What was your worst video card / graphics blunder?

[Arkaign]

My personal worst would have to be the Diamond Edge 3d. Interestingly, it was the first PC Nvidia graphics product.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NV1

The main problems with it :

(1)- Super expensive for the time.
(2)- Virtually (hah) zero support in games for acceleration.
(3)- The games that were supported were pretty mediocre.
(4)- Drivers were hell.
(5)- Performance in everything other than the supported accelerated games was horrendous. Lots of tearing/chopping in Dos games like Warcraft 2.

 

[Via]

Add me to the list of people who forgot to plug in the extra power cord on my 7800 GT and got shocked to hell by that hysterical alarm.

Other blunders:

Buying a 8800 GTS 320 instead of the 640. The 320 was a good card, but for my 1680x1050 monitor I should have gotten the 640. The 320 couldn't even play Oblivion without choking, and don't even get me started on games like STALKER.

Buying a new 9600 for a system which was obsolete anyway. I ended up building a PC a few months later. Total waste of money.

You have to admit to yourself when it's time for a total upgrade.

 

[Kalessian]

Bought a modded 6800nu on the FS/FT forums here as a present for my brother for Christmas. The seller had great heat and I was busy with finals so I didn't bother to test the card out and left him good feedback.

A few weeks later when we set it up it turns out it was DOA but the seller didn't believe my story since I had so few heat. $200 gone.

Wound up buying an x800pro->x800xtpe from another seller and I still use that card. (brother upgraded and gave me back the x800)

 

[Termie]

Bought an xt800xt pe for $300 (which was actually way below original retail!), modded it with a zalman vf700, and soon after shipped my whole computer, with the xt800xt installed inside, to my bro. It never booted again.

I had left it in the AGP slot without securing it with additional padding. It most likely broke due to the weight of the copper Zalman cooler pulling on it during shippping.

Moral of the story...take your video card out before shipping. A few years later, I gave my bro another computer, and this time I put the VGA, an x1900xt, in its original packaging for transport.

 

[konakona]

used some of circuitworks conductive (electrically) silver epoxy to mod my radeon ddr32, spent hours and hours in repeated repair sessions using toothpick to remove artifacts from the stuff shorting memory pins (or legs should I say?)

The sad thing is i think I did that again with my V5 5500 AGP
/facepalm

As of recent, waited too long to pick up a 5850. Could have gotten one for less almost half a year ago...

 

[BFG10K]

I should've gotten a X800 Pro instead of a 6800 Ultra.

 

[videogames101]

I tried to keep my cards cold with solution.

 

[manimal]

All of them are good

NBA 2K best games ever ,,. and Im done... did it wow nice wheelen Pat..

I try so hard to understand...but I fail..

 

[Hlafordlaes]

Worst two faux pas were (1) buying an FX5500 with no prior research and (2) ordering my 8800GTS 640 off of e-Bay in a distant country. Wrong model was sent to me, but I did not return it, even after "winning" e-Bay arbitration, since my paying for return shipping would have made the correct model even that much more of an overpayment compared to the local market.

 

[NIGELG]

Geforce 4 MX 440.

 

[kmmatney]

My worse blunder was paying $180 for a Diamond Viper back in the day (Riva 128) chip. It sucked compared to my friend's 3Dfx Voodoo cards. I vowed never to pay that much for a graphics card again - the closest I've come is $179 for my HD4890, which I've had for about a year now.

 

[Rage187]

voodoo 4500; traded in a Dreamcast with 12 games at Software Etc.

 

[MrK6]

I had a PNY 6800GT that was a really good overclocker (420MHz+ without volts). It had a Zalman cooler on it that fit only over the chip and not the protective shim. I was cleaning my computer one day and, long story short, one of my hard-shell guitar cases fell on the card, hitting the cooler hardest, and it broke a chip right off the core. Needless to say, I was pissed . I think I have a picture of the core somewhere...

 

[Wag]

Voodoo Rush (yes I actually had one of these). A total POS.

 

[Bl0cks]

Paying $230 for an 8800gt back in May 08 when a few months later it was almost half that.

 

[FalseChristian]

Buying the 8800GT and only getting 1,000 fps in GLQuake at 1680x1050. I expected at least 2,000.

 

[ahenkel]

Paying $230 for an 8800gt back in May 08 when a few months later it was almost half that.

I bought one in January of '08 for 270.00. Luckily it was an EVGA lifetime warranty ftw

 

[Stumps]

hmmm got two that I can think of,

First one was my creative labs TNT2 Value, which was pretty shit value cause it was an TNT2 M64 based card that had the clock speeds reduced from the reference boards....I guess creative labs "valued" my money more than me.

Second one was my Gigabyte Geforce FX 5950 Ultra, nothing wrong with the card really, and I still have it somewhere, but for the money I paid for it, it was throughly disappointing when my trusty Gigabyte 9700Pro would easily out perform it in everything bar a few benchmarks that Nvidia used driver cheats for...not much of an upgrade at all...luckily I never ditched my 9700Pro which lasted me for more than 4 years before it was replaced 6800GT.

 

[Stumps]

voodoo rush (yes i actually had one of these). A total pos.

ha ha

 

[lifeblood]

Real 3D Starfighter with an Intel i740 chip. I've never forgiven Intel for creating that POS.

 

[PCTC2]

I've got a few. I'm not going to put them in chronological order.

1) Bought a card on eBay. eVGA 7950GT. I already owned one, had a 680i SLI, and figured, "Why not SLI?". It had no warranty (eVGA is single lifetime) and SLI didn't really artifact.... just textures turned red. But only half of the textures. Mainly scenery. So I RMA'd the first 7950GT (the one that I bought new under warranty) and got an 8800GT back. Still go the one I bought on eBAY in my closet.

2) Geforce MX 440 from Walmart for a ThinkCentre so I could have S-VIDEO out to watch videos on my TV.

3) I went through 2 eVGA GTX 260 C216 Superclocked in one week. I bought one on launch day that came DOA. And I bought another a few days later. I RMA'd the first one and use the new one while I waited. Bought a heatsink for the GTX 260... but it was for the 65nm version. I had to cut it to fit it on the 55nm version and then I watercooled it.. and it died. Not because of watercooling. It just caused my system to not post. Put back on the original heatsink and RMA'd that one too. Got them both back and I've been using them to this day in SLI.

4) 8600GT... soon thereafter an eVGA Step-up program to the 8800GTS G92 when it came out... a month later.

 

[nemesismk2]

Real 3D Starfighter with an Intel i740 chip. I've never forgiven Intel for creating that POS.

Intel probably decided not to release the Intel Larrabee because it might be another Intel i740 lol

 

[AstroManLuca]

Some years ago I bought a Radeon 9800 Pro.

For a Mac.

With a G4.

*facepalm*

My most recent graphics purchase was my best, though. Got a 1 GB Radeon 4870 a year ago. I haven't kept super close on graphics news lately, but from what I gather, performance at the price I paid hasn't really improved much.

 

[v8envy]

Radeon 9600, X850XT PE, X1800XT.

Doesn't sound bad, until you realize I mostly run Linux. Which means those were simply emulating a VESA VGA card for me.

Became an nvidia fanboy again and it's been smooth sailing ever since. The shelf compiz plugin even lets me "multibox" eve-o in ways not possible with windows.

 

[BurnItDwn]

I don't think I've ever made an actual video card blunder .....
I made my blunders with CPU's early on though

Started in 1996 .....
Had a cheap 4mb S3 Virge with a 13inch SVGA monitor.
Bought a Pure3D accelerator card for Quake
Kept the Pure3d (6mb voodoo 1 card) until around 2000, upgraded to an S3 Savage 2000 (costed a lot less than a Gforce or even a TNT2 card ... but performed very well in Unreal Tournament, and decently in all the other FPS games I played. It had very bad drivers, and garbage for support, but, I don't consider it a blunder because it was great "bang for the buck", when I had very little buck.
Since then I've had a bit more money ... so I've upgraded more often ...
Geforce 2 GTS, Geforce 4 TI4200, Radeon 9700 Pro, Geforce 6800 GTS, Radeon X1800 XT, Radeon 4850, Radeon 4870 (bought the 4870 after a price drop since I wanted the 4850 for my 2nd fastest PC as my X1800 XT was artifacting, and 6800GTS had died ....)

I've purchased a few other cards to upgrade secondary or even a tertiary machine back when I lived with my mom and brother .... for example, when I had a TI4200 in my main rig, and a Geforce 2 GTS in another, I upgraded the third box to a cheap used Geforce 3 Ti200 ....



http://www.anandtech.com/show/410/1 <-- Anand's review of the Savage 2000