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The best graphics card ever

555BUK

555BUK

555BUK

Soldato
Joined
10 Feb 2007
Posts
3,469
Digging through my loft turned up some old graphics cards I had long since forgot. That got me thinking - out of al of the cards I have owned, which was the best? It also made me realise that I have spent thousands on playing games and benchmarking.

NVidia Geforce2 MX400 - Completely Rubbish
NVidia Geforce4 TI4200 - Great Card which overclocked like a monster
Nvidia Geforce4 TI4600 - Good card, but a pointless upgrade after the TI4200
ATI Radeon 9700Pro - Brilliant - simply ahead of it's time.
ATI Radeon 9800Pro - Good card, but not a big improvement over the 9700
ATI Radeon 9800XT - Waste of money
NVidia 6800GT - Great Card and much underrated, Played Doom3 and Farcry flawlessly and a great overclocker.
ATI Radeon X800XT - Good card, but nothing special
ATI Radeon X850 XTPE - Average card - did not overclock well for me and made too much noise.
ATI Radeon X1950Pro - Very Good - overclocked well and played most games at highest settings (back in the days of 1280x1024).
ATI Radeon 2900XT - Pretty Poor - This card was a heat furnace and sucked power. Did not overclock well and wasbehind the times. Mistake.
NVidia 8800GTS 640MB - Stonking Card - great value and a true overclocker. Only eclipsed by the 8800GTX.
NVidia 8800GT - Super - Great value and great overclocker but not much faster than the 8800GTS it replaced.
NVidia 8800GTX - Easily the best card of it's generation and still competitive now. It would have blown me away but for the 2 previous cards.
ATI Radeon HD4850 - Slightly faster than the 8800GTX but much less power hungry and single slot. Bargain price when I purchased at £99.
NVidia GTX 260 - Did not get to use it because OcUK sent me a used/damaged one insted of a new one.
NVidia GTX 280 - Great Card, but not that much faster than the HD4850 at 1680x1050. I am sure if I gamed at 1920x1200 or over the difference would have been huge - but I do not need a screen that size.

I have probably forgotten one or two cards but you can see I have no brand loyalty. The cards I have the most affection for are the TI4200, 9700Pro, 8800GTS and HD4850. The TI4200 was a great overclocker which came close to the mighty TI4600 but cost half as much (UT2003 never looked so good). The 9700Pro was just ground-breaking. It put ATI on the map and was the first GPU that allowed AA at playable rates. The 8800GTS was another fantastic high-end "budget" card. Finally, the HD4850 is just great. For anyone who wants to play the latest high-end games at a very reasonable price it is unbeatable.

Overall, I think the HD4850 is the card that has given me the warmest feelings. Sure it is not the quickest of the current gen, but it's perfomance and value are unrivalled. The 9700 Pro is extremely close, but that cost me £260 back when £260 was a lot of money.

edit: Added some benches of the 4850 for peeps who might be interested. Please bear in mind I am only packing a C2D and not a quad like some of the bigger boys.
3DMark06 15363 3DMark05 26290 3DMark03 48826 3DMark01 66624
 
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Sorry to hijack but just wanted your thoughts on your crossfired 4850's i did start a thread but due to me mistyping i think people thought i meant crossfiring 3850's lol. anyway have a 8800GT at the moment but struggling at higher res's due to aqquiring a 22' full HD monitror at xmas. will this be a good upgrade?

Cheers
 
NVidia 8800GT - Super - Great value and great overclocker but not much faster than the 8800GTS it replaced.
Click to expand...

True, but it was also much cheaper, ran cooler and used a lot less power thanks to it's 65nm core. The GTS 512 was the real replacements for the GTS 320/640.
 
The most revolutionary card for me was the Geforce256 I remember dumping my 2 Voodoo2's and the difference in Team Fortress Classic was astonishing.
 
big.rich1976 said:
Sorry to hijack but just wanted your thoughts on your crossfired 4850's - have a 8800GT at the moment but struggling at higher res's due to aqquiring a 22' full HD monitror at xmas.
Click to expand...
I'd personally go for the GTX 260.

I've had crossfired 4850's (with vortex neo coolers fitted) and although they returned slightly better max frame rates i found the minimum framerates of the 260 to be better which made for a much smoother gaming experience.

I found the GTX also used less power in both 2D and 3D modes and ran cooler and quieter too.

gt
 
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4850 was my favorite card of all time I think. Excellent value and I had it clocked to 880/1150.

Might get another 4850 but 1gb model this time to go with my new 23 incher
 
gurusan said:
4850 was my favorite card of all time I think. Excellent value and I had it clocked to 880/1150.

Might get another 4850 but 1gb model this time to go with my new 23 incher
Click to expand...
I bow to the master. I only got mine up to 830core but it still beats a few 4870's in the Crysis benchmark thread:D.
 
I had a geforce 4ti200, was a fantastic card, grew very fond of it. But my favorite was my Matrox G200 :)

Wow you dont go back too far do ya, I still gor Voodoos and rage 3d and some ISA cards kicking round the loft, (if any of you remember what ISA was)
 
lol I had a Matrox G200. I remember 2 things about it

1) The incredible 2D quality and 32bit colour in games
2) The complete and utter lack of OpenGL driver for Quake. All they managed in the whole time I had the card was a half arsed OpenGL wrapper.

It was no surprise to me when they scaled back their operations as a 3D contender.
 
Stonedofmoo said:
lol I had a Matrox G200. I remember 2 things about it

1) The incredible 2D quality and 32bit colour in games
2) The complete and utter lack of OpenGL driver for Quake. All they managed in the whole time I had the card was a half arsed OpenGL wrapper.

It was no surprise to me when they scaled back their operations as a 3D contender.
Click to expand...


Ahh I never played quake, (was a UT1999 man which ran direct 3d) so never had any problems with it. Was very fond of it. much preferred it to my 3dfx bvlaster banshee I had before that.

Oh the memories...
 
i did have a voodoo 1 8mb and used to love Quake 2 on it....gfx were so amazing. None of this N64 64bit nonsense!
 
Well my history goes something like this,

NV Riva 128 4MB - First 3D accelerated card I ever saw, tried Turok and TOCA and wow. :)
3Dfx Voodoo2 12MB - Awesome bought mainly for Quake II @ 800x600 baby!
NV 7950GX2 1GB - Was alright, glad I got it cheap tho.
NV 8800 Ultra - Soft spot for this bad boy, the king of pre-GT200 NV cards.
NV GTX280 - Nuff said, fast as ****.

I didn't have a PC for about 5 years inbetween 2001-2006 hehe.
 
Probly be the 8800gtx for me. Been running 2 in sli for quite a bit now and still very competitive at 1920x1200. Still waiting for a monster card worthy of a REAL upgrade though.;)
 
My history is as follows,

Nv 420 MX
Nv 5200FX
Nv 5900FX
Nv 7800GTX
Nv 8800GT
Nv 8800GT SLI

and now I'm back to a single Nv 8800GT, but I've got 3 systems and they all have a 8800GT now, as apposed to one sys having SLI which was barely worth it in most cases. Dont feel the need to upgrade as of yet, just keep your system running in optimum condition. :D
 
wait, do you have all of those in your loft?

or only some and the rest you've sold? (i hope this is the case!)
 
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