lot of people in this thread saying how great the 960 2GB was (spoiler: because it wasn't) even though I saw tons of people recommending a 960 instead of a 290 to save like $50 or less. It was absurd. A terrible shame, considering the 290 is one of those rare legendary GPUs that completely upsets the status quo. You see the rest in this thread, 9700 pro, 8800 GT, 8800 GTX was an amazing card too. I was too poor to own one at the time though

 

[mopardude87]

That sounds right to me. I remember in that era the propaganda machine was unreal, there was an incredible amount of fud flying around. Easy to mislead people who only look into this kind of stuff once every 3 or 4 years when they do a new build. You don't see a lot of people in this thread saying how great the 960 2GB was

Yeah the 770 was fine and after a disaster experience with a 7970 reference a few years prior, i had no complaints. Usually a frequent upgrader so i knew a "gtx970" or something would replace it and well it did.

I do remember the 960 reviews being bad and well i did land a $50 locally used 4gb gtx960 cause well i needed it to display 60hz 4k. Was a temp gpu after my 1070ti failed and i was stuck on HD630. The 1080ti then replaced it but yeah the 960 was fairly pathetic and maybe one of the worst gpus given its time. Reminds me of all the 8800 series refreshes that lasted till like what the gts450? Or was that the GTS250? like Geezus christ nothing could rid of those things.

 

[Hi-Fi Man]

It's got to be my old GeForce GTX 260"+". Had the EVGA 55nm 216 shader version and that card was an absolute beast for the price I got it for. Overclocked from 576MHz to ~750MHz core and some ridiculous number on the shaders (~1.9Ghz I think); It was tied with the 4890 and later 5830 from what I remember. That card lasted me for several years until I grabbed a 560 Ti which was another really good card.

 

[Head1985]

8800GTS 640MB-Insane performance and 30-40% OC on top of that.Also dead silent under load even with OC.
Radeon 9800pro-My first ATI card.Served me for 3 or 4 years.
5850-Cheap and with 40%OC but super loud under load.I was even using 2x5850 in crossfire
1080TI-Only bad thing about it was very bad OC.

Worst card i have owned is 5700XT for sure.Terrible drivers, bad oc and loud if i dont use undervolt.Also i am not sure about 8Gb Vram.Some games needs more at 1440p like COD warzone.So i would not buy 8GB card in 2020 again.

 

[Saylick]

These are all cards I've never owned but to name a few GPUs that I was super impressed with when they came out, either for performance or architecture:
- G92 (8800 GT, 8800 GTS 512)
- RV770 (4870, 4850)
- Evergreen (5870, 5850)
- 1st Gen GCN (7970)
- Maxwell (GM204, GM200)

I'd throw in the 9700 but I was too young and didn't know squat about PC hardware at the time...

 

[mopardude87]

1080TI-Only bad thing about it was very bad OC.

Worst card i have owned is 5700XT for sure.Terrible drivers, bad oc and loud if i dont use undervolt.Also i am not sure about 8Gb Vram.Some games needs more at 1440p like COD warzone.So i would not buy 8GB card in 2020 again.

Yeah the only real upgrades from our 1080ti will be rtx 3080ti/rtx3090 cards. I may not need a upgrade unless rt takes off in 2021/2022 games. I am only at 1080p where i am cpu bottlenecked in everything on a 7700k lol.

 

[Thunder 57]

These are all cards I've never owned but to name a few GPUs that I was super impressed with when they came out, either for performance or architecture:
- G92 (8800 GT, 8800 GTS 512)
- RV770 (4870, 4850)
- Evergreen (5870, 5850)
- 1st Gen GCN (7970)
- Maxwell (GM204, GM200)

I'd throw in the 9700 but I was too young and didn't know squat about PC hardware at the time...

Nope, you probably were too young to know at the time as you said. NVIDIA released a tech demo "Dawn". It was beaten by the 9700 Pro which shouldn't have been able to run it, but some clever people managed a way.

I think the top two are the 9700 Pro and 8800GT. I had the 9800 Pro and the 8800GT both were excellent cards. The only reason I upgraded from the 9800 Pro was because AGP was going away and I needed a PCI Express card. Only reason I upgraded from the 8800GT was because it was literally dying. Games stopped working, even youtube videos weren't right. Hard to argue with two cards you were forced to upgrade.

Beyond those, Rage 128 Pro and Geforce 3 were excellent as well. Both of which I owned. The Terrascale ATI cards were great. That was before power gating was a thing though I guess, because my brother's 4870 just used stupid amounts of power when idle compared to what we have today.

As far more modern cards, the RX 480 was pretty great, as well as the 1070. The 2060 Super and 5700 are good as well, but nothing like the cards I've already mentioned.

 

[s44]

Ahh, the 8800GT. It was great out of the box, and replacing the cooler with the Accelero S1 and a super low-RPM fan made it perfect. Kept it so long (in various boxes) that I had to use the baking trick.

 

[loki1944]

980Ti hands down; that thing is still a kickass card 5 years later for 1080p/1440p. My second choice would be the R9 Nano which is still a little powerhouse. Choice 3 would be R9 290X.

 

[QueBert]

STB Nitro 3D, my 1st 3D card and it came with Internet 76, which was one of my favorite all time games.

 

[Avalon]

Man, for me it has to be a tie between the 3DFX Voodoo 4 4500 and the ATI Radeon 9500. The Voodoo was the first card I ever bought in the store to add into an existing PC, and the difference in gaming was just so night and day, it was incredible. However, I'm also very fond of the vanilla 9500, due to its capability to softmod to a 9700, making it probably the single greatest value video card of all time. I remember that card being able to (barely) run FarCry when it first came out, and I was super impressed.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

The only two real gaming gpus I have ever bought were the Radeon 8500 and GTX 970, was a console gamer at other times. So between those, the 970 by a mile since I bought it in late 2014 and it was still a really solid gaming card when it died on me in mid 2019. I was amazed how well that card aged and think I got a bargain for $300 after settlement. My $300 ATi Radeon 8500 that I bought at launch didn't age anywhere nearly as well.

 

[mopardude87]

The only two real gaming gpus I have ever bought were the Radeon 8500 and GTX 970, was a console gamer at other times. So between those, the 970 by a mile since I bought it in late 2014 and it was still a really solid gaming card when it died on me in mid 2019. I was amazed how well that card aged and think I got a bargain for $300 after settlement. My $300 ATi Radeon 8500 that I bought at launch didn't age anywhere nearly as well.

I loved my Asus ROG Strix 970, thing was a boss and a legend and did what i needed it to do.

Did a damn good job destroying BF4 as i only shut off MSAA and it was enough for a constant 60+ at 1080p. Destroyed all else at max or near it with relative ease at 1080p.

Kinda fun knowing the only way to gain more performance with the 1080ti is with a massive cpu upgrade for most of what i play as for 1080p i am bottlenecked in nearly everything.This gpu next to the 8800gts 512mb and gtx285 and even the 970 as gpus i never regretted and quite enjoyed. My favorites pretty much.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

I loved my Asus ROG Strix 970, thing was a boss and a legend and did what i needed it to do.

Did a damn good job destroying BF4 as i only shut off MSAA and it was enough for a constant 60+ at 1080p. Destroyed all else at max or near it with relative ease at 1080p.

Kinda fun knowing the only way to gain more performance with the 1080ti is with a massive cpu upgrade for most of what i play as for 1080p i am bottlenecked in nearly everything.This gpu next to the 8800gts 512mb and gtx285 and even the 970 as gpus i never regretted and quite enjoyed. My favorites pretty much.

Yeah my brother had a 1080 Ti and that thing was a freaking beast even at 4k. But since I was on 1080p and my 970 was handling it well I wasn't too jealous haha.

The 970 spoiled me for PC gaming, getting roughly the previous gen flagship for $330. I already wasn't very hot on the 1070 when it came out at $450 with 980 Ti performance but then 2070 with midway between 1080 and 1080 Ti performance at $600 made me ready to swear off PC gaming. It's going to take another 970 to get me to buy back into it based on how impressive the XBox Series X and PS5 look.

 

[loki1944]

My current 980ti. Prior to that, it was my HD7950.

Both cards came with so much untapped potential out of the box that they practically moved up a tier (the 980Ti didn't even really require any tweaking thanks to how boost works).

I know it's a combination of a lot of different factors, but my 980Ti is my longest running card by a mile and I don't see myself upgrading for anything less than 1080ti performance @ $300 because right now I don't really have to.

I think the GTX 980Ti is one of the best cards ever made; I have STRIX and Matrix versions and they still handle current games @1080p/1440p.

 

[loki1944]

Voodoo2 or Voodoo5 5500, both were excellent but for different reasons. Voodoo2 just for 3D Voodoo5 5500 for AA. 9800 Pro and the 5870 were also great cards. I still have the 5870 and have used it on occasion when a vidcard has died on me, but its' 1gb of memory really limits what it can do..

I have a Vapor-X 5870 1GB; It can still play quite a few games despite the limited buffer.

 

[sandorski]

I have a Vapor-X 5870 1GB; It can still play quite a few games despite the limited buffer.

Ya, got GTA5 to work on mine, decently even/high 40fps avg, had to go 720p and Med/High settings, but I was sure glad to replace it even if surprised at how well it worked.

 

[DamZe]

Probably the first GPU I had in my first build back in 2008 as a senior in high school.

The legendary 8800GT/9800GT!

I have great memories maxing everything out on 1280x1024 (except for Crysis) back in the day. Prior to that I played on some lowly integrated laptop GPU (don't judge me!). Going from that to a Core2Duo and a 1GB GDDR3 "Golden Sample" Gainward 9800GT was simply game changing!

 

[mopardude87]

Probably the first GPU I had in my first build back in 2008 as a senior in high school.

The legendary 8800GT/9800GT!

I have great memories maxing everything out on 1280x1024 (except for Crysis) back in the day. Prior to that I played on some lowly integrated laptop GPU (don't judge me!). Going from that to a Core2Duo and a 1GB GDDR3 "Golden Sample" Gainward 9800GT was simply game changing!

You were styling with that 1gb 9800gt. I am curious how it held up and for how long?

 

[DamZe]

You were styling with that 1gb 9800gt. I am curious how it held up and for how long?

Sorry for the late reply!

It held up very well, I had it in my system for about 3 years before replacing it with a Sapphire HD 5770 1GB "Vapor-X", which was a big step up in performance and cost me less than the 9800GT. And I even sold the 9800GT for a fair amount, making the upgrade path a breeze!