25 Years Of Graphics History: A Farewell To ATI, In Pictures

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[citation][nom]niz[/nom]I hope this finally means an end to the rabid fanboi-ism that for some reason the ATi label in particular seems to attract, especially that clueless moron Charlie Djemeran who couldn't write an unbiassed article on GPUs if his life depended on it.I've owned many GPUs of both brands and without exception all the Ati cards I owned have had way more compatibility issues compared to any nVidia card I've owned. Personally I'm happier with something that just does its job without problems, especially under Linux, which is why I now just buy nVidia. That could still change if AMD ever come up with something of better quality though.In the past, sometimes ATi's top end cards were faster, sometimes nVidia's, but its not usually by enough to be very noticeable in the real world, and who gives a crap about +/- a few FPS when the drivers keep the system or software from running well at all. The real value of professional-quality drivers (Linux especially) was something ATi never seemed to understand, not that the fanbois would ever admit it.Lets hope that AMD will take up the slack though, as nVidia and even maybe Intel need good competition to push them and keep them working hard to make better stuff for all of us.[/citation]


i'm sorry but you sound like the bigest ass hat i have ever heard ... liek ati is the only brand that attracts fanboys , do you know how freakign hypocritical you sound , i see just as many nvidia fanboys as i do ati fanboys every where i go. now dont get me wrong i'm in no way a fanboy of either company, i just dont like seeing morons (and yes im calling you one ) say stupid crap that just isn't true.

1. you sound liek an nivida fanboy several times in your post so your initial comment makes you sound like a hypo crit.
2. saying that one brand attracts more fanboys than another is like sayign well that brand must be more popular , which is a contradiction to the fact that company was bought out and now no longer exsist in name. the fact is nivida obviously attracts at least as many fanboys , otherwise they would not be where they are today, you can't honestly say unbiased buyers like myself (i own just as many nvidia products as i do ati products and i liek both companies) are the only poeple buying cards from the 800 lb gorrilla brand (nvidia)
3. talking about how you prefer nivida products and why you prefer them , and how much better they are than ati , basically establishes yourself as an nivida fan, if not a fanboy , which further subtracts any merit from your statement that ATI attracts more fanboys.


just think some before you decide to open your mouth and take a S--t dude.

 
The Radeon 9700 PRO was the first AMD card to completely dominate Nvidia, vs. the 4600 Ti and later the GeForce FX.

I would have liked to see some acknowledgment of that, to me that's ATI's real turning point, that's when they became a player.

Not to mention, the 9500 PRO, one of the first GPUs that could be changed into a high-end model with a little solder.

These are the most significant ATI cards ever built, they completely set the stage for the company in the years to come.
 
never was a fan of ATI. the only ATI card i had was a loaner RAGE128 while my TNT2 ultra was getting repaired. wish they gave me another geforce card because uninstalling the ATI drivers was difficult when i got my TNT2 card back

AMD better hope the so called bulldozer chips sell (if they ever come out) or bye bye AMD
 
the first (relatively)expensive card that i bought, an ati 9500pro, the midrange of the 9000 family, defeated the FX series which was called a leaf blower that time. A truly fast card

had for years, was working up until 2009 i think then i cant remember where i put it hahaha.
thank you ati, thank you
 
[citation][nom]niz[/nom]I hope this finally means an end to the rabid fanboi-ism that for some reason the ATi label in particular seems to attract, especially that clueless moron Charlie Djemeran who couldn't write an unbiassed article on GPUs if his life depended on it.I've owned many GPUs of both brands and without exception all the Ati cards I owned have had way more compatibility issues compared to any nVidia card I've owned. Personally I'm happier with something that just does its job without problems, especially under Linux, which is why I now just buy nVidia. That could still change if AMD ever come up with something of better quality though.In the past, sometimes ATi's top end cards were faster, sometimes nVidia's, but its not usually by enough to be very noticeable in the real world, and who gives a crap about +/- a few FPS when the drivers keep the system or software from running well at all. The real value of professional-quality drivers (Linux especially) was something ATi never seemed to understand, not that the fanbois would ever admit it.Lets hope that AMD will take up the slack though, as nVidia and even maybe Intel need good competition to push them and keep them working hard to make better stuff for all of us.[/citation]

there are fanbois on both sides ...

anyway I second the linux comment. ATI/AMD has still a long way to go there. let's hope things change for the better with Galium3D.
 
[citation][nom]demonhorde665[/nom]the radeon 9700 pro was not competeing with gf 4 , it was competing with gf 5800 (which it beat hands down in every aspect and way.[/citation] The R300 came out before the 5800 existed in retail. Its direct competition at the time was the gf4 line. (I can't remember if the ti4800 was out before or after the 9700 but the 4600 was there) The gfFX/5 did not come out until the next year.

[citation][nom]Cleeve[/nom]The Radeon 9700 PRO was the first AMD card to completely dominate Nvidia, vs. the 4600 Ti and later the GeForce FX. I would have liked to see some acknowledgment of that, to me that's ATI's real turning point, that's when they became a player. Not to mention, the 9500 PRO, one of the first GPUs that could be changed into a high-end model with a little solder.These are the most significant ATI cards ever built, they completely set the stage for the company in the years to come.[/citation] Agreed. In every way it changed the face of ATI.
 
A pointless article without the game-changing 9700 Pro, and the best-selling 9800 Pro, which added Direct-X 9c/Shader Model 3.0. The mind-blowing jump to 256-bit/256MB plus 8 pixel pipelines all at once made all the 1, 2 and 4 pipers with puny memory specs look as laughable as they truly were. This article needs to be fixed or removed, unless it acknowledges the cards that made the video card market what it is today.

I had a 9800XT AGP, it gamed great and had zero problems with heat or mortality. Of course, I put it on a quality PCP&C power supply and ample ventilation. AMD's Windows gaming drivers were pretty good back in those days. When I replaced it with a PCIe system it went into my linux box for one month, then quickly onto eBay from there. Every year since then ATi then AMD has claimed they are improving Linux support. Recently that meant dropping all proprietary support for 9xxx generation cards altogether and throwing the specs into the open domain and hoping for the best from the community developers. Great idea, only a half decade too late. By the time the open source drivers are done, most of these cards will be dead or recycled.

So, thanks for the memories but no thanks for your modern Radeon efforts, AMD. I just got done your last-chance test with an HD4250 and an HD4290 and Linux + KDE. I am upgrading both systems to discrete cards useful with KMS drivers, so that means no Radeons. All my equipment gets cycled through Windows and Linux phases of lifecycle, the latter usually lasting a longer period of time, so a brand that offers half as much value is not really in the running, is it?
 
My graphics cards have gone like this
some isa stuff I don't remember
Cirrus Logic vlb
rendition verite 2100 (first 3d card, it was sweet at the time)
matrox millenium 2 pci + voodoo2 12mb
+voodoo2 12mb (sli'd, 1024x768 quake2)
voodoo3 3000 agp (good, but I liked my brothers nvidia tnt2 better)
geforce 2 mx (hand me down, it was ok)
radeon 8500le (not enough ram)
radeon 9100 (really liked this card)
radeon 9600XT (came with half-life 2 eventually.. but the card was really nice, in the end I wished I had gotten a radeon 9700 non-pro for about the same price as it was just a bit faster)
geforce 5900xt (didn't like it at all, blue screens and crappy drivers, reverted to 9600xt)
radeon X800 Pro (really liked)
radeon HD2900XT (buyers remorse, should have gotten a geforce 8800 gts for same price, though, my brother bought a 8800gts at the same time and his card died a few months ago and mine still works...)
radeon 5770 (really like it)
radeon 6870 (really like it)
 
all the way through this article the reviewer takes cheap pokes at ATI, it makes mt think toms are paid by nvidia because this is an atrocious review, shame on you TOMS
 
[citation][nom]lashton[/nom]all the way through this article the reviewer takes cheap pokes at ATI, it makes mt think toms are paid by nvidia because this is an atrocious review, shame on you TOMS[/citation]
I agree they're "cheap pokes", but I don't think that it's ever been the case here that a company pays Tom's writers off for a biased article. I do believe what we're seeing is certainly a personal bias coming out in the writing. While we are all subject to bias in this way at times, this article simply doesn't get any information outside of the writer's own experience. It is always a struggle to reach out of our bias and experience to fully report on a subject. I honestly don't think there's anything nefarious going on... The writer has been ripped on pretty good to this point. (from all of us) We should really give latitude now and allow him to learn from mistakes...
 
i got 2 ati cards and work perfect, my x300 still work fine in my laptop,

FW ati 😀
 
[citation][nom]bbruzzes[/nom]Good retrospective, but why no mention of the 9700 pro? That card helped start the GPU wars with Nvidia when it crushed the Geforce 4, it was the first to support DirectX 9, and it was the first card to require additional beyond the slot itself, something of which we now take for granted.[/citation]

I completely agree with this. I believe (I could be wrong) that the 9700 Pro gave ATI their longest run of having the fastest card on the market. I remember getting that card when it first came out, and having the world's fastest commercial gaming graphics card for around a year. Sure, the 9800 series did great when it was out, but I remember nVidia being more competitive around the time the 9800 was out. Me thinks this is a huge oversight by whoever wrote this article.
 
I remember getting that card when it first came out, and having the world's fastest commercial gaming graphics card for around a year
Click to expand...
OK maybe not a year... but at least a few months 😛
it still was probably their longest run.
 
[citation][nom]enderwiggin[/nom]WTF did you just say?![/citation]
They're called words, in English. Left to right, top to bottom.

Take aspirin for headaches, Midol for any cramps. :-D
 
lol... of course if I actually read them that way I might have known what you were pointing at. 😵

I did not notice the quote, I'll blame it on lack of sleep for now. 😉
 
Its my imagination or the tomshardware crew tried to find the best they could to say bad things of all the cards?
I mean.. even where total winners were there.. they mentioned all the bad things they could possible say.
I wonder.. how much were you guys get paid to trash ATI? (seriously, no 9700 pro? no mention of the unlocked x800GTO to X850XT while you guys mentined the 6XXX unlocks?)
 
Ok,
here is my list:

ATI Mach 32
Diamond Viper VESA 16megs!!!
Matrox Millinium 4 megs
nvidia TNT1
GeForce 320
Geforce 3
Geforce FX5700
ATI AIW 9600XT
ATI AIW 800XT
Nvidia 8600GT
Nvidia 8800GTS320
ATI Radeon 3850
ATI Radeon 4850 (2 ea.)
ATI Radeon 5770 (2 ea.)



BTW- does anyone remember Tseng labs 4000? It was the bomb in the early 90's!
 
Radeon 7000 64 meg 20 dollars
Radeon X700 256 meg 299 dollars
Radeon X1950 Pro 256 meg 320 Dollars
Radeon HD 4870 512 450 dollars

Next Video Card???
 
I was back and forth between nvidia / ATI when they were competitive. My relatively short list of video cards:

-Trident TVGA 8900 (Along with 386 upgrade to play simcity 2000!)
-S3 Virge 2mb (It ran minesweeper! The only games that it 3d decelerated were VR Soccer and monster truck madness. < 20fps!)
-TNT2 Ultra 32MB (Voodoo whooping 32-bit goodness. Bought for Quake III)
-Geforce2 Ultra 64MB (DDR memory heat-sinks! Bought for Max Payne)
-Geforce4 TI4600 (Faster but nothing new. MOH:AA ran nice)
-Radeon 9800 Pro (Impulse buy for Doom3)
-Geforce 6800GT (OCed to Ultra and boosted my Source and Tech 4 engine games)
-HD4870 512MB (Every game I've played runs fine with this aging beast)
-Currently waiting for a game that doesn't suck! Given the console port trash that is released these days I'm not holding my breath.
 
ATI's anti aliasing was always a hack compared to nvidia. as soon as my 4850, it looked blurred instead of real AA. it quickly went out of my machine again. sorry, ATI. you failed in filters, and when you play low res fast fps, you'd want smooth but not blurred.
 
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