what video card was your favorite? (that you own/owned)

[aka1nas]

Probably my geforce 3 ti200. It was the first non-budget card I owned. I would have said my 9700, but I think I bought it when it was a bit too new and there were still a lot of quirks and problems in some games due to driver immaturity. By the time these were worked out, I had fried the darn thing!

 

[Cookie Monster]

Hmm, my GF4 MX440. It OCed around 300ish on the core plus 450 on the memory. Yep it was a monster

I wont bother with the older cards. Brings back the sad memories.. 3DFX

 

[dalearyous]

my voodoo 3 pci

 

[SolMiester]

Gainwood Ti4600 Golden Sample......... from a Geforce 256 DDR

 

[Tig Ol Bitties]

Voodoo 1 and 2...I know you all remember the quake and tomb raider days...dont even s**t on TR, you know you guys loved it when it came out...hell I still love the TR series, eagerly waiting for the new one...*goes to dig up 1st TR to see some pointy titilation:shocked:* :laugh:

9700 Pro...was years ahead of anything else at the time, amazingly this card will still hold up in current games very well. Nvidia's stock took a nosedive after this card. Played all the MOHs, COD, HL2, GTAs, Splinter Cells, and so on and so on...any game from 2004 back was easily maxed out...goodness, this card took a beating...definitely the best and longest lasting bang for buck card I've ever owned...almost 3 years used consistently.

Now I got a 7800 GTX...of course its great, but I wasnt as "shocked out of my f***in mind" impressed as with the previous two...this card makes the eye candy look wonderful though

Nice thread, brings back lots of memories
---------------------
AMD X2 4400 Toledo
XFX GeForce 7800 GTX 256mb
DFI Lanparty nF4 SLi-DR (704-2bta)
2X1GB OCZ Platinum DDR Ram (2-3-2-5)
Hitachi Deskstar SATAII HD 250 GB
OCZ PowerStream 600W SLi-Ready Version
NZXT Guardian Case
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS
Creative Inspire P7800 7.1 Surround System
Samsung 204b Black 20.1" LCD (1600x1200)

 

[wozie]

me well i,m still on me old 9700pro lol and it still plays games albeit not many options enabled thinkin of upgrading to a 1900xt raddy what u all think or the 5900 nvidia any help cheers

 

[Tig Ol Bitties]

Originally posted by: wozie
me well i,m still on me old 9700pro lol and it still plays games albeit not many options enabled thinkin of upgrading to a 1900xt raddy what u all think or the 5900 nvidia any help cheers

Uhh...I think I can speak for everyone here to choose the 1900xt...why the hell would you want to get a 5900 if you've already got a 9700 and thinking about "upgrading", unless of course you mistyped and really meant the 7900. If this is the case, Id just wait for the benchmarks and initial pricing, then make your decision. Its only a week away from the 7900 coming out anyway. But seeing that your 9700 is an AGP card, you better have a PCI-E supported mobo or be thinking about investing in a new board.

 

[Sable]

My 512k Cirrus Logic 5424.


Probably my GF3 for being such a big step up from my old TNT2 and it lasted for ages as well before I had to upgrade.

 

[loafbred]

Really hard to choose since I've been buying video cards for so long. Probably a tie between Voodoo2 and 9800 Pro.

 

[dguy6789]

Radeon 9600 Pro. My first DirectX9 video card. It performed absolutely flawlessly in all games at any res. It was also my first card that could run both AA and AF with nearly no performance hit. Nothing like playing UT2003 at 1280x960 with 4XAA and 16XAF for the first time.

 

[Doctorweir]

Voodoo3 FTW.
I still have 2 of 'em. Anyone interested?

 

[Zap]

Don't have one particular favorite but a few memorable cards.

VLB Tseng Labs ET4000-W32
This represented a good upgrade from an ISA ET4000 card, both in interface speed and in being "accelerated" beyond VESA.

PCI Tseng Labs ET6000
My last non-3D card. Coincidentally I still own this card so it is one that I've owned the longest... or was that the original ET4000...

PCI Matrox ???
It was a 3D only card and the only competitor to the Voodoo. I think it used a PowerVR chip but could be wrong. Thing was that it was discontinued and I got one for only $20 - amazing at the time. Also, did not require a dongle like the Voodoo.

AGP Matrox G200
My first "good" AGP video card and the first one that I overclocked... because Quake 3 was so goshdarn slow on it.

PCI Voodoo3 2000
It was the only decent card I could get to work on my Asus P3B-F overclocked to 150MHz FSB (AGP was 100MHz). It also clocked to 3500 levels and was a freaky good card. Hmmm, I think I still have this one in the garage with my makeshift cooling on it.

Geforce 4 Ti4200
This was a long lived card. I ran mine passive with a Zalman heatpipe cooler. I saw the writing on the wall when BF2 came out.

 

[CJP]

As much as I like my SLI setup the biggest WOW factor I had was going from a TNT2 Ultra to a Geforce 3 Ti500. What a difference, especially in Quake 3.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Radeon 8500LE. Probably the best price-to-performance ratio card I ever owned considering how cheap I picked it up for. I used it longer than most any other add-in card I have ever owned too.

2nd was the infamous 5800U. It was like the proverbial, abused red headed step-child no one wanted. :laugh: I picked it up for less than 1/2 the original price just 4 months after it was available, wonder why?

 

[Sable]

Originally posted by: Zap
PCI Matrox ???
It was a 3D only card and the only competitor to the Voodoo. I think it used a PowerVR chip but could be wrong. Thing was that it was discontinued and I got one for only $20 - amazing at the time. Also, did not require a dongle like the Voodoo.

Ah yeah, the M3D. I think it was supposed to be better than the Voodoo1 but got beaten in games support and so died a death.

 

[Regs]

Originally posted by: n7
My 9800 Pro :heart:

 

[happy medium]

Nvidea 16 meg TNT ,with Battlezone online

 

[pibrahim]

The PowerVR alternative to the Voodoo was called the Apocalpyse 3D, wasn't it? Or was there another one as well...?

 

[videogames101]

My Radeon 7000 lasted until last year running every game i put on that thing. Long live the Radeon 7000.

 

[darXoul]

3dfx Voodoo and then Riva TNT2 Ultra.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: videogames101
My Radeon 7000 lasted until last year running every game i put on that thing. Long live the Radeon 7000.

i kept my Radeon 64 DDR over 2 years . . . nice card.

personally, i am most impressed with my current card - the x850xt - cheap and cool and FAST!

 

[kki000]

Guillemot Xentor TNT2 Ultra.

It was a huge upgrade over the viper v330 riva 128 card.
The Xentor was also the card i played and finished Halflife with.

When it comes down to it, its still about the games, HL, Descent, Starcraft... oh good times were had on that freaky french card.

 

[PingSpike]

My ti4600 that I bought off ebay. She'll be off to the FS/FT forums soon enough...she served my main rig right up until early HL2 stuff and did it well. Still purring away in my wife's rig, but it just won't cut it for oblivion. That old card did a great job for a long time compared to most PC parts I've bought.

 

[ArchAngel777]

Oh wow... This brings up such great memories!

I have to say my most favorate card was my "Voodoo Rush"... I know it sucked compared to the Vodoo2 (sightly better than Voodoo1) but it was the first time I ever seen GLIDE! It was fricking amazing! I must have only been 14 at the time... Wow, has it been 10 years already? I think it has... No way, I feel old now.

Anyway, it was so funny because I was just getting into computers and stuff. So I played Wind Commanderrophecy and was like "This isn't any smoother, this card sucks, I wasted my money"... Then when I looked at the config I noticed an option for "D3D or GLIDE" (I had absolutely no idea what those were at the time) So I tried GLIDE and seen the most amazing eye candy of my entire life! Wing Commanderrophecy looked beautiful with shock waves on explosions and all that stuff. That changed me forever...

Also I believe Jungle Strike was a game I purchased shortly after that looked great and convinced me of the need for D3D, GLIDE, OpenGL...

 

[PingSpike]

Originally posted by: sodcha0s
My first 3d card.... original Voodoo! I went from playing quake in software mode at some crappy resolution like 200x320 to GLQuake running at 640x480, an amazing difference for sure.

Yeah, my jump to the voodoo 1 was probably the most impressive overall. I didn't think 320x240 software mode looked like ass until I quickly got used to what a 3d accelerator could throw out.