Discussion First Nvidia / ATI card you've used?

[John Chesterfield]

ASRock 939Dual-SATA2
I had this board as well, paired with an AMD Athlon64 X2 4800+

-Wolf sends

That's the one.

 

[Unolocogringo]

Wow lots of memories in this thread.
My first computer was a business machine for CAD.
Then came along games and Jane's simulators and we needed another computer so my son and I could play games together.
Then another for the wife of course.
Then we were given access to some wireless equipment on loan.
1-2 mbps connection. Fast at the time.
Nothing like 3 homes connected wirelessly for family night AOE/Midtown Madness Cops and Robbers,
Trying to ride the train in Monster Truck madness.
And of course Descent.
Great memories.

Almost for got my first Folding card 8800GT. Gamed very well too!
Still have it today. Along with my Banshee,6800GT & P3 1.26@1587 and 256mb 133 ram or 1425 with 512mb. I only had one stick that would do 167 FSB speed. And the 6800GT was fine with 89mhz AGP speeds.

 

[ohio_buckeye]

My first computer was a Commodore 64 when I was 5 years old.

First pc had an amd k6 200 MHz with 32mb ram. Can’t remember the gpu.

My first graphics card was a diamond multimedia s3 savage with 32mb ram on it.

I think my first amd gpu was an ati Radeon 9000 pro back in the old days of agp.

Seems like my first personal nvidia gpu was a lower end 700 series low profile pcie card maybe like a 710? I’m unsure. This was the days before the 8800gt. I know because I later owned a 9600gt and being excited about that, and later getting a 9600gt.

The cool card at the was when I got my amd Radeon 7950 hd. That card for the era of 2012 and for a while I think seemed like a beast. I got it on eBay used at the time. 3gb card but man that seemed like a great card at the time.

Current pc is an i5 12600kf with an msi z690 pro WiFi ddr4 board, and an asrock phantom gaming 6800xt, and 32gb ddr4 ram with a 500gb nvme, a 2tb nvme for storage, and I think I carried over another 1tb sata ssd and a 2tb sata as well.

 

[JWNoctis]

A Riva TNT2 with 32MB, the very first thing the display would show every boot even before BIOS. I wonder if it was vbios or however it was known those days.

Never put it quite to good use with what little I did with computers - i.e. flash games - at that innocent age. Those were the days when just opening the wrong website would change your browser title (norminally "- Internet Explorer", I think it was IE5) to something weird.

First card to actually game on, a GeForce FX 5200. Minecraft alpha - or was it beta, with just the creative mode - at 20fps and maybe 4-block rendering distance was the staple near the end of those days, and things like the original HL1-based Counter Strike before that. The poor thing was pretty hopeless and helpless with games featuring actual DX9 graphics.

 

[PEnns]

3DFX Voodoo3, then 8800GTX.

 

[Eximo]

I was never really into heavy games like Crysis, so I was a bit underwhelmed considering the cost (~$300 at the time). It did handle the game I was playing at the time (City of Heroes) very well. Only reason I gave it away was because I wanted a return to TV Tuner capabilities. My next card was the ATI All-in-Wonder X1800XL.

-Wolf sends

Question, did you ever run into needing to flip SLI mode on in games with the 8800GTS 640MB? The 'normal' ones were all 320MB and I particularly remember the original Call of Duty Modern Warfare wouldn't run properly unless SLI was switched on in the game's settings. Took me weeks to figure that one out.

I didn't trust the temperatures that Crysis generated on my 8800GTS, only played it briefly.

 

[Wolfshadw]

Question, did you ever run into needing to flip SLI mode on in games with the 8800GTS 640MB? The 'normal' ones were all 320MB and I particularly remember the original Call of Duty Modern Warfare wouldn't run properly unless SLI was switched on in the game's settings. Took me weeks to figure that one out.

I didn't trust the temperatures that Crysis generated on my 8800GTS, only played it briefly.

No. I never even knew there was an SLI mode. Don't recall ever checking to see if all 640MB were being used.

-Wolf sends

 

[Eximo]

It may have gotten fixed in driver or game at some point, but without it on I would get maybe 5-10 FPS and it wasn't consistent either, a huge mess of stutters and buffer dumping where it would speed up in FPS. I think it must have been rendering frames in one half of the memory or the other, and then switching between them as if it was doing AFR.

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

My first Nvidia card was the venerable, and trailblazing Geforce 256 AGP! I came from a Voodoo 3 3000 pci to that. The difference was huge.

From AMD/ATI, the 9700 Pro. Oh, what a beast.

 

[JeffreyP55]

What was the first GPU you've used? Were you satisfied with the performance? What did you mostly do with it?

In my case that would be the GeForce2 MX 400 w/ 64 MB memory.

If you could go back in time and had the ability to choose another GPU as your very first one - would you?

The intermittently lingering colors and depthless skies and verges of pale framerates and dragging scenery in shadows and brilliant tinges and leaves and grasses tinged serenely, ubiquitously - that's what the cool games provided and what the GeForce2 could provide for me. It was quite beautiful. That card marked a revolution in gaming and graphics, despite being trashed by cards coming out only a few years later.

Do write up and thank you!

1987 don't remember what video card. I was still into Amiga's which were leap years ahead of PC's at the time.

 

[logainofhades]

My first GPU was an SIS 315 64MB AGP card. This one actually.
http://www.telecommander.com/pics/links/vgacards/sis31564magprt/sis31564magprt.htm

 

[stonecarver]

My first GPU was an SIS 315 64MB AGP card. This one actually.

I remember those. I never bought it but one showed up in my back than spare parts .

 

[austiny20]

What was the first GPU you've used? Were you satisfied with the performance? What did you mostly do with it?

In my case that would be the GeForce2 MX 400 w/ 64 MB memory.

If you could go back in time and had the ability to choose another GPU as your very first one - would you?

The intermittently lingering colors and depthless skies and verges of pale framerates and dragging scenery in shadows and brilliant tinges and leaves and grasses tinged serenely, ubiquitously - that's what the cool games provided and what the GeForce2 could provide for me. It was quite beautiful. That card marked a revolution in gaming and graphics, despite being trashed by cards coming out only a few years later.

Do write up and thank you!

My first GPU was in my iMac, the integrated Intel Iris Xe iGPU. It was very OK at the most, borderline terrible. I tried gaming and it could hold a 60 fps, but then it would throttle terribly and the entire system would slow down to basically useless. I would definitely change it if I could. At that time, I would get a GTX 1080 Ti w 16 gigs ddr4

 

[danny009]

NVIDIA GT 8800, poor thing fried itself after a overnight downloading a MMO in early 2000s.

 

[Tinderbox (UK)]

My first, was an ATI XPERT@Play, It came out in 1997 and it has 4mb of memory.

 

[artk2219]

My first GPU was an SIS 315 64MB AGP card. This one actually.
http://www.telecommander.com/pics/links/vgacards/sis31564magprt/sis31564magprt.htm

Oh man i remember those, i still have one actually, i picked it up from someone at some point like 20+ years ago, it made a great test card in the early - late 2000's.

 

[Unolocogringo]

My first, was an ATI XPERT@Play, It came out in 1997 and it has 4mb of memory.

I put one of those in a friends machine. It was what he could afford. When it ran it ran fine but eventually out of nowhere crash.

 

[BrickStation]

My first computer was the household Compaq back in the Bronze Age of computers, where you connect through dial-up to play online games like Runescape. I wouldn't know what GPU it had; probably something standard for consumers.

Years later, my first personal computer was an old HP Z220 SFF that I hand-picked out of the trash and it was equipped with the big 1GB Nvidia Quadro 900 I believe. It was terrible, wouldn't even play Skyrim Classic Edition on the lowest settings. I immediately upgraded the machine with the big 2GB Asus GT 1030 CSM and used that for over five years until I upgraded to a new machine and installed an 8GB PNY GTX 1070 OC.

I would consider the GT 1030 as my first Nvidia card. Bought it at Microcenter in 2017 for $66.99 retail.

 

[Endre]

What was the first GPU you've used? Were you satisfied with the performance? What did you mostly do with it?

In my case that would be the GeForce2 MX 400 w/ 64 MB memory.

If you could go back in time and had the ability to choose another GPU as your very first one - would you?

The intermittently lingering colors and depthless skies and verges of pale framerates and dragging scenery in shadows and brilliant tinges and leaves and grasses tinged serenely, ubiquitously - that's what the cool games provided and what the GeForce2 could provide for me. It was quite beautiful. That card marked a revolution in gaming and graphics, despite being trashed by cards coming out only a few years later.

Do write up and thank you!

Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4650 (512MB).

 

[artk2219]

Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4650 (512MB).

Nice, I remember I used one of those in a build for a friend with a single core sempron that had been unlocked into a dual core, 2gb ram, and a 500gb hard drive. He gamed on it daily for a couple of years or so before he upgraded himself to Sandy Bridge and a Radeon HD 7000 series card.

 

[Colif]

What was the first GPU you've used? Were you satisfied with the performance? What did you mostly do with it?

first graphics chip I had on PC was an ATI Rage Pro that was onboard an IBM Motherboard
First 3d GPU I ever had was a Voodoo 2

I don't recall exactly what first Nvidia I had was, MX something? early 2000's

first graphics I had before PC? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_6847

i remember when it was a challenge just to draw lines on screen. We come a long way.

 

[jnjnilson6]

Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4650 (512MB).

In 2010 I had an HP Pavilion DV6 with:

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium
CPU: AMD Athlon II M300 (2 Cores @ 2.0 GHz)
RAM: 4 GB
GPU: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4530 (512 MB DDR3)
HDD: 320 GB

It was quite a good machine for gaming and entertainment.

How was the Radeon HD 4650? What were the other components if you'd recall? Those were the magical subtle times, tinged evanescently in the mellow recesses of the past; like an endless window glaring upon endless possibilities. I still remember how cool and refreshing Windows 7 seemed and how cool and refreshing it was to jump into the world of gaming back then. 👍

 

[artk2219]

In 2010 I had an HP Pavilion DV6 with:

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium
CPU: AMD Athlon II M300 (2 Cores @ 2.0 GHz)
RAM: 4 GB
GPU: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4530 (512 MB DDR3)
HDD: 320 GB

It was quite a good machine for gaming and entertainment.

How was the Radeon HD 4650? What were the other components if you'd recall? Those were the magical subtle times, tinged evanescently in the mellow recesses of the past; like an endless window glaring upon endless possibilities. I still remember how cool and refreshing Windows 7 seemed and how cool and refreshing it was to jump into the world of gaming back then. 👍

The 4650 was a decent little card for the time, a smidge faster on average than a Geforce 8800 GS, 9600 GSO, or Radeon HD 3850, without needing a PCIE power cable. It had an MSRP of $70 dollars, I miss being able to get a decent entry level card for $100 dollars or less. It was a good card for older titles at the time, or for newer games at lower settings. Also yes, it could run Crysis 😀.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/2616/4

 

[Eximo]

With inflation that is $100.

A380 6GB is $110. It runs many games well enough to be useful, and older DX12 titles run very well indeed.

 

[jordanbuilds1]

With inflation that is $100.

A380 6GB is $110. It runs many games well enough to be useful, and older DX12 titles run very well indeed.

also has intel encoding which is usefull for editing and rendering, not a bad card considering the price