how often do you guys replace your GPUs?

[angry_ducky]

But where the hell do you buy a laptop GPU?

 

[trunks512]

radeon7500(2years)-->radeon9600pro(2years)-->7800gtx(currently)-->dx10 card

 

[NumenorLord]

Unknown computer (it only had a 5" floppy drive, and I thought 3.5" floppies were a wondrous and new technology that were just too new for my PC) -> PIII 350 MHz onboard -> Celeron 500 MHz onboard -> P4 2 GHz onboard -> upgrade 64 mb PCI MX440 -> upgrade 128 mb PCI FX5200 -> AMD Athlon XP 2500+ 128 mb FX5700 -> P4 630 3 GHz 256 mb 6800

 

[angry_ducky]

(it only had a 5" floppy drive, and I thought 3.5" floppies were a wondrous and new technology that were just too new for my PC)

ROFL! 🙂

Even a 5" floppy is still too new and wondorous for my PC.

 

[RichPLS]

oooh, you have a mini drive, eh? Size doesn't matter anyways

 

[angry_ducky]

oooh, you have a mini drive, eh?

My mini drive is my iPod Nano. Works pretty well, except it's almost full BECUASE I GOT THE 2 GIG VERSION! My cousin got like $60 off her iPod Video becuase she got a teacher to buy it for her. I still miss my old iPod Mini.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

I'm always amazed(seriously) at the computer heritage you grew up with. It's no wonder you manage to juggle all of the different tech these days, and are able to relate to or give insight to most posters questions/problems.

Well the thing is both my parents worked for IBM's Engineering LAB in Toronto, so I was exposed to PCs from an early age, I just wish I had been more savy and developed a tech company after high school so I could've sold it for mega-zillions during the .com boom. I did develop and interest in the hardware and new gear though since there was always something cool around the corner, and I was often used by my dad to figure out stuff that wasn't always intuitive (I seem to have a nack for that)

I still have lotsa friends though that work in various tech industries, like myself, and I talk to them all the time. Two of my friend work with PIC processors and PCB design (in completely unrelated fields) and we always chat about this stuff and what they're working on which usually relates to this stuff too.

On top of all of this though, your oppinion can be skewed at times :tongue:

Well aren't we all to some extent. I do have personal favourites, IBM is definitely one of them, and I do personally rank the graphics chips, but when someone's buying I wouldn't skew anything (at least I'd do my best) because I know it's not about preference, just the facts.

Just like your change to nV, it's an ever evolving marchitecture-place, where last year I would've said SM3.0 is pointless to buy for the GF6 series use it as a 1 point tie breaker, now I'd say, it's a nice add-on if you have no other ability to move to the GF7 or X1K series, then think of it as a 5 point issue. It may become somewhat more useful as time goes on, like the option for FP16-HDR in Oblivion. But is the perfromance delta still making that a 'killer app' the way it is for the X1K and GF7?

It's like saying someone should get the X1300 or even X1600 over the GF7600GT because the X1300 can do HDR+AA, not a chance.

I'm never steadfast in anything but my desire to once again own a Matrox product, and maybe a nice Thinkpad again (despit F'in Lenovo!), that's worth spending money on for all aspect of my computing, heck if Matrox had a P650 when I built my editing rig, or even when I first built the gaming rig, I would've move the R9000 to the gaming rig and put the P650 in there, but $500+CDN for a Parhelia, even my love of Matrox isn't that strong for a computer I would use 20% of the time at best, and really most of that time was spent letting it do all the rendering/ripping/producing/authoring.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

that is freakin cool man... I cannot come close to that history... how cool that must have been.

It was kinda neat, especially when going to the lab and looking at the latest stuff before it was released to the public. My favourite was stuff we take for granted now, when my dad worked in the Image Applications department (like I did for another company just a few years back) in the early 80s he had access to ultra quality/price scanners and printers and some then advanced, but now rudementary image software. We took a picture of a Lotus and a picture of a Vector (my two favourite cars of the time) and then essentially photochopped them into an accident, and made the poster "Wasted Dreams", pretty cool. That to me was what computers should be about, neat stuff like that, and now it is, heck what took the two of us about 3 days worth of work someone could do on their own with Photoshop in about an hour. Stuff like that was truely neat.

before graphics cards I startded piddling around on a texas instruments (TI99?) comp in school, and then went to an appleIIc. I did basic on both, and had a tandy trs80 at home.

Yep my cousin had a 'Trash-of-the-80s'. 8)

Played games on data cassette tapes, all text rpg's that sucked me in.

Temple of Apshai was an IBM PC game that while we had the monochrome monitor only was TEXT and I played it every night after school, then about month later we finally got an Electrahome CGA monitor and OOh the joy of 2D game play! 8) I also had MicrosoftAdventure which was only text based and the phrases remind me of Hack "You are in a maze of twisty passages all alike." 8O I also had M$ Decathalon and pretty much killed the [ and ] keys on the keyboard because of that game. Then I made a few of my own like skiing game using the basic draw command. Ahh the olden days.

That is about it while the console dark side swallowed me in for years. Wasn't until GLquake (that i mentioned earlier) that I came back to the light. 😉

I never got too too heavy into the console route but we did have the early colecovision and I can't remember who made our pong style game that had the hockey plastic sheet you put over the TV, and then NES.

Still cant pretend to have that deep of heritage in comps. rock on grape.

Just a question of 'the family business' more than anything.
It's funny what you remember, like I remember IBM's gigantic Japanese keyboard in the Lab's common room, and playing checkers against other people from around the Globe, playing one of dad's friend's in Germany quite often, and this was on old dumb terminals in the late 70s!

Truely it is amazing going from those old monochrome, floppy, accoustic coupler days to today. I'm sure some people saw the changes quite well, but most people either over-exagerated them (we'll be driving flying cars in 2000, or made them weird (everyone will have a giant fridge size computer in their home).

Now if only I could've made a little more money for myself doing this. :mrgreen:

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

But where the hell do you buy a laptop GPU?

Usually computer surplus stores and e.Bay.
They are the rarest of the rare though, so it's not as practical now.

But the fact that MSI and others are moving to the ability to order them individually is nice, you kinda need that for MSI's SLi solution to work as an upgrade path anyways for their add in card.

I wonder if ATi sells AXIOM boards on their own, I don't see them on their 'store' site, but maybe if you contact them, since they sell most other items, they may have direct dealers.

 

[sojrner]

... "You are in a maze of twisty passages all alike." 8O I also had M$ Decathalon and pretty much killed the [ and ] keys on the keyboard because of that game. Then I made a few of my own like skiing game using the basic draw command. Ahh the olden days.

ya, I remember some of those cryptic messages. laughable now, but I was so into the game with my imagination going wild that it never phased me at the time. I really thought I was in that twisty passage maze! Never ceases to amaze me how the lack of any "eye candy" like today could still suck me in...

...of course when I saw bard's tale on my friend's comodor64 I was freaked. The realism! 😛 so ended my affinity for text based anything.

...I can't remember who made our pong style game that had the hockey plastic sheet you put over the TV...

If I remember, that was the Magnavox Odyssey. could have been the intellivision, but I think it was the magnavox one. It was cool in it's day man. Big 'ol "boxes" w/ the knobs on the side... talk about ergonomics.

I actually met Ralph Baer few years ago, the engineer that invented the Odyssey. Amazing man. Started the idea in the 50's, had the design and prototypes since the early 60's... but no-one understood what it really was, the concept of "video game" was only his fantasy, no-one else "got" it. He had designs on making the game do sports, adventures... pretty much what atari and others did later. Talk about not being able to capitalize... I wonder what would have happened if it had come out that much earlier? wonder if it would have sped things up (innovation wise) and we would be further than we are now... things that make you go hmmm

...and then NES.

ahh, the nes... my console addiction started w/ the atari first. I still used the computer text based stuff, but atari was courting me. Then the nes came in and zelda swept me off my feet. I still fire that game up on emulation from time to time 'cause it was so fun. I actually had a friend's kid come up to me about a year ago w/ his gameboy running super mario 3 (looking better than the original mind you even though the small screen) and asked me if I had seen that game ('cause it was "new" and all). Should have seen his face when I told him how old it really was... and ya, I had seen it. 😉

Still made me feel old. :?

I'm sure some people saw the changes quite well, but most people either over-exagerated them (we'll be driving flying cars in 2000, or made them weird (everyone will have a giant fridge size computer in their home).

remember the movie War Games? Computers not only the size of fridges, but making our decisions for us too! END OF THE WORLD! :lol:

 

[kickbutt]

"somthing 256" ISA
Trident 512k ISA
Cirus 5440 1Mb VLB
Matrox Millenium 4Mb PCI
Intel 740 8Mb AGP(running at 100MHz AGP) + voodoo2 12Mb
TNT2
GeForce2 MX
GeForce2 Pro?
GeForce3 (the fast one)
Geforce 4 ti
GeForce 6800 128Mb plain AGP (running now)

got the geforce 2 Pro from a friend who uppgraded
Got good deals on the GF3 and 4 (im was in the comp hardware biz)
Got the GF 6800 when the GF4 died for like 320$.

As it looks right now I will keep the GF6800 for 3-6month atleast.

Would I change now then I would prob go for a 7600 for the price/ performance.

I mean I can get a GFX for like 1000$ but do I get "that" much more from it then what I can with one for 200-250$?
And what can I and my family do for the $ I save...

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

...of course when I saw bard's tale on my friend's comodor64 I was freaked. The realism! 😛 so ended my affinity for text based anything.

That was like Ultima for me.

If I remember, that was the Magnavox Odyssey. could have been the intellivision, but I think it was the magnavox one. It was cool in it's day man. Big 'ol "boxes" w/ the knobs on the side... talk about ergonomics.

Yeah I think it was the MagnetBox, way back before I really cared about names, and we gave that to my cousins once we were done with it. It was pretty cool at the time.

I actually met Ralph Baer few years ago, the engineer that invented the Odyssey. Amazing man. Started the idea in the 50's, had the design and prototypes since the early 60's... but no-one understood what it really was, the concept of "video game" was only his fantasy, no-one else "got" it.

Yeah I rember seeing something about him on tech TV, but the one they showed there had a ton of those foil overlays, Ours had Tennis, Soccer and Hockey. Maybe they were different in Canada.

He had designs on making the game do sports, adventures... pretty much what atari and others did later. Talk about not being able to capitalize... I wonder what would have happened if it had come out that much earlier? wonder if it would have sped things up (innovation wise) and we would be further than we are now... things that make you go hmmm

Could be, but if you think about it alot of it also had to do with the technology allowing the systems to add features. So we may still be where we are today. But imagine if some of the collision stuff and such that he did came out earlier, would the light pens and mice from Xerox Park have come out earlier, or were they also technology contrained?

ahh, the nes... my console addiction started w/ the atari first.

You know I forgot to mention the intellivision, which we had, and my neighbour had Atari. Both of them were great and we played tons of combat with the Atari and then baseball on the Intellivision.

I still used the computer text based stuff, but atari was courting me. Then the nes came in and zelda swept me off my feet.

For me the NES was at bording school and we played SuperDodgeBall, Hockey and Baseball for hours and hours. We played a world series once for about 40+ hours non stop of taking breaks to go to the dinning hall (or order pizza) and bathroom, but only when it wasn't your team's turn to play.
Probably still to this day the longest gaming session I've ever been a part of, even longer than my Xbox Morrowind experience.

I still fire that game up on emulation from time to time 'cause it was so fun. I actually had a friend's kid come up to me about a year ago w/ his gameboy running super mario 3 (looking better than the original mind you even though the small screen) and asked me if I had seen that game ('cause it was "new" and all). Should have seen his face when I told him how old it really was... and ya, I had seen it. 😉

Yeah I can imagine. I still remember when MarioBros came out in the Arcade!

remember the movie War Games? Computers not only the size of fridges, but making our decisions for us too! END OF THE WORLD! :lol:

LOL, the funny thing about WAR GAMES was that unlike the other movies of the era, it was kinda realistic about the computer usage, and that social engineering was the best hack method, not the brute force attack they protray as being a single key stroke and 2 minute procedure in most movies. The accoustic coupler alone made me laugh.
Of course that Joshua/Woper computer was unrealistic, but looking at Oblivion, I wouldn't be surprised if we're getting nearer that eventuallity every day, and they still make freezer/container truck sized computer, they just have a ton of Blades, or Opterons in them.
Want to have a laugh at reality, go check the prices of some old CRAY supercomputers when they come up for auction on eBay or elsewhere (last one I almost big on was at a Government auction in Toronto), they have the power of like a Pentium 200mhz and cost $1-5million at the time, and now sell for about $1000. They would make a mice bench in the foyer, that's what I want one for.

 

[mursh]

I went:

ATI Rage 4MB AGP Card
3Dfx Voodoo Banshee 16MB AGP Video Card
3Dfx Voodoo 5 64MB (32MBx2) AGP Card
Nvidia Geforce 3 64MB AGP Card
ATI 9700pro 128Mb AGP Card
Nvidia Geforce 6800GT 256Mb AGP Card
Next will be either a ATI or Nvidia DX 10 card


AGP has served me well.

Kinda funny that ive bought 2 cards from every major company over the years. Who will break the 3 card mark? Will it be ATI or Nvidia.... Cant wait for the DX10 wars to start.

 

[sojrner]

Could be, but if you think about it alot of it also had to do with the technology allowing the systems to add features. So we may still be where we are today. But imagine if some of the collision stuff and such that he did came out earlier, would the light pens and mice from Xerox Park have come out earlier, or were they also technology contrained?

that would have made things different as a kid for sure... 😉

For me the NES was at bording school and we played SuperDodgeBall, Hockey and Baseball for hours and hours. We played a world series once for about 40+ hours non stop of taking breaks to go to the dinning hall (or order pizza) and bathroom, but only when it wasn't your team's turn to play.
Probably still to this day the longest gaming session I've ever been a part of, even longer than my Xbox Morrowind experience.

My longest session was with populous on nes. That game was so revolutionary at that time. My brother and I sat up for an entire weekend, friday night through sunday night trying to "win" that game. We knew that there were "999" levels and you jumped over more the better you did on the last one. We alternated from playing the system to playing each other as a "break" lol... good memories.

LOL, the funny thing about WAR GAMES was that unlike the other movies of the era, it was kinda realistic about the computer usage, and that social engineering was the best hack method, not the brute force attack they protray as being a single key stroke and 2 minute procedure in most movies. The accoustic coupler alone made me laugh.
Of course that Joshua/Woper computer was unrealistic, but looking at Oblivion, I wouldn't be surprised if we're getting nearer that eventuallity every day, and they still make freezer/container truck sized computer, they just have a ton of Blades, or Opterons in them.
Want to have a laugh at reality, go check the prices of some old CRAY supercomputers when they come up for auction on eBay or elsewhere (last one I almost big on was at a Government auction in Toronto), they have the power of like a Pentium 200mhz and cost $1-5million at the time, and now sell for about $1000. They would make a mice bench in the foyer, that's what I want one for.

you mean that to create "a multiheaded hydra that sniffs out digital footprints" on some "modern" movies by randomly typing for a few minutes while seeing 3-d objects revolve on multiple monitors where your code should be is not realistic? how obsurd! 8O

I agree though, i mentioned war games just because i love that movie so much, even with it's apocolyptic message.

and yes, a CRAY coffee table or something like that would rock. You got me wanting one now, thanks. 😉