What is your most fondly remembered GPU that you have previously owned?

[Temple Dancer]

I've been watching a lot of retro and budget build videos on YouTube recently, which has got me thinking back to my previous GPU history.

Top of the list for me is the no-name OEM 3Dfx Voodoo I picked up from a guy who traded out of a lockup. I remember no-one had stock of them at the time as they were newly released. I was desperate to get my hands on one so took a punt and hoped it worked. My jaw hit the floor the first time I saw Quake running under OpenGL.

Second to that is my Gainward GTX670 Phantom. It's still doing solid work in my son's PC and is happily churning out frames at 1080p Medium settings in most titles.
I paid £15 for it when it was only a year old from a serial upgrader who just wanted shot of it after buying a 780Ti. I'd say it's given the most VFM of any hardware purchase I've made.

[adidan]

I held onto my Geforce 2 Ti for longer than I should way back when but it served me well, had a soft spot for that little card.

Also my 4870x2 because, well, times two!

[DAS man]

MSI R9 290 AMD Radeon Graphics Card

Got 6 'B Grade' ones for £45 each just when they were about the best bang for buck mining certain coins. They all appeared brand new, and made me over a grand profit on ebay!

[DanceswithUnix]

Another 3DFx user here.

Nvidia's 4200ti was pretty amazing at the time.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

ATI 9500 PRO for how long it remained relevant as graphics card,and then my HD5850 which was a great mix of performance and power consumption,and sold for more than what I paid for it. On the Nvidia side I had an AGP 6800LE which unlocked itself from 8 vertex pipelines and 4 pixel shaders to 16 pixel pipelines and 6 vertex shaders, and I overclocked the core to nearly that of a 6800 Ultra. It had slightly slower than 6800 Ultra memory though,but it ended up close to 6800GT performance,which was great for the money I spent on it!

[ik9000]

ATI 9500 PRO for how long it remained relevant as graphics card,and then my HD5850 which was a great mix of performance and power consumption,and sold for more than what I paid for it. On the Nvidia side I had an AGP 6800LE which unlocked itself from 8 vertex pipelines and 4 pixel shaders to 16 pixel pipelines and 6 vertex shaders, and I overclocked the core to nearly that of a 6800 Ultra. It had slightly slower than 6800 Ultra memory though,but it ended up close to 6800GT performance,which was great for the money I spent on it!

The two standouts for me would be the 6800GTX-Go which gave me Far Cry and BF2, on max settings at 1920x1200 on a 17" laptop. It ate games at the time and for a few years after it too. Being pre-dual/hybrid graphics it actually worked, and thank goodness I missed out on that whole glitchy driver farce.

The other is my GTX460SO which is still running now a decade later and still whisper silent even on max. Ok, it's long in the tooth and probably won't play recent titles on anything high, but for my needs it still does just fine, and in silence. I have one in two different machines courtesy of buying a pair at the time in anticipation of SLI that never happened when I bought an mATX mobo as a stop-gap then found myself without an upgrade path (thanks Intel).

[Spreadie]

Full GPU? The Geforce 256.

However, the Diamond Monster 3D 3dfx voodoo accelerator card blew me away. I remember the transformation in graphics when I loaded up Quake, or was it Quake II? Think it might have been Quake II. Anyway, I was awestruck.

The Matrox Mystique gets a honourable mention for the ability to buy the cheaper 2Mbyte card and buy the additional 2Mbyte memory upgrade on my next payday.

[Ttaskmaster]

Still my 780 Lightning.

Obviously the best card I'd had up until then, and was a very good overclocker. It continued to do quite well even against the subsequent generation of cards.

But it was the first GPU I'd actually bought brand new, certainly the most I'd ever spent on anything computer-related at the time, and simply the experience of unboxing this thing with all its fancy packaging - the solid inner box, the hinged lid, the separate drawer with multiple compartments for all the accessories - it was like I'd bought a Lamborghini!!

It actually felt like I'd spent the decent money it cost me, rather than just being a 'thing' in cheap padded cardboard packaging that cost a lot. Also the card that finally got me into custom-loop watercooling.

[ik9000]

A quick warning if anyone dares to suggest the fx5200 for this they may find themselves dragged outside for some kind of birch-branch induced rehabilitation.

[Output]

A quick warning if anyone dares to suggest the fx5200 for this they may find themselves dragged outside for some kind of birch-branch induced rehabilitation.

I remember having one of those, but I'm pretty sure that I wasn't a big fan of it for the duration of time I had it.

The HD4870 1GB on the other hand is another matter. At the time, it seemed extra special getting that variant compared to the regular 512MB version. Although I can't remember if there was anything game-wise that it could handle that made it particularly stand out to me, I believe it was great value for money at the time though.

For GPUs, I believe my progression went FX5200 -> 8800GT -> HD4870 1GB -> R9 270 (non-X, but factory OC) -> (current) RX Vega 56 (factory OC).

[DanceswithUnix]

A quick warning if anyone dares to suggest the fx5200 for this they may find themselves dragged outside for some kind of birch-branch induced rehabilitation.

I had one of those. It was passively cooled, and presumably not enough because it died. I did however use it whilst my main graphics card was sent back under warranty, and managed to play Half Life 2 all the way through with it. I think that says more about how well HL2 was able to adapt to a range of graphics performance than the 5200

8800GT was pretty amazing in its day. My mum is still using mine

[Temple Dancer]

Full GPU? The Geforce 256.

Ah that one narrowly missed my list. I remember pre-ordering the Geforce 256 DDR in my (at the time) money (almost) no object built. I had it rattling round in a box of spares that followed me from house move to house move until I finally gave it away. Realy wish I'd kept it now.

[ik9000]

I had one of those. It was passively cooled, and presumably not enough because it died. I did however use it whilst my main graphics card was sent back under warranty, and managed to play Half Life 2 all the way through with it. I think that says more about how well HL2 was able to adapt to a range of graphics performance than the 5200

8800GT was pretty amazing in its day. My mum is still using mine

I still have my passive 5200 in my XP machine for the odd time I need to run some old software that won't play ball on more recent systems. It is still as awful as I recall.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The two standouts for me would be the 6800GTX-Go which gave me Far Cry and BF2, on max settings at 1920x1200 on a 17" laptop. It ate games at the time and for a few years after it too. Being pre-dual/hybrid graphics it actually worked, and thank goodness I missed out on that whole glitchy driver farce.

The other is my GTX460SO which is still running now a decade later and still whisper silent even on max. Ok, it's long in the tooth and probably won't play recent titles on anything high, but for my needs it still does just fine, and in silence. I have one in two different machines courtesy of buying a pair at the time in anticipation of SLI that never happened when I bought an mATX mobo as a stop-gap then found myself without an upgrade path (thanks Intel).

For GPUs, I believe my progression went FX5200 -> 8800GT -> HD4870 1GB -> R9 270 (non-X, but factory OC) -> (current) RX Vega 56 (factory OC).

I have slowed down quite a bit but used to buy too many graphics cards!

My progression was Geforce Go 440/MX440/Ti4200>9500 PRO>X300SE/6200/6600LE/6600GT/6800LE(2)>7300GT/7600GT/7900GS/X1900GT>8500GT/8800GTS 320MB/8800GTS 512MB/HD3870 512MB GDDR4>HD4830>HD5670 GDDR5/HD5850/HD6870>HD7850/GTX660>GTX960/RX470>GTX1080

Only using the GTX960 and GTX1080 now.

[ik9000]

I have slowed down quite a bit but used to buy too many graphics cards!

My progression was Geforce Go 440/MX440/Ti4200>9500 PRO>X300SE/6200/6600LE/6600GT/6800LE(2)>7300GT/7600GT/7900GS/X1900GT>8500GT/8800GTS 320MB/8800GTS 512MB/HD3870 512MB GDDR4>HD4830>HD5670 GDDR5/HD5850/HD6870>HD7850/GTX660>GTX960/RX470>GTX1080

Only using the GTX960 and GTX1080 now.

That is some list! Mine is somewhat easier to remember, and even then I struggle!

MX or FX 256 (i forget which now) > Geforce 6800GTx Go > FX5200 > GTX460SO That's it! (that excludes the work machines which have had various cards, currently an AMD R430 which is laggy and awful!)

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

That is some list! Mine is somewhat easier to remember, and even then I struggle!

MX or FX 256 (i forget which now) > Geforce 6800GTx Go > FX5200 > GTX460SO That's it! (that excludes the work machines which have had various cards, currently an AMD R430 which is laggy and awful!)

I used to have two desktops,and tried to have an Nvidia card in one and an ATI/AMD card in the other,and I also used to get bored and wanted something to have a fiddle with.