High-Resolution Die Imagery Of Nvidia GPUs

[rickzor]

[citation][nom]colonelc[/nom]The 3DFX Banshee. Yeah, I know this article is mainly about Nvidia, but I think this board was one of the first to really suggest where graphics cards and chips were headed. It was the first real "Wow!" since I got my first computer in 1986. (An Amiga 1000) What amazed me most about this particular card was how long I was able to enjoy using it until if finally couldn't do the job any longer. That lead to my getting a Gforce 4 and then and now a Gforce 8600GT. I suppose soon I'll have to climb back to the top of the heap again.[/citation]

Along with my gf3ti500, i use a banshee as a second monitor. There i run divx, internet, youtube, msn etc.

3DFX never though that their banshee would ever be used in such a distant future :]

Or did they..

 

[cutterjohn]

Had misc Rendition Verite, S3 Virge DX(IIRC), and finally a Banshee since most games/apps used Glide and not openGL at the time(x86 PCs, had a SMP Tyan mb at the time too running dual 433 Katmai Celerons with those slotket adapters). Also had some crappy ATI GPUs(Rage/Rage Pro) courtesy of Apple back when I was still drinking the kool-aid moderately and buying the BS about app/game ports, price premiums, etc. (OSX was nice though, but still not worth the added baggage.)

Then next major build went for the new AMD T-Bird plus GF2 which lated me out for many years(Direct3D/opengl were passing Glide by, by then and 3dfx was about to croak). GF2 was still kicking --- as of 4y ago after running nearly 24/7/365 for something like 5-6y. Added a GF6200 shortly before doing a full upgrade(DX9.0c support at a reasonable price and was good enough for that ANCIENT desktop, maybe even too much for it.)

Moved onto AMD X2 4800+ plus a 6200(had a board with a pseudo AGP slot so I used this until I could upgrade) then EVGA 7600GT KO which was still kicking as of a year ago when the 939 gave up the ghost.

Currently mostly using a P8600 + Radeon Mobility HD 4850. BIG mistake, ATI linux drivers still mostly suck(seems like every other cat release is one step forward and two back). Windows drivers are better but still have hiccups like I didn't experience with nVidia drivers + GPUs.

So, as of now I'm planning on GF100 based GPU in new 1366 i7 build unless something goes drastically wrong with Fermi since ATI still hasn't quite figured out how to actually write drivers so I'll be in a quandary of what to do if that happens. (At least the linux OSS drivers are looking good for ATI, but the Windows hiccups are a deal breaker as those should just work. i.e. the ATI GPUs ar enice, but the drivers "feel" jury-rigged... and 10.1(should've skipped this release IMNHO) & 10.2(maybe this one would've worked out better had they skipped 10.1) didn't help matters given what they broke.)

 

[hundredislandsboy]

So, as of now I'm planning on GF100 based GPU in new 1366 i7 build unless something goes drastically wrong with Fermi since ATI still hasn't quite figured out how to actually write drivers so I'll be in a quandary of what to do if that happens. (At least the linux OSS drivers are looking good for ATI, but the Windows hiccups are a deal breaker as those should just work. i.e. the ATI GPUs ar enice, but the drivers "feel" jury-rigged... and 10.1(should've skipped this release IMNHO) & 10.2(maybe this one would've worked out better had they skipped 10.1) didn't help matters given what they broke.)[/quotemsg]

At least ATI seems to improve on their drivers. Lately , Nvidia recalls their "new" drivers, asking users to roll back to previous drivers.

 

[fbson]

Cool gallery, sweet memories...