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

[juliom]

Well, time for my nostalgia:

8 MB Rendition Verite V2200
32 MB Matrox G400 Dual Head
128 MB ATI Radeon 9200 SE (overclocked to Pro clocks)
256 MB ATI Radeon 9600XT
512 MB GeForce 7800GTX
512 MB ATI Radeon 2900XT
512 MB ATI Radeon 4870 (overclocked as much as I could)

Probably going to buy a 6950 soon...

 

[Makaveli]

Great article.

My list of Radeons

Radeon 64DDR
Radeon 8500LE
Radeon 9700Pro
Radeon 1950x Pro
Radeon 3870
Current Radeon 4890
Next card Radeon 6950!

I'm 30 years old now so for me when the radeons first hit the scene was in the early years of this hobby for me.

Been building since about 1994-95.

 

[COLGeek]

Wow, that was both fun and sad. My history goes all the way back to the ISA cards and up to the HD6870, having owned/used nearly 90% of the cards depicted.

I am definitely getting old.....

 

[Guest]

my first card was a EGA Wonder . amazing card and had one of the first ever writtable chip!! no more DIP switches.
Ati rage XL
9200
1650x pro
4650
all of them still work!!!

nvidia 440mx, 5200, 8600gts.... (lasted 13 months..)

 

[akula2]

What's wrong with these AMD guys, huh! I feel really bad for ATI
I always loved ATI products, very efficient and more greener than Nvidia cards. One of my best cards is Sapphire ATI 5850 Toxic 2GB which is really blazing hot but runs so cool. I love it.

 

[Guest]

Really, ATI had design issues or driver issues? Never had driver problems with the cards i've owned (rage128, radeon AIW, radeon9250) and have been rock solid. All of them still run even.. (including the AIW that ended up having the tv tuner blown due to a lightning strike on the cable line). Can't say that about Nvidia. Of the 4 nvidia cards i've owned, 3 have burned up, 2 taking out the computers with them. Owned 2 laptops, one with ati graphics, one with Nvidia graphics. Guess which one still works? (damn $2500 investment with nvidia defective 8600m graphics in it).

And people wonder why I do not like nvidia anymore......

 

[frontwing]

Hm, my vidcard history untill now;
Started of with a Diamond stealth 3D 2000,
Diamond Monster 3D 3dfx Voodoo1, added a 2nd 4 mb Voodoo via an external pass-through 2D video interconnect cable lateron.
Then my 1st Geforce; a 32 mb geforce 256.
Yes, my 1st Radeon, an ATI 64 mb 9000.
After that a 9550 GE with 128 mb.
When that one died used a geforce 6200 256 mb for a cpl of years.
Today I have a 4670 and planning for an upgrade in March.
And yes,you guessed right,it will be an ATI again.

 

[Guest]

@rolli59 - I had an EGA Wonder also. As I recall, I ran it in a Heath/Zenith box with a NEC V-30 inside, feeding one of the original NEC Multisync monitors. When I moved to a 286, the card and monitor went right along.
(the monitor went along to my first VGA card as well-don't recall what it was, now)

 

[Sabiancym]

Every card I've owned has been an ati.

9800 Pro
X1600
3870x2
4870x2
5970

Now I'm planning on getting the 6990 when it comes out as long as it benches ok.

 

[warmon6]

Two can play at that game. ATI re-reclaimed the performance crown yet again with a dual-GPU Radeon HD 5000-series board. The computing power of a single HD 5970 is all it takes to get to the top ten in the protein folding charts.

Which protein folding charts are you talking about Igor?

Only 2 protein folding programs i know of is F@H and World community grid.. When you say protein folding, most people think of F@H.

If this is the case, that statement defiantly needs to be looked over as F@H doesn't have an effective core/client to be using the HD 4xxx (and above)full power (as of yet). Last i checked, A geforce GTX 260 is able to keep in pace with an HD 5970......... Kinda a big difference in power consumption, heat and cost of the cards.

Now, if this statement was made on an HD 3xxx, i wouldn't even question it as i know F@H was really good on those cards.

Now i cant wait for F@H to get the Client version 7 (and new core for AMD gpus) out this quarter to take advantage of all the power these new cards have.

 

[Niva]

Had a 9700 pro board from Tyan which I ended up using until last year. Incredible card and imo the first time AMD utterly spanked the competition when that card was released.

 

[Darkv1]

This article brings back a lot of memories.

7200
9600XT
X800PRO
X1800XT
X1950XTX

Hopefully I can switch back to camp AMD when my next system update rolls around...

 

[d33dave]

a retrospective and no pic or mention of the 9700pro? the author's licence to comment on ATI should be revoked.

 

[insanepuppet]

Sniff Sniff, RIP ATI.....Is AMD going to continue to produce cards, just under the AMD name? Reason I ask is, lets say I want to buy another ATI video card like I have for crossfire, do I need to rush and buy it now? Or will AMD cards still crossfire with ATI? Are ATI cards coming off the shelves to be replaced?

 

[aaron686]

I have a x1300 pro as well as a Nvidia 6200 passive cooled

 

[dragonsqrrl]

[citation][nom]edalbkrad[/nom]You do know that ATI / AMD designed the HD5970 for high end gaming and not folding so it doesnt really matter to their target market if older nvidia counterparts such as a GTX285 can fold better.[/citation]
I believe warmon6 was questioning the accuracy of the statement made by Igor, not arguing the relevance of the HD5970's Folding performance.

 

[dragonsqrrl]

[citation][nom]InsanePuppet[/nom]Sniff Sniff, RIP ATI.....Is AMD going to continue to produce cards, just under the AMD name? Reason I ask is, lets say I want to buy another ATI video card like I have for crossfire, do I need to rush and buy it now? Or will AMD cards still crossfire with ATI? Are ATI cards coming off the shelves to be replaced?[/citation]
The only thing that's changing is the brand name, nothing more.

 

[jalek]

I still have about a dozen RageII's in a bag. Why? I don't know.
Driver issues aside, the only hardware failures I've had were fans, even on those finger-burning All-in-Wonder cards. Not so much luck with nVidia hardware.

 

[Guest]

The EGA wonder was great! You could drive a CGA (cheap) monitor with it to get better EGA color.

Mach8 was the processor, the card was an ATI 8514/A Ultra card.

 

[Conscab]

I'll miss the ATI logo. From '98, I used and collected the Rage IIc, Rage 128 Pro, Radeon 9200 pro, 9700 PRO -- THE daddy of that time, x1300 pro, 4850 pro among other cards.
ATI was, and still is, a strong reference point.

 

[andyross63]

I think my first ATI video card was a Mach32 or maybe even the Mach8, possibly on my 386/25! I then had a few others, including a Radeon or 2.

In addition to video cards, ATI also had modems. I used to have a 2400 baud with MNP and V.something compression.

 

[warmon6]

[citation][nom]edalbkrad[/nom]You do know that ATI / AMD designed the HD5970 for high end gaming and not folding so it doesnt really matter to their target market if older nvidia counterparts such as a GTX285 can fold better.[/citation]

[citation][nom]dragonsqrrl[/nom]I believe warmon6 was questioning the accuracy of the statement made by Igor, not arguing the relevance of the HD5970's Folding performance.[/citation]

+1

I did kinda add the folding performance to show that F@H currently isn't even using the power of the HD5970 but overall im asking mainly about the statement. when you read the HD5970 on here, It mentions "The computing power of a single HD 5970 is all it takes to get to the top ten in the protein folding charts." it opens the question of where he got the statement to say that.

As for it being high end gaming..... You have a lot to learn my good friend.

This card is extremely good at gpgpu task like rendering.

 

[belardo]

ATI EGA - 1988: 2+ years after the Amiga computer ($600~1000) which had 4096 color pallet that could display 4096 colors (320x200) or 16 colors (640x400). EGA could only show 16colors out of 64 in 640x350.
VGA for PC (256 colors = 16 in 640x480 or 256 in 320x200).

ATI card's I've owned:

ATI Rage 128 (before Voodoo1) - in which for some games like EIDO's fighter plan game/sim (forgot the name )look great at the time because of its 24bit pallette.
Then various voodoo and geforce 2~4 cards
ATI 9800 PRO
ATI 4670 (Today, still - I spend money on dates and clubing, rather than video card heheh)

You've guys need to review the old reviews. From the 9800Pro ~ XTX 1950, ATI was on top most of the time. The 1800 series was above the 6800, and the 1900 series was constantly beating the Geforece 7800/7900s.
ATI's weakness during the 9800~XT1900 series is that their MID-RANGE cards kind of sucked... The GeForce cards were cheaper and just as fast.

 

[michaelahess]

I've owned one of every card (multiple within some model lines) except the ega wonder and the 5k series. You missed the Integra btw, which I also owned. The Maxx was the only dual GPU card I ever had though.

 

[pabeader]

[citation][nom]andyross63[/nom]I think my first ATI video card was a Mach32 or maybe even the Mach8, possibly on my 386/25! I then had a few others, including a Radeon or 2.In addition to video cards, ATI also had modems. I used to have a 2400 baud with MNP and V.something compression.[/citation]

right with ya there. Mach 8. Had to BBS into their server to get the latest and greatest drivers!!