The Greatest Graphics Cards of All Time

[Rob Williams]

I've been a PC user almost all my life, but up until about ten years ago, I never had an extreme interest in PC hardware, focusing more on software and games. I am not sure what clicked inside me and made me develop a keen interest in hardware, but like most enthusiasts, I retain a mental list of hardware I consider to be nostalgic - hardware, that when mentioned by name, brings back fond memories of the day.

Read the rest of our post and then discuss it here!

 

[Optix]

Any of the 8800 series. As soon as that series was launched, threads about other video cards on a few of the forums I used to visit frequently disappeared.

 

[TheCrimsonStar]

hehe I used to own a 9700 Pro before it burst into flames!

I had that card....jeez....5 years? I loved it.

 

[marfig]

The article centers itself too much around the best cards money could buy at the time. I don't think those were ever the Greatest Graphics Cards of All Time. Most of them where power suckers, heat vents, or inefficiency gremlins. Most of them brought to the user desktop "performance at any cost".

Anyways, my greatest card of all time isn't listed. It was the AMD Radeon HD 4770. It was sold for as little as 90 USD and performed almost like many 200 USD cards. AMD introduced then a card that made maximum settings video gaming for almost any game up until 2009 affordable to anyone. AMD partners made sure the power, heat and cooling issues of the stock card would be eliminated. Mine was an excelent PowerColor.

Another card that had a dramatic impression on me, although never used one, was some Matrox Millenium I saw on a computer friend back in the 90s. His machine had top notch 2D graphics not possible with any other card at the time.

 

[Rsline]

Still own an ATI all-in-wonder 9600 XT and still enjoy they card today. Personally, my fondest memories focus around the 3dfx Voodoo banshee card. What an upgrade. During the early days of real 3d gaming 3dfx was king. If you got a chance to own one of their cards or played on a neighbors/friends machine, it made games come alive. there is nothing like see the changes of graphics since. Game intro videos made us drool and in a few years the real game play surpassed those videos.

 

[JMMDTG]

I've owned many of those cards over the years. Never had a video card go bad on me. I still fondly recall the day I went to the store to get a 3Dfx Voodoo2 8MB card. After installing the game that came with the card I was amazed at what 3D graphics was all about.

 

[Kougar]

Haha, nice to see some 9600 / 9700 ATI owners here...

My first self-bought GPU was the ATI 9600XT. Awesome card and I had enough foresight to get one with a good quality cooler already on it, probably why it still works today. Learned a few good lessons though... such as checking for alternatives first. After I found out some of the 9700's could easily be turned into 9800 Pros I was just slightly miffed.

 

[Doomsday]

my first ever GPU was the Nvidia 6600GT! I got a little late into the 'serious' gaming business, like in 2008 with the XFX 9600GT!

 

[Rob Williams]

I can't be stuffed to go through their one-picture-per-page slideshow again, but one card I don't think was mentioned that should have been was the NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT. That card was epic at the time, and most people I knew who built computers at around that time had it. It was affordable and kicked a ton of ass in all of the games available at the time.

 

[GFreeman]

Here's the graphics cards that I've owned throughout the years: Voodoo 3, Kyro 2 (that was artifacting crazy so I RMA'd it) Geforce 2 TI, Geforce 4TI, FX5700, 6200 (sadly not unlockable haha), 6800nu, GT 7950, ATI 3850 and now GT425m in my folding box..