What was your worst video card / graphics blunder?

[TC91]

Buying a reference Sapphire 4870 1GB. Just was a horrible, horrible card overall. It would be slower than my old 8800GTS 320MB in a few of my favourite (but old) games (sometimes unplayable) though it was fine in newer games that were most commonly benchmarked in video card reviews. Go figure. Trying to contact ATI support was also a terrible experience, they just wasted my time by continually telling me to wait for new drivers to fix the performance issues but nothing worked after 8 driver revisions.

It was also obnoxiously loud, particularly under load while gaming and also at system startup. Finally to top it all off, it likely led to the premature death of my Asus P5Q motherboard by causing the NB to heat up to 70C+ with the card installed and system running, even at idle (NB temps were in the low to mid 40s with other cards - all other hardware remained the same).

 

[tynopik]

Very first computer, came with a blazing ATI Mach32 with 1MB of VRAM and a 15" crt.

Not a week after it arrived, I was fooling around with the resolutions and set it to 1600x1200. Unfortunately the card didn't actually support 1600x1200 so Windows (3.1) wouldn't start so I couldn't get in and change the resolution back to something more sane.

Considering how clueless I was, it's amazing I ever figured out how to edit the .ini in dos to fix it.

Scared me bad.

 

[evolucion8]

First: When I needed a computer urgently and didn't had enough time and knowledge to arm one (2001), I bought a HP Computer which came with 1GB of RAM, Pentium 4 2.53GHz and a powerful GeForce MX 420 128MB for $2,000 in OfficeMax, it ran the games sluggishly, I gave it back and they refunded me the money, a tragic experience that tought me a lot!!

Second: Bought for my mom a XFX GeForce FX 5200 which died 6 months later, then when my mom moved to the States, bought the same card mistakenly for $120.00 in 2006 and burnt again in 6 months.

Third: My X800XT PE burnt two crappy Power Supplys. I paid $120 in 2005 in CompUSA for an Antec Smart Power 500W worked like a champ and it still working in my aunt computer.

 

[Scali]

I've had three cards that I've not been all that happy with in retrospect.
First card was a Matrox Mystique. My first 3d accelerator. Problem was, I had the 2 MB version, which wasn't enough to run most games. I only ever played Tomb Raider on it, really.

Second card was a Matrox G450. It was a good card at introduction, *but* I bought it shortly after the introduction of the GeForce series, and wasn't aware of the earth-shattering effect of these cards. I later bought a GeForce2 for another PC, and then I knew...

Lastly the Kyro II. A great card on paper, I loved the whole TBDR concept, and it was a really elegant architecture. But in practice most games were so horribly bugged that it just was useless. It's the only card I actually returned, rather than sticking with it.

Special mention is the Apocalypse 3Dx PowerVR card that I bought. I saw it really cheap at some store, it was already an old card by then. I figured I'd pick one up for an old PC of mine (as a companion to the Matrox Mystique). Since I also had a DreamCast, I knew the PowerVR stuff was great.
But in the PC it was a disappointment. The image quality was great (Tomb Raider looked much better than on the Mystique), but not many games ran on it, and the performance was not as good as the DreamCast.
I guess the VooDoo cards were really the only good cards of that first generation.

 

[nemesismk2]

My biggest mistake was getting a GeForce FX 5900 instead of a Radeon 9700 Pro.

 

[heyheybooboo]

What was your worst video card / graphics blunder?

Intel i740

I swallowed the Intel hype ... hook, line and sinker.

I was an early adopter in a Abit bh6 and PII Klamath. My Diamond Viper VLB / 486dx wore that sucker out (at least in DesignCAD).

I couldn't dump that POS fast enough D:




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[Martimus]

I bought a Voodoo 5 5500 instead of a Geforce 2. While I bought the Geforce later (actually, it was given to me by someone who bought two on accident), I really spent a lot of money on something that wasn't worth that much.

One thing I noticed was that the Geforce had much worse IQ than the 3dFX card. It was night and day, to the point I actually preffered the 3DFX card in anything that didn't require 3d acceleration.

 

[JAG87]

Mine's funny as hell.

Not happy with the overclocking results of my 9800 pro, I decided to strap a cpu heatsink on it with zip ties, to get better temperatures. It was a stock Athlon 64 heatsink if I recall correctly.

Needless to say, that card didn't make it past the Windows 98 loading screen, the image became all purple and disintegrated in front of my eyes.

I freaked out. Sapphire replaced the card for me though

A good story always has a happy ending!

 

[Worthington]

First pc that i really fully built from the ground up.. put a FX5800 in it.

 

[Lonyo]

Buying a TNT2 M64 as an upgrade (from 8MB SIS integrated).
The card itself was not terrible in theory, but it was passive and overheated all the time.

 

[Scali]

One thing I noticed was that the Geforce had much worse IQ than the 3dFX card. It was night and day, to the point I actually preffered the 3DFX card in anything that didn't require 3d acceleration.

Yea, GeForce 2/3 cards were notorious for that.
I actually did the mod for that: removing a few of the resistors and capacitors of the output filter. After that the display quality was just great.

 

[scooterlibby]

Mine's funny as hell.

Not happy with the overclocking results of my 9800 pro, I decided to strap a cpu heatsink on it with zip ties, to get better temperatures. It was a stock Athlon 64 heatsink if I recall correctly.

Needless to say, that card didn't make it past the Windows 98 loading screen, the image became all purple and disintegrated in front of my eyes.

I freaked out. Sapphire replaced the card for me though

A good story always has a happy ending!

Funny and fraudulent!

I bought a terrible 5xxx series Nvdiia card in '03. I can't remember what model specifically, but it sucked and the cable guy lectured me while he installing the internet, saying I should have gone with the far superior 7 series which had just come out.

 

[nemesismk2]

I remember the i740 I bought a Real3d Starfighter i740 8mb to replace my GeForce. Oh how I laughed when it either couldn't play my games or crashed a lot.

What was your worst video card / graphics blunder?

Intel i740

I swallowed the Intel hype ... hook, line and sinker.

I was an early adopter in a Abit bh6 and PII Klamath. My Diamond Viper VLB / 486dx wore that sucker out (at least in DesignCAD).

I couldn't dump that POS fast enough D:




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[Phynaz]

Bought a Canopus Pure 3D. At least it had a lifetime warranty, because after three replacements they sent me a Pure 3D II.

 

[nukem256]

I bought a 6600gt AGP for my athlonxp 1800+ with 768mb sdram. I really didn't see any improvement over my gf2mx. I'm pretty sure my cpu bottlenecked it.

 

[nOOky]

Probably adding a second voodoo 2 card for sli. That or paying $3xx something for a 6800 Ultra. The Ultra was a good card, but it was much too expensive.
Overall I paid $2300 for a whole pc once, it was a Pentium 233MMX etc. unit from Quantex, top of the line when it came out. Funny thing is , it's still running in a friends basement with a 4mb Matrox Mystique card in it and an 8 gig hard drive with Win 98 se on it.

 

[sandorski]

I bought a Voodoo 5 5500 instead of a Geforce 2. While I bought the Geforce later (actually, it was given to me by someone who bought two on accident), I really spent a lot of money on something that wasn't worth that much.

One thing I noticed was that the Geforce had much worse IQ than the 3dFX card. It was night and day, to the point I actually preffered the 3DFX card in anything that didn't require 3d acceleration.

If I had the choice again, I'd still buy the Voodoo 5 5500. The card was freakin awesome. I only spent $180ish on mine, 3dfx went tits up 6 months later.

 

[jdjbuffalo]

Nvidia FX5600. The biggest POS I've ever owned. After a few weeks the card had severe tearing in almost all games. I sent it in for warranty replacement. After a few days the replacement did the same thing. I decided it wasn't worth it to send in again and bought an ATI 9600 that I used for 3 years without an issue.

That was the last Nvidia card I bought. Coincidence... :hmm:

Also back in my water cooling days, I had a leak in my Koolance case. The fittings above the GPU started dripping water. I saw some nice psychedelic images as my screen melted before my eyes...

Luckily after letting all the hardware dry, I was able to get everything working again except for my sound card. But it was already acting up before the water incident.

 

[evolucion8]

DP

 

[digitaldurandal]

5850....... Nv not ATi.

nuff said.

 

[Powermoloch]

FX 5200 AGP. It was pretty bad lol

 

[KIAman]

At work, I was designing and testing an enclosed general purpose kiosk with all the internals exposed. I leaned over to disconnect one of the cat5 cables and my employee badge touched the edge of the video card and it started an electrical fire.

The card is toast and I have it hanging in my office as my "trophy of shame."

 

[Rifter]

buying a Radeon LE to replace a Voodoo 3 3000 when the main game i played was UT which was SO MUCH better with glide.

 

[Interitus]

I bought a Voodoo 5 5500 instead of a Geforce 2...

Ahh the Voodoo 5. Here's my 3.

1) "Upgraded" from a Voodoo3 3000 to a Voodoo5 5500. Biggest waste of money ever. The V5 was almost $200 when I bought it, and the real world performance increase was laughable at best. On paper it was supposed to be great, but TFC and other HL-based mods begged to differ. May have been the fact that my CPU and RAM were weak, but in the end I got a 2 FPS increase for $200. Should've just taken it back and ate the 15% restock fee.

2) I was building a rig for someone recently and sandwiched a PCI-E 6-pin underneath a 5850. I was working in poor lighting in a case that was all black and I had sleeved the PSU in all black. Didn't even see the power cable. It got smashed underneath the 5850 just past the end of the PCI-E slot on the mobo. It took a small nick out of the mobo and left an indent in the 5850 PCB about the same curve as a fingernail. Luckily everything works fine and it didn't seem to damage anything important. I remember pushing on the card thinking "WTF!" and trying to force it into the slot. DOH.

3) Set up a laptop for my GF years ago that used integrated Radeon x1300 graphics. There's still a post here somewhere about it, but that chip was like vaporware that somehow made it into a board. It was never recognized by any of ATI's drivers, and would occasionally show up as an unidentified GPU. Had to jump through hoops to get a third party driver that would allow it to function. Took 3 Vista reinstalls and weeks of driver troubleshooting before it worked. To this day it won't accept ATI drivers and doesn't fully function due to ancient Omega drivers.

 

[Loop2kil]

GF2 MX...I still to this day don't know why I bought that card.