Discussion First GPU That Made the Difference?

[gamerk316]

For me, I had a rather odd path over the years:

• Voodoo 3 [Family PC]

• Geforce 2 MX 400 [First owned PC]
• NVIDIA 5500 [Mid-life upgrade]
• NVIDIA 7800 Ultra [Upgrade to allow DOOM3 to be playable]

• NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GX2 [New PC; 9650 C2Q based]
• ATI 4890 [Upgrade due to unstable FPS with 9800 GX2; died after three months]

• NVIDIA GeForce 470 [New PC; i7 2600 based]
• NVIDIA 770 GTX [Mid-life upgrade]

• NVIDIA 980 GTX [New PC; i7 7700k based]
• NVIDIA 3080 Ti [Mid-life upgrade; resulted in system instability]

• NVIDIA 4070 Ti [New PC; RYZEN 7900X based]

 

[digitalgriffin]

I think the first graphics card I purchased was the S3 Virge, but I have to say, the first time I was really wowed by graphics was with my original Amiga 500 and the game F/A-18 Interceptor. I don't think I even purchased a graphics card for my AST 486DX2-50 even when playing Doom II or Leisure Suit Larry. A few years later, I built my first system (PIII-800mhz, 128MB RAM later upgraded to 256MB). A few years later, I heard of a new game coming out that even had my non-PC (computer) friends excited. It was a MMORPG called City of Heroes. Unfortunately, my computer was severely limited and not even up to MSR. With what limited funds I had, I purchased an extra 512MB RAM module and an ATI Radeon 9200. I later upgraded that system to an Athlon X2-4800+ and later still with an 8800GTS AGP

I was never really one to push the graphics or even purchase/play AAA games, so when it was time to upgrade my card, I wanted something that could do more than just play games and that's when I went with an ATI All-In-Wonder X800XL. That was probably the first time I could really push the graphics (wasn't there a Crysis Demo Mission you could download?). That's when I decided I'd never spend more than $300 on another graphics card. If I'm running through the jungle looking for or evading enemies, I don't need to see just how many leaves are on that branch or how many blades of grass there are.

Of course, now you can't even get a mid-ranged card for under $300...

-Wolf sends

I loved FA-18 interceptor on the Amiga.

 

[digitalgriffin]

My big leaps were

9800 Pro
and
7970 3GB

 

[COLGeek]

I need to sit down and list all the GPUs I have owned. MANY!

Most were very good at the time. A couple were very regretful, like an Intel AGP i740 I had in 1998. It would not work properly with non-Intel chipsets.

Had some VIA and SIS cards during those years as well.

 

[Order 66]

Intel AGP i740

Hang on, this was a dedicated GPU?! I didn't know that Intel had made dedicated GPUs before Project Larrabee.

 

[Eximo]

Paradise Pipeline 64 (1MB) - Pentium 83Mhz Overdrive, 16MB 70ns EDO ram.
Voodoo2 12 MB (SLI)
Voodoo3 2000
Voodoo3 3000 (pretty sure I had two of these in different systems at one point, you could find them really cheap for a while there) Celeron 466Mhz / AMD K6 166 (233Mhz)
Geforce 2 MX400
Geforce FX 5200 Athlon XP 1800+
Geforce FX 5500? It was something. I didn't have it for long. I think I gave the 5200 to my brother.
Geforce 6600 Athlon XP 2800+
Voodoo5 5500 (ebay) - Dual Pentium II (My legacy system is a topic in and of itself, need to fire it up and probably change the battery)
Geforce 8800 GTS Athlon X2 6000
Geforce GTX 285
Radeon HD6770 - AMD E350 (HTPC) (Replaced do its inability to properly run a 4K display, even when forced to put out 1080p)
GTX 580 i7-950
GTX 580 SLI i7-4770k
GTX 750Ti (HTPC) i3-4130T
GTX 950 (HTPC) i3-4130T
GTX 980 (SLI) i7-4770k briefly ran the GTX1080.
GTX 1080 i7-7700k / i9-10900F
GT 1030 i7-4770k (3Ghz) (HTPC) / A380
RTX 3080 Ti i9-10900F / i7-12700KF
Intel Arc A380 - i3-12100F (HTPC)

 

[Order 66]

SLI was re-used, though the exact method and acronym were changed.

What did the original acronym stand for?

 

[Eximo]

Scan Line Interleaving. vs Scalable Link Interface.

Every other row of pixels was rendered in 3DFX SLI, and how the Voodoo 5 works as well, it has two GPUs (the unreleased 6000 had 4) With CRTs and phosphor glow it wasn't really that noticeable compared to how it would look if you did that with anything but an OLED today.

It was quite interesting with the Voodoo 2, you had a VGA pass through to each card. Your 2D card would connect its output to an input on the first Voodoo, it would connect its output to the second Voodoo and finally connect to your monitor.

Alternate frame rendering is what was used for Crossfire and SLI in more recent times with each card doing whole frames.

 

[Joseph_138]

Radeon R300 was a game changer. Nvidia was sweating for a while, after that released.

 

[Order 66]

Radeon R300 was a game changer. Nvidia was sweating for a while, after that released.

Wasn’t just a refresh of R200?