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What was your most awesome video card purchase ever ?

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I had (that I can remember):

TI 4200
-something I probably don't remember-
Radeon 4870 1GB (eventually crossfired it)
Radeon 6950 2GB, unlocked shaders + OC

The 6950 is my favourite because it was relatively inexpensive and after unlocking is as fast as a 6970. It's still pretty good at 1080p for most modern games.

Worst was the CF setup on the 4870. Too many issues with drivers and inconsistent CF performance. I stick to single-card solutions now.
 
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Hands down Voodoo2. Saw a friend run the first Voodoo and started saving for the soon to be released Voodoo2. Eventually went SLI on that card.
What a friggin jump .. It was unreal, from software rendering on 100-300mhz pentium class machines to Voodoo accelerated was night and day.
Everything since then have been incremental advances IMO.
 
The card that i loved most was a Radeon HD7770, my "first" bleeding edge tech video card purchase. The next year i bought a GTX 670, that allowed me to Max that dammed Crysis3 game, but the card i loved most is the 7770.
 
Blue_Max said:
Mine was the Canopus Pure3D from 3dfx... 6MB vs. the standard 4MB.
Click to expand...

Oh yea, I still own one !! That should be on my pegboard video card display. I have a hard time parting with some of them, so I just decided to hang 'em on the pegboard and remember them fondly.
 
I have a lot but it has to be the original Voodoo 1 for me. Transformed how I viewed 3D gaming. It blew my mind.

I also loved my 8800GT which was a beast on a budget.

Worst....never really had a total dog.
 
Wild Thing said:
Radeon 9600XT 256MB was the best performance upgrade for me...the IQ was just brilliant on those early 2000's games.HD5850 a close 2nd.
Worst card:NVidia FX5600S 128MB...weak performance,noisy and troublesome.
Click to expand...
Ironically, I count the 9600XT as my worst purchase. The drivers were so bad, that I just let it collect dust for a few years. BSODs, Z glitches, flickering surfaces, all kinds of weird stuff. Until not long ago, the card ran for years, flawlessly, with AMD's legacy drivers, though. It had better looking FSAA & AF, no doubt.

I replaced with it with an FX 5900XT, in the end, and replaced the cooler. Should have done that to begin with.
 
probably my 9500 Pro. This was my first Med range card. It OCed well, but wasn't one of the cards that could unlock. It was still awesome.
 
getting a 5850 at launch and then immediately modding it with an Accelero S1 (had to destroy the stock HS/fan in order to get the base plate separate which was useful for cooling the RAM but necessary for cooling the VRMs) and then being able to easily hit 1GHz

$259 for the 5850 + $29 for the S1, and then watching the 5800s only go way up in price over the following months, yeah that was pretty sweet.
 
cytg111 said:
Hands down Voodoo2. Saw a friend run the first Voodoo and started saving for the soon to be released Voodoo2. Eventually went SLI on that card.
What a friggin jump .. It was unreal, from software rendering on 100-300mhz pentium class machines to Voodoo accelerated was night and day.
Everything since then have been incremental advances IMO.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the Voodoo 2 was a huge leap forward back then. I had the Diamond 12MB one. A lot of games back then were also specifically designed around Glide. I remember Unreal, Freespace and Battlezone looking and running fantastic on it.
 
CP5670 said:
Yeah, the Voodoo 2 was a huge leap forward back then. I had the Diamond 12MB one. A lot of games back then were also specifically designed around Glide. I remember Unreal, Freespace and Battlezone looking and running fantastic on it.
Click to expand...

Got my hands on Voodoo3 for a Piii build just so I can run Glide in Unreal 🙂
 
My 290x because it runs everything at max 4k settings fairly smooth like you [redacted] said it wouldn't.

This is a technical forum -- clean your language up if you want to be able to continue posting in it.
-- stahlhart
 
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Canopus Spectra 2500 and Pure3D II :

canopus-spectra2500-1.jpg


pure3dII_a.jpg



Least favorite - S3 Virge :

DIAMONDSTEALTH3D2000-top.JPG
 
el etro said:
The card that i loved most was a Radeon HD7770, my "first" bleeding edge tech video card purchase. The next year i bought a GTX 670, that allowed me to Max that dammed Crysis3 game, but the card i loved most is the 7770.
Click to expand...

Rofl the 7770 was never bleeding edge. It was terrible the day it released.
 
Eric1987 said:
Rofl the 7770 was never bleeding edge. It was terrible the day it released.
Click to expand...

It wasn't bleeding edge, but it wasn't terrible either. I consider it another excellent midrange card in the same tradition as the 6600GT, 9600GT, 4770 and others.

Bought a 7750 for my GF's computer last year. Godsend compared to the Intel HD 2000 in that machine. While it certainly is not an R9 290, or even a 7770, it's been nothing but excellent and in many ways outshines even my 5850 in some of these newer DX11 titles.
 
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