The five best Nvidia GPUs of all time: Looking back at over 20 years of Nvidia history

[Bluoper]

It dosnt belong on this list but my 1660 super lasted me almost 5 years, was a trooper all the way, had a crazy memory oc.

 

[Order 66]

I guess I'm still 'young' and missed out on some of them other greats; GTX 680 was when I took interest in DIYPC.



What highlights did they make?
I don't think folks talked about 'em too much.

For me it was around when the 30 series launched when I took interest in PCs. Terrible timing as I was strapped for cash and the whole pandemic situation happened.

 

[Countess_C]

The GeForce 7600 GT wasn't the best, but a very good midrange card back in the day when GPU prices were reasonable.

 

[Bluoper]

Yes, the 3060 could be called "mainstream", a term you used repeatedly when reviewing the 3060



Not once did you say "mid-range". To the contrary, Toms Guide's senior editor Marshall Honorof, DID describe the 3070 (quite correctly) as a mid-range card:



So I stand my by statement that the 3060 is -not- a mid-range card, it's an entry level gaming card, which is synonymous with "mainstream" as it delivers the basics of what a "gamer" would want in the 2020s (1920x1080, full deails, 60fps) from a video card, whereas the 3050, not being a "gamer" card, is incapable of that.

Entry level has a lot more to do with pricing rather than performance, entry level is meant to be the lowest price to just get into pc gaming, the rx 6500 xt is a good example of entry level, it can play modern games at 1080p mid-low settings at about 60fps. When looking back through older gens, entry level can roughly be described as cards with an msrp of about $200 or lower, the 3060 does not fall into that. Also the graph you show is 1080p Ultra settings, why are we using ultra settings as the determining factor of playability, shouldn't lowest settings be what we use to test playability? How about you hop off your ivory tower and look at what happens to the numbers on those graphs when you turn down the settings.

 

[lordmogul]

As many here I'm also surprised that the 8800 GT didn't make it.
And G92 was a bit more than just a die shrink of G80. A full G92 has 64 texture filtering units and 64 texture address units, while G80 has to come buy with 32 texture address units for it's 64 texture filtering units. It comes with 10% more transistors. Saying it's just a die shrink is like saying Comet Lake was just a Coffee Lake shrink.
And the 8800 GT specifically delivered high end performance at a midrange price. I don't see any $300 RTX 4070 Super that beats the 4080 in some games.

Another card that deserves at least a mention was the Geforce 4 Ti 4200.
Yes, it was entry level.
Yes, it only supported DX 8 in a market less than a year away from DX9.
But it performed so well in it (and the succeeding FX cards were terrible at DX9 anyway) that they kept the card in production.
And it outperformed not only the FX 5200 but occasionally even the 6200, that would be like a RTX 2060 beating the 3060 and coming dangerously close to the 4060 while costing less than either.
(Nvidia hasn't produced any entry cards since the GT 1030 and maybe the GTX 1650, so that is the closest modern equivalent)

And before it devolves into full on price talk:
The 4060 is priced in the upper midrange segment. The 4070 is priced as a high end card. $600 MSRP is not midrange, that is wath the 1080 was at release, the 1070 was 380

 

[AgentBirdnest]

Still love my GTX 1060 (6gb) and I plan to take it apart and display it in a frame in future. Nvidia made the perfect card for masses with that gpu. (is it the most popular gpu sold as i know on steam it was there for yrs)


& the GTX 1080 ti is Nvidias mistake.
That gpu was so good it single handedly negated the 20 series....which they will never let happen again.

Same here! I couldn't bring myself to sell my 1060 6GB during the chip shortage/mining boom. It was my favorite video card I've owned - for 1080p performance, efficiency, thermals and noise, and its looks. It's currently being used in my secondary system, but I wanna put it in a display case sometime™.
Just curious - what model do you have? Mine is an MSI Gaming X.

 

[hotaru251]

what model do you have?

evga ftw

 

[AntonyLovric]

Uhm, maybe recently.....

Personally I think the RIVA TNT2 or GeForce2 Ti should be in the list (as well as the 6600 GT) but what do I know. (I had a Riva 128 [beta], that was pretty cool for windows 95)