Standout cards over the years?

[rallyslag]

Agree with most of the above ,but add the nvidia gforce 256

 

[James J]

6800LE unlocked to the 6800 GT

8800GT G92 version

9700 pro - first direct x 9 graphics card and destroyed all dx8 content.

Leadtek 4600ti - first massive heatsink design on a graphics card

x800xte - first gcard I saw and bought which retailed at over £400

 

[SouthEastBlue]

I've only really been following PC hardware over the last four years, and the stand out card for me was the 8800GT/9800GT for the price it was a great card and probably still capable even now with new games and slightly toned down settings.

 

[Squark]

agreed on the ati 9800 pro that was a great card for the price at the time, i remember playing a ton of great looking games with that card

I used my 9800Pro for years until it died, great card

 

[IvanDobskey]

Ones that stand out for me: The first Voodoo card, The first Geforce DDR card, 9700Pro, 6800GT, 8800GTX

 

[ThomasTheTankEngine]

I'm not really sure why you think that way about the Geforce 6 series.

All they really represented was a return to form, after the terrible 5 series. IIRC they were really expensive on release and didn't offer great bang-4-buck compared the direct ATI equivalents.

 

[chaparral]

voodoo 1
9800 pro
8800gtx


The first voodoo card has to be the most stand out card of all time due to it bringing us 3D acceleration...

 

[SeeKified]

The GeForce 4 Ti series were pretty awesome, I believe. Sadly I got stuck with an MX440.

 

[Rroff]

For me:

The voodoo 1 as it was the first card I experienced that could do hardware 3D with filtered textures and colored lighting.

Creative 3D Blaster GeForce 3 Ti200 - very reasonable priced, tons cheaper than the Ti500, but massive overclocking head room put it back in the game against the top end cards (first card I had that could run x-isle which was where farcry started from).

Gainward Golden Sample 5900XT - the one 5800/5900 series card it wasn't completely embarassing to admit to own - with its huge overclocking headroom it could compete performance wise with the top end ATI cards of the time - something even the 5950 ultra couldn't really do - the blurry DX9 shaders tho still make me wince.

GeForce 6800 series - effortless DX9 performance and quality - the first card that could convincingly do higher levels of AA without crippling it.

8800GTX and GT - they still hang in there today and the GT especially was fairly reasonable money.

For me the GTX470 as for a time they were available sub £200 and when overclocked hang in there with the top end cards.

 

[Hazkirby]

I'm not really sure why you think that way about the Geforce 6 series.

All they really represented was a return to form, after the terrible 5 series. IIRC they were really expensive on release and didn't offer great bang-4-buck compared the direct ATI equivalents.

The best bang for the buck at that time was the 6600GT. The equivalent Ati was the X600PRO which never even matched on all the benchmarks I saw.

 

[realscot]

8800GTX - an epic card.

The 4870X2 was an excellent card to. A new generation for ATI where they really stuck it to Nvidia on price/performance.

My previous and current card

the 4870x2 is holding its own very will in new games still, even if I'm missing out on the DX11 eye candy. About to go tri fire this weekend as i've managed to source a 4870 1GB cheap

Overall though i'd say most stand out card ever for me was the 8800GTX, even now it's still a capable card, and when did it come out? 5 years ago? I still kept mine, as it's just too good to give away for £30.

I never buy new graphics cards, such bad value for money compared with used ones.

 

[Rroff]

I'm not really sure why you think that way about the Geforce 6 series.

All they really represented was a return to form, after the terrible 5 series. IIRC they were really expensive on release and didn't offer great bang-4-buck compared the direct ATI equivalents.

They were the first cards that could run doom 3 effortlessly with max settings and even AA, nothing before them could do that without silly fps drops - and other SM2/3 games, the equivalent ATI cards at the time couldn't enable SM3 or advanced *cough*nvidia extra*cough* SM2 features.

 

[ThomasTheTankEngine]

They were the first cards that could run doom 3 effortlessly with max settings and even AA, nothing before them could do that without silly fps drops - and other SM2/3 games, the equivalent ATI cards at the time couldn't enable SM3 or advanced SM2 features.

I forgot about the "ultra" mode in doom3.

Still, not sure they warrant what the OP was saying about them. Doom 3 was just one game, and the ATI equivalents did just fine with the other big games of the time (Far Cry and Hl2).

I suppose I don't really think it compares to other cards, because the competitors were also producing decent stuff at the time. Other "standout" cards haven't just been good in themselves, they've had crappy cards to compete with. Eg.. the later 3dfx stuff didn't compare to the early Nvidia cards, and the Geforce 5 series was a pretty big flop compared to the 9700's.

 

[BEN_UK]

9800 Pro 128Mb for me, remember driving to OcUK on day of relase and picking one up, £340 if i remember correctly April 2003 right ??

Had a beast of a system back then, think it was a P4 Northwood 1.8A @ 2.4Gz.

It was the card to have for Half Life 2 right ??

 

[spleenharvester]

6600GT
8800GT/X
HD4870

IMHO.

 

[Supernaut91]

x800pro/xl had both, great card when i was still a kid.
8800gts/HD4870 both awesome.

And now my 560ti which is great also!

 

[Cleeecooo]

my 8800GTX lives on as a temp RMA replacement card and doubles up for physx
Love this card

 

[Merlin5]

Well, 8800GTX seems to be the winner here so far, followed by the 9800 Pro I think.

 

[ebilcake]

Definitely ATI 9800pro, completely destroyed nvidia at the time.

People seem to forget the R9700 Pro came first and was not much slower, that was the card that destroyed nvidia at the time, R9800Pro/XT were just the refreshes.

 

[Menthis]

My 7800 gtx still lives i believe its gathering dust atm though