Your Favorite Graphics Card of All Time

[Arkaign]

That was more hype than anything else.
Rendition V2200 was a great card, and with the glide wrapper, faster than the voodoo card out at the same time.

This is why 3dfx tried so hard to shut down the glide wrappers, they were being beat by the competition.

Maybe if you compare V2200 to Voodoo1, but I had both a V1000 (Sierra Screamin 3d), and a Hercules Thriller 3d (V2200), and they were both hands-down worse than the 3dfx chips (voodoo 1 vs. V1000, and voodoo 2 vs. V2200). The fill rate of the v1000 was basically terrible, so with a voodoo 1 + Matrox card for 2d you were in much better shape. Then with the V2200, it's ticket was punched hard by both Riva TNT and Voodoo 2 setups, or better yet, Voodoo 2 SLI + TNT.

Revisionist history is strange. I had the Rendition cards, they worked okay, but in both cases I was really happy to upgrade and be rid of them.

 

[MentalIlness]

I liked the X800 Pro/XT. Was a nice improvement over the 9800 Pro/XT.

 

[Jionix]

The unlockable ATI 9500 non-pro that was basically a 9700, same PCB, same bus. If you were lucky, the locked pixel units were still good

I remember I bought one and unlocked it, and at the time was extremely excited to have paid a quarter for the performance. But, I spend most of my time overclocking and benching it, instead of playing games!

 

[poofyhairguy]

The Matrox Mystique 4mb,

That was my most disappointing card. Spent a ton on it and it couldn't handle lighting properly. Was happily supplemented by a Voodoo 2 that played CS for years.

As for my favorite card, either my 6600 GT or 7900 GS.

 

[bryanW1995]

EVGA gtx 460 - 768, I only spent about $45 to "rent" it for 15 mos. It was small, cool, quiet, powerful, all kinds of win.

Best that was ever available I would probably vote 9700 pro #1 and 8800gtx #2, however.

 

[Golgatha]

1) 8MB Soundblaster branded Voodoo 2. It was like going from blurry to clear vision when playing 3D games.

2) Gainward Golden Sample GeForce 3 64MB

Similar to this one - http://www.anandtech.com/show/787/2

 

[PrincessFrosty]

I've owned the top end card from each new generation for all the generations since GeForce 4 and the most impressive jump was the 8800 GTX.

The 9700 Pro was also a very impressive leap but most of the extreme performance differences came from increased MSAA performance more than anything else, I think in terms of raw power the 8800GTX really nailed it, and also seemed to last the longest after release, I eventually replaced that card with 2 4870s in crossfire.

 

[SirPauly]

The key with the 9700 Pro wasn't just MSAA performance but the jump in MSAA Quality while bring a rotated and sparse grid quality to x4 and x6 settings. It was a leap compared to ordered grid.

 

[MBentz]

Is anyone else reading and enjoying the reviews posted of the older cards? I liked that GeForce 3 review a lot. Ah, a better time...

 

[Smoblikat]

^This

Nothing like going from Quake to GLQuake. Oh and how awesome it was when you found a game that would run on Glide.

Bought way too many video cards over the years, somehow missed the 9700 everyone is always talking about.

The list: AIW 9000pro, 9600, 6800, AIW x800, 7800GT (liked it), x1950xt (too loud), 8800GTS, 2600xt, 8600gt, HD 3850 (really like the way it did theater mode w XP), HD 4850, HD 5770, to dual 5770s, several 9800GTs (compute only), several GT240s (compute only), GTX 460 (compute only), GTX 465 (compute only), GTX 570 (compute only), HD 6950, to dual HD 6950s, and finally to a HD 7850...Somewhere back there was a 4200Ti and a couple Voodoo cards and a very expensive Diamond Viper V770 nVidia Riva TNT2 AGP (I think, some Diamond Multimedia card anyhow).

My favorites are the first and last. The Voodoo and the HD7850, the rest are mostly just a blur.

The MSI N465GTX Twin Frozr II GE GeForce GTX 465 was one of the best deals because it was really a GTX 470 card with an awesome copper cooler for only $287.86.

Then I guess an HD6950 was a better deal, since they were like 250$ for an unlockable card.

EDIT - Why did you downgrade to a 7850?

 

[hawtdawg]

Voodoo 2 of course, I also really liked my 6800 GT.

 

[CraigRT]

I have had a lot of the really popular and great cards.
Most memorable for me for sheer increase in performance was my TNT2 Ultra, coming from a Rage 128 ATi.
I also loved my Ti4200, and I also loved my 9700Pro, and 6800GT.

I also really loved my 5870 until it started artifacting and died.

 

[Makaveli]

LOL @ you! I was one of the people who lucked into the 9700Pro $319 Gamestop preorder price mistakes. Sweet, sweet deal.

Hey you gotta experience a launch day purchase at least once in your years doing this hobby or you were doing it wrong

Nice deal tho!