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    So what graphics have you guys had over the years?

    Discussion in 'Gaming (Software and Graphics Cards)' started by mobius1aic, Dec 19, 2009.

  1. mobius1aic

    mobius1aic Notebook Deity NBR Reviewer

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    Well for me, I've experienced quite a few of my own computers since getting my first in summer of 2005. I guess I'll start out and go in chronological order of the computer and it's graphics with a brief of each. I'm feeling a bit nostalgic LOL and I like to hear other's experiences, especially with really older stuff..........be as comprehensive as you want.

    Toshiba Satellite R25 Tablet Notebook / Intel Xtreme Graphics 2 w/ 64 MB of shared VRAM (Summer 2005)
    This was my first computer of my own. And yes, did those graphics suck big time, but the computer afforded me the capability to play some PC games and my first forays into online gaming. Played CoD1, Far Cry, Half Life 1, Age of Empires II on it. Within half a year though, I had enough of it's graphic weaknesses, and I really wanted a machine to be really capable of running PC games. As much as I hated the GPU looking back upon it, it was where I learned about computer hardware, the evils of Intel GMA, and how to really understand making a computer work for my gaming and entertainment needs :D

    Gateway MX7515 Notebook / ATi Radeon X600 w/ 64 MB ded. + 64 MB shared VRAM (January 2006)
    Ah, yes. This was the first real machine I had that could really game. It was a beast of a laptop for those days, at least CPU wise, and the X600 was good enough to run pretty much any game at the time, many of them quite competently. I played lots and I MEAN LOTS of Far Cry, CoD1, CoD2 and BF2 on this computer as well as CS:S quite a bit. I think of all my machines past, I miss this one the most of all. It was unfortunately, relatively underpowerd though for gaming in the general sense for a PC. FEAR especially hit this fact home, but for the time, for what I really wanted to play, it was a great machine. Great memories of it. The friend I had sold it to halfway through 2006 only got rid of it early this year when the monitor went out. He played lots of Titan Quest, WoW, and Final Fantasy XI on it, of which it did a great job of. RIP Gateway, RIP.

    HP dv6045nr Notebook / Nvidia Geforce Go 7200 w/ 64 MB ded. + 192 MB shared VRAM (August 2006)
    I bought this thing kind of on a whim, and I somewhat regret it for not realizing how little graphically of an improvement over the Gateway it really was, but it did have a dual core AMD Turion, DDR2 memory (2 GBs of it, whoo hoo!). However, it did have a noticeable difference over the Gateway with 2 GB of RAM as opposed to 1 GB as well as the added shared VRAM helping the GPU out. Basically the stuff I was running on the Gateway I could run with a bit higher resolution and higher framerate. Played a bit of WoW on it as well. Also it was my first foray into overclocking and tweaking, which I think helped to kill it only a year and a half into it's life lol. It's interesting to say that before building my first desktop, I was playing the original STALKER on it and it still looked good on it, even with lower settings I must add. It was a good computer, really liked the media touch keys above the keyboard. It was nice looking too, but at the cost of build quality, typical HP :rolleyes: 3DMark05: ~1600 Marks

    Custom Desktop Ver 1.0 / eVGA Nvidia Geforce 8800GTS 320 MB VRAM (April 2007)
    I bought this thing for my first desktop, and wow, going to that from the Geforce Go 7200 in my HP notebook at the time was almost overwhelming. Most of everything I played at the time I got it and had it was being maxed out @ 1440 x 900 resolution of the monitor I was using, BF2142, FEAR, BF2, CoD2, CoD4, STALKER, Rainbow Six: Vegas etc..... Wasn't until Crysis came along that it was finally getting some challenge and even still it ran Crysis at all high settings in DX9 comfortably. It's still amazing to think, that one of those is still an extremely well to do card these days. Damn thing was huge though LOL. It failed around Summer of 2008, but I still have it and I think it might still work. I need to pop it in and see haha...... 3DMark06: ~9300 Marks

    HP dv4z Series Notebook / Radeon HD 3200 w/ 256 MB shared VRAM (Decemeber 2008)
    I only had this thing a week before I returned it to get the next machine on the list, but at least it gave me some perspective on the performance of the Radeon HD 3200 IGP, which during my time using it was pretty impressive. I could max out BF2 at 1024 x 768 and still have stable framerate. CS:S ran very well, same with HL2, but CoD4 had a very hard time with it. Far Cry didn't run as well as I'd hoped either, but still much better than any previous lappy I had. This version lacked the 64 MB of sideport memory that other HP machines like the tx2xxx tablet series had, but it performed admirably, however I needed more if I wanted to jump back into PC gaming since the exodus of my desktop in summer of 2008 and the death of my HP laptop in February of of the same year....... 3DMark06: None performed.

    Asus G50VT-X1S Notebook / Nvidia Geforce 9800M GS w/ 512 MB GDDR3 VRAM (December 2008)
    What a way to come back into PC gaming. I had been away from it for 5 arduous months, and having this amount of power in a portable machine was awesome. It was just a bit under the capability of the 8800GTS 320 MB in realtime I had equiped in the desktop I had, but still pretty much kicked butt with most games I threw at it: Titan Quest, Medal of Honor Airborne, Crysis, FEAR 2, Far Cry 2, Rainbow Six: Vegas...... though CoD4 seemed to not run around ~60 fps on it without lowering the resolution and killing the AA which was a bit of a disappointment. It's performance with the original STALKER was excellent, but with Clear Sky, not so good thanks to all the new graphical features they added. Either way it's still a kick butt and take no names mobile GPU even after a year of having the computer. Not to mention it's a good computer for messing with clock settings. There is room to mess around with damaging anything. It's only too bad the screen is broken and it's stuck being connected to a TV if I want to use it. However, I have plans for it :cool: 3DMark06: ~9700 Marks using DOX 186.48 drivers IIRC

    Custom Desktop Ver 2.0 / Sapphire ATi Radeon 4670 w/ 1 GB DDR3 VRAM (August 2009)
    Sometimes you get a good deal, and sometimes you get a wonderful deal, and this card was just that. I had wanted to build another desktop, for server experimentation and gaming. I didn't need anything crazy, something that would at least run BF2 @ 1080p maxed out with 2x AA. I decided to start cheap, and the 4670 reflected that: it was only $70 on Newegg and it had an HDMI-out for direct connection to my HDTV, and it exceeded my expectations by leaps and bounds. I also wanted to go ATi since I had Nvidia products beforehand. While it benched weaker than the Geforce 9800M GS in my Asus, it generally slaughtered it in real games, and at higher resolutions especially thanks to the same number or ROPs, but much higher core clock speed. I played pretty much every game I have except Crysis (of course) at 1080p. I really didn't expect that of a card limited to a 128 bit memory bus but so far it's probably my favorite GPU I've ever owned I think, due to it's price, performance, and low power consumption. It's response to OCing was tremendous I must mention, especially with the 128 bit memory bus limiting bandwidth to the GPU. You can see how well it responds in the 3DMark06 scores at the bottom of the paragraph. However, being in the same level of performance for 2.5 years (8800GTS, 9800M GS, 4670) was getting a bit long in the tooth, and I had put alot of forethought into acquiring cheap parts at the time for upgrading later on. It's in storage currently along with the Athlon II 250 3.0 GHz I had just replaced. It may end up in a new cheap build for backup, or I may build a computer and sell it to a friend. Not too sure what I'll do yet. Make me an offer if you want ;) 3DMark06: ~6800 Marks stock speeds; OCed to 800 MHz core/900 MHz memory: ~8000 Marks :eek:

    Custom Desktop Ver 2.1 / Diamond Radeon 5850 1 GB GDDR5 VRAM (December 2009)
    I don't think I can begin to fathom how powerful this thing really is (not to mention the 1 in of length clearance I have with it lol). It runs Crysis in DX10 at max setting at 1080p even with 2x AA and still maintains a great framerate. I've yet to benchmark it, but basically everything I have has been ripped a new one so far. I need to try STALKER CS on it though, and see how it does, though I've tried out the Call of Pripyat benchmark as well as the Unigine benchmark, and it ran those very well.
     
  2. HTWingNut

    HTWingNut Potato

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    I don't think I could list all mine. Think all the way back to mid 1980's...
     
  3. Bog

    Bog Losing it...

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    Mobility Radeon 9100 IGP

    Nvidia GeForce Go 7200 (failed due to Nvidia issue)

    Mobility Radeon HD 3450 w/ 256MB GDDR2

    (Desktop) Radeon 3870X2 - it's not the newest GPU, but it's powerful enough and I bought it for $50 CDN. Not bad!
     
  4. kal360

    kal360 Notebook Consultant

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    ive only had 3 , the ati radeon X800xl and the 2 in my sig

    At the time i loved my x800xl it played far cry/doom3 almost maxed and lasted me all the way till cod4 which it played very well @ 1280x1024

    Then my desktop started dying after 5 years of use, and along came my laptop m570ru with the 8800m gtx. As intoxicating as it was to have a card so much more powerful, excessive use, and lots of travelling with my laptop its started to fail me, random bsod, unstable cpu and more random bsods. which in turn led to....

    my current desktop with 5870s in crossfire and an i7 920 :D
     
  5. Voodoofreak

    Voodoofreak Notebook Deity

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    I remember the first actual 3d accelrator card I had bought was Rendition V2x00.

    I was so psyched to play Quake and Duke Nukem 3D with better resolution.

    After that, its just a haze of numerous video card upgrades.

    However, for notebooks...my list is fairly small. Nvidia 6800 Go->8600M GT->8800M GT
     
  6. HTWingNut

    HTWingNut Potato

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    My first 3D was VooDoo 3D (original consumer 3D card by the way) that ran in a psuedo SLI mode with your existing 2D video card. Unbelievable at the time. Descent 2 was phenomenal. I think my video card paired with that was a 2MB card.
     
  7. Bullit

    Bullit Notebook Deity

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    MatroxMilenium, Geforce DDR, Mobility Radeon9700, Mobility HD4530
     
  8. Kain

    Kain Notebook Evangelist

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    1. Diamond Monster 3D II 12MB (Voodoo2 card).
    2. ATI Radeon 64MB DDR VIVO.
    3. ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 128MB.
    4. ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2600 256MB GDDR3.

    BTW, I still have the Monster 3D II 12MB and ATI Radeon 64MB DDR VIVO.
     
  9. 5482741

    5482741 5482741

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    Compaq Armada E500 -Rage Mobility 8mb
    Dell Inspiron 5100 - ATI Mobility 7500
    Dell Inspiron E1505- ATI Mobility X1400
    Asus G1S - NVIDIA 8600M GT GDDR3
    Clevo M860TU - NVIDIA 9800M GTS
    Clevo M860ETU - NVIDIA GTX 280M
     
  10. KING19

    KING19 Notebook Deity

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    (Old 9 year old HP desktop thats still works currently)Intel Graphics 82810 (something like that)
    HP Pavilion Dv6408 with Nvidia Geforce go 6150 (DEAD use the NVIDIA problem)
    HP Pavilion DV5z with ATI Radeon HD3450 DDR2 ( Currently being used as a family computer)
    Toshiba A500-S6965 with ATI Radeon HD4570 GDDR3 :cool:
     
  11. Soviet779

    Soviet779 Notebook Consultant

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    1st comp - no idea, a colossus with 486SX in it
    2nd - S3 salvage?
    3rd - Geforce 4 mx 440
    4th - Geforce FX 5200
    5th - ATI 9800 PRO (when i learned my games lagged because my card was teh suck :eek: )
    6th - ATI X1900XT (rubbish, died after a few months)
    7th - Geforce 7900 GTO
    8th - 8600m GT DDR2 (move to laptop)
    9th - ??? Probably an ATI HD 5xxx card. 5850 or 5870.
     
  12. tianxia

    tianxia kitty!!!

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    geforce 4 mx440, intel something built on 130nm, and 8600m gs, which is destined to fail.
     
  13. DarkSilver

    DarkSilver MSI Afterburner

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    2001 - Intel VGA (Don't know real name or whatever)
    2007 - Radeon HD2400 256MB DDR2 (Sucks)
    2008 - Nvidia Geforce 9500M GS 512MB DDR2 (Laptop)
    2009 - Radeon HD5870 1GB GDDR5
     
  14. Mastershroom

    Mastershroom wat

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    My first "real" graphics card was an ATi Radeon 9250, in my first custom built desktop. I swapped it pretty soon afterwards for an nVidia GeForce FX5200. I'm pretty sure they both had 128MB. That FX5200 was awesome for Halo: Combat Evolved. :p

    A year or two later, I changed the motherboard and CPU, and got a new GPU to go with it, a GeForce 6600GT, which ran Battlefield 2 nicely.

    Then, about two years ago, I built my latest desktop, with a GeForce 8800GT 512MB.

    My first laptop was a Dell Studio 1535, a little over a year ago, with an ATi Mobility Radeon HD 3450 256MB. It was pretty much crap at anything except Counter-Strike: Source. Earlier this year, the system was replaced with a Studio 1555, with a more powerful Mobility Radeon HD 4570 256MB. This one wasn't so bad; I could run Left 4 Dead 2 and MW2 comfortably before the laptop died.
     
  15. Razor2

    Razor2 Notebook Deity

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    You asked for it:

    Some prehistoric stuff from 1989 onwards to 1998.
    Then 1999 Tseng ET6000 with a Voodoo 1
    Later that year: ATi Rage Fury 32 in a custom desktop with a PIII!
    2001: ATi Radeon 64Mb DDR ViVo, They were not numbered back than :)
    2003: ATi Radeon 9600
    2005: First Notebook, Intel GMA900
    2007: GF8600GT
     
  16. wildman_33

    wildman_33 Notebook Evangelist

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    around 2000: desktop with something 500mhz and an ati graphics card with 8mb. i played games like age of empires and half life 2 on it. Windows 98

    around 2004: upgrade to Sempron 2600+ which ran at 1.1ghz, still works and was used up until last month by my brother and he even used it to play guild wars. it originally had a radeon 9600 but whenever i tried to play games the computer rebooted so we replaced it with a gefore 6200 which it still has now.

    2006: previous system upgraded to athlon 64 3000+ @2.0ghz. this was a great pc along with the 6200 and used to run games like half life 2 in high settings. motherboard failed though after a year due to overheating so the old sempron went back in and has been in to this day

    November 2008: i bought the laptop i have now. cost me £489 which was a bargain at the time, especially for a sony. i remember buying far cry 2 for it and being pleasantly suprised when i managed to play it in medium settings.

    Now: im getting a new monitor for christams and plan on eith making the DIY ViDock or buying a desktop or upgrading the old sempron one and make version 3!
     
  17. wildman_33

    wildman_33 Notebook Evangelist

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    lol i used to play halo CE, it was so much better than the xbox version shame they didnt make any other good ones. halo 2 pc was a huge fail. i blame it on games for windows live
     
  18. ryzeki

    ryzeki Super Moderator Super Moderator

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    All my "gaming" machines have been laptops.

    1) Sony Vaio FX 215, Ati Rage 8MB, AMD Duron 800mhz, 128MB RAM. (2001)
    This was my first machine, and it was quite powerful to boot back then. I could play Unreal tournament on mid-high settings at 800x600, Half Life and Counter strike. Back in the day I was also able to play Warcraft 3 though that ran rather slow. Diablo 2 and Starcraft were the most i played anyways, and those ran fine lol.

    2) eMachines M6810, Ati Radeon 9600 64MB (heavily overclocked), AMD64 2.0ghz, 512MB RAM (2004)
    My second machine and my first actual gaming machine. Wow did this machine had power. It had top of the line CPU, GPU (the high end GPUs weren't out yet) and decent amount of RAM. I was able to play Unreal 2, Doom 3, Titan quest, FarCry and many other games with good mid settings and great fps. I really enjoyed having this machine back in the day :D

    3)Acer Travelmate 4402, Ati Radeon X700 64MB, 2GB RAM, Turion 1.6Ghz (And 7200rpm drive!) (January 2007, though the laptop was bought used)
    This was supposed to be a small upgrade, although the video card was actually near 2 times as powerful (4 pipelines and 2 vertex shaders versus 8pipelins and 6 vertex!) but the slower turion, and the fact that acer made this machine with overheating issues, didn't help one bit. I was able to play games well for a while, even on high settings, but the overheating issue killed my gaming for a long while during late 2007. I still own this machine and it worked well for non gaming purposes, specially with the 7200rpm drive.... It has been the worst build quality machine ever: decolorated, broken and almost in pieces today (The vaio is still in one piece, just doesn't boot anymore xD). I kinda regret this machine.

    4) Asus M50sv-B1, Nvidia 9500M GS, 3GB RAM, Core 2 Duo 2.1ghz (2008)
    My early 2008 purchase and quite an amazing machine. Able to multimedia and game decently. I even finished Crysis on this thing, though it ran on medium-low settings heh. My first 15.4 screen with 1440x900 resolution and what I considered the best 15.4 res back then because higher would be on the smaller side. The only isue I had with this machine, was the famous downclocking issue from Nvidia that never got fixed on those cards as far as I remember. I sold it for my next one on the list...

    5)Asus G50vt-X1, Nvidia 9800M GS, 4GB RAM, Core 2 Duo up to 2.5ghz (Q3 2008)
    Getting this was the best gaming decision I'd ever done. The M50 was an amazing laptop and I miss it but from a gaming perspective, this was a tremendous upgrade and a beast to boot. My 3dmark went up from 3700 to 9000, and I was playing everything flawlessly. I really loved this machine all the way until I sold it. I have 0 complaints from this one. Even the lowsy resolution of 1366x768 helped me run all my games on high settings. Even crysis was playable at medium-high at good fps.

    6) Asus G51vx-RX05, Nvidia GTX260M, 4GB of RAM, Core 2 Duo 2.0 ghz (Q2 2009)
    This was a rather small upgrade from the G50vt, but still decent. It had the new chiclet backlit keyboard, and was able to game just fine. My first one came witha broken keyboard so I sent it back, the second one was fine but I thought that the small upgrade wasn't worth it because several games were beginning to bog down due to the 2.0ghz CPU and I decided to improve to the G51vx-A1 with a quad core, dual 320GB drives and 1920x1080 display. Only last me about 1 month (this machine).

    7) Asus G51vx-A1, GTX260M, 4GB RAM, Q9000 2.0ghz x4 (Q3 2009)
    Voy was I loving this machine. The upgrade in screen res, quad core and dual drives was great. Sadly, I couldn't stay with this machine.... Economic problems came, and I had to sell this almost instantly to pay my college tuition. I was able to save up some money and waited until october to see how much $$ I had saved up, by which I almost considered to buy the laptop again until I saw the G51J on rumors. On October 18 I preordered the G51J.

    8) Asus G51J-A1, GTX260M, 4GB RAM DDR3, Core i7 1.6-2.8ghz (Oct 23, 2009)
    And this is how I became, probably, the first G51J owner ever heh. This machine is, by all intents and purposes, the same as the G51vx-A1 I had, but with newer technology. The only two bad things I could say is the lack of RAID support, and the current BSOD issue with a couple of games that no one yet knows why it happens. Every other game i have, app used, or work pending I have done so without issues at all, and this machine has worked extremely well for me. I really love this machine and I don't plan to even upgrade this until a decent GPU upgrade comes, like the HD5800 series, and that they are actually affordable lol.
     
  19. Ayle

    Ayle Trailblazer

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    Humm let see:
    _Whatever came with a 486DX
    _S3 Virge DX with a Pentium MMX
    _S3 Virdge DX with a AMD Duron 900mhz(I spent all my money on the cpu,mobo and ram I didn't have any cash left for the GPU) :(
    _Sis 651 IGP with P4 2.4 non HT...
    _Nvidia Riva TNT2 M64 with the P4
    _Nvidia GeForce 4 MX440 64mb still with the P4
    _Nvidia Geforce 6200 128mb with the same old P4

    _ATI X700 64MB with my first laptop: Acer Travelmate 404Wlmi
    _Nvidia Geforce 8600m GT 512mb gddr2 with Compal IFL90
    _ATI HD3650 as an upgrade for the Compal
    _Nvidia Geforce 9600m GT with my current MSI MS-1651
     
  20. Jayayess1190

    Jayayess1190 Waiting on Intel Cannonlake

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    1. Dell Inspiron 9100 with ATI 9600
    2. Asus EEE with Intel 950
    3. Acer 3810t with Intel 4500

    I will stick with integrated for now, love the longer battery life and plays my favorite game flawlessly (Sim City 4).
     
  21. Biosci3c

    Biosci3c Notebook Consultant NBR Reviewer

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    1) 1MB Trinitron (or something like that) in my 2nd desktop (1990s).

    2) 16MB ATI Rage Ultra in my third desktop, a Dell Dimension 4300s refurb (late 1990s to early 2000s).

    3) 64MB Geforce 2 MX400, upgrade for #2 (2001ish-Q2 2006)

    4) 128MB (256 MB total with hypermemory) ATI x1400 in my Dell Inspiron E1505 (Q2 2006 - Present)

    5) 512MB Geforce 9800 GT :) in my custom-built desktop (2008 - Present)
     
  22. crazycanuk

    crazycanuk Notebook Virtuoso

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    Bet you mean the old 1Mb Trident cards that were popular in the early-mid 90's. ISA, EISA or VLB format.

    as for me ... the FIRST would have been the prehistoric ASCII orange screens, nor graphics OR color, then the TRS-80/C-64 era stuff

    Tridents, Cirrus Logic, S3, Voodoo, Matrox ATI in the late 80's to mid 90's

    then more Matrox and ATI with an occasional S3 or VIA

    now its ATI, Matrox and Nvidia with some intel Igp's.
     
  23. 1ceBlu3

    1ceBlu3 Notebook Deity

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    I had a few older pc's from the later 90's...don't remember the graphics in them..
    and then a nvidia geforce GO 6150 in my 2 year old compaq laptop (no longer usable)

    and currently the card in my desktop: ati radeon 3650 (soon to be upgraded to an ati 4670..or 5000 series)
     
  24. Tony_A

    Tony_A Notebook Evangelist

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    For desktops:

    Monochrome

    CGA

    VGA

    S3 Virage

    3DFX Voodoo

    3DFX Voodoo 2 (later boought another and ran them in SLI)

    Nvidia TNT

    Nvidia TNT 2

    Nvidia Geforce 2 GTS

    Nvidia Geforce 4MX

    Ati 9500 Pro

    Ati X700

    Ati X800 GTO2 (unlocked pipes + Oc'd to x850 xt)

    Nvidia 8400

    Nvidia 8800GT

    Nvidia GTX 280

    Nvidia GTX 295+


    For laptops:

    S3 Virage

    Geforce Go 7950
     
  25. mobius1aic

    mobius1aic Notebook Deity NBR Reviewer

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    How was the x800? As far as I'm concerned, they were I guess you could say "legendary" like the 9600 and 9800 before hand, at least in my eyes. I actually just got a used 9800 Pro for an old Pentium 4 1.6 GHz Sony Vaio desktop with 512 MB of DDR that my dad and I got in early 2002, and spent recent years with my grandparents before they got a new computer and gave it back to my dad and then to me since he didn't need it. Problem is the old computer needs an HDD and OS first before I can get it up and running. I'm so itching to try that 9800 Pro out with HL2 and Far Cry :D
     
  26. ryzeki

    ryzeki Super Moderator Super Moderator

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    Yeah, the X800 and nvidia 6800 were awesome. A huge increase in performance. It was the first time we saw the clos to 100% increase in perfomance from las generation.

    The Radeon 9800 will breeze through those games :D and by "breeze" I mean like high settings at 30fps :p or something like that haha.

    Wow... a 1.6ghz Pentium 4 is so old... and weak haha.
     
  27. skoreanime

    skoreanime Notebook Consultant

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    1 - Some integrated - Desktop
    2 - Some integrated - Laptop
    3 - Diamond Viper 32MB AGP - Desktop
    4 - Nvidia MX2 - Desktop
    5 - ATI 9200 - Desktop
    6 - ATI x850xt - Desktop
    7 - ATI x1600 mobility - Laptop
    8 - ATI x2900XT - Desktop
    9 - Nvidia 9800GX2 - Desktop + Nvidia 8200 PCI for extra display
    10 - ATI 3410 - Laptop

    Yeah, that's about it.
     
  28. exercise

    exercise Notebook Consultant

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    ATI Xpert@Work 8Mo
    nVidia TNT2 M64
    ATI Radeon X800PRO AGP
    BFG GeForce7800GS OC AGP
    eVGA GeForce 8800GTS 640Mb SC
    eVGA GeForce GTX260 Core 216 SC 896Mb
    ATI Mobility HD4650 1GDDR3 (laptop)
     
  29. Peon

    Peon Notebook Virtuoso

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    Mid 2000: Some Intel integrated card (i810 I think?) - Desktop
    Mid 2005: Radeon X800 XL - Desktop
    Early 2006: Geforce 6800 GS (the X800 XL died) - Desktop
    Late 2007: Geforce 8400M GS (which has died before and will likely die again) - Laptop
    Late 2008: Intel X3100 (old, dying white Macbook that I got for free) - Laptop
    Late 2009: Radeon 5850 - Desktop

    Now that I think of it, I have very bad luck when it comes to computers dying on me... Of my old computers, only the one with the 6800 GS still works properly.

    I really hope the 5850 doesn't follow this trend.
     
  30. masterchef341

    masterchef341 The guy from The Notebook

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    1. I was too little to know

    2. GeForce 3 TI (200?)

    3. ATI x800 pro

    4. GeForce 8600m GT (failed) --> 8600m GT (sold)

    5. GeForce 9600m GT

    6. (In about 6 months or 7 months) ATI 5650 or 5670 (probably)
     
  31. Kierkes

    Kierkes Misanthrope

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    Starting from when I first dove into computers:

    Fall 2005: Dell XPS 400, installed a Radeon x700 into it. Loved the thing. Got a bit old, however, by the time I got my laptop.

    Summer 2007: ASUS G2S-A1. 8600M GT. Loved it and kept it through the rest of high school, and through the first month of college. Until it failed and I had to get:

    Fall 2009: Laptop in sig. GTX260M and loving every minute of it.
     
  32. Mastershroom

    Mastershroom wat

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    Yep, it was a classic. I still have a flash drive containing my entire custom maps folder...it's gotta be a few GB by now. :p

    And yeah, Halo 2 for Windows was a total flop. I attribute that to the fact that it was the first major Vista-exclusive game, in a time when Vista was brand new and pretty much everyone hated it.
     
  33. tianxia

    tianxia kitty!!!

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    game was also crap, it stuttered like crazy.
     
  34. key001

    key001 Notebook Evangelist

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    whatever was in Sinclair if it can be called a videocard, 6KB VRAM!
    EGA
    VGA
    various SVGA
    Riva TNT something
    GeForce 4
    S3 onboard junk
    ATI 9600
    Nvidia 6200, unlocked pipelines and overclocked like mad
    ATI x1400
    ATI 5750
     
  35. hendra

    hendra Notebook Virtuoso

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    Hercules CGA and VGA
    Cirrus Logic CLGD 5434
    Matrox Millennium II
    Monster 3D
    Voodoo 3 2000
    Voodoo 3 3000
    Voodoo 3 3500
    Voodoo 5 5500
    S3 Savage IX
    Intel GMA 950
    GeForce Go 7400
    Mobility Radeon HD 3470
     
  36. Thisisalamp

    Thisisalamp Notebook Deity

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    1) Nvidia Riva TNT 2

    - used to had rainbow colours in my screen

    2) Geforce 4 MX440

    - Didn't have it for long after my PSU went boom

    3) Sapphire ATi X800

    - Amazing! But I wanted an Nvidia so...

    4) Aeopen Aeolus 6800 Ultra

    - SUCH A BEAST! Fitted a Zalman cooler on it and overclocked it bit more.

    5) Asus ATi 9800 Pro

    - ALSO a beast! my current Desktop GPU, and plays current games pretty well @ high...but sorry, I neglect my desktop now as I move on to laptops.

    6) Laptop : Nvidia 8400m GS

    - Horrible I didn't like it, heats up fast due to the sheer amount of gaming I do but doesn't play them smooth either. Had it for 2 years then...

    7) Nvidia GTX 280m

    - This is more like, godzilla on steroids.
     
  37. EchoShade

    EchoShade Notebook Evangelist

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    1) ATI RAGE
    2) nVidia 7600 Go
    3) nVidia 9600M GS
    4) ATI 4670 Mobility
     
  38. melthd

    melthd Notebook Evangelist

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    SIS 550FX (not too sure if the number is correct)
    Intel Extreme Graphics 2
    ATI Radeon X1550 512MB (desktop)
    Intel GMA 4500MHD (current lappy)
     
  39. StealthTH

    StealthTH Notebook Evangelist

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    Dual Voodoo 2's in world's first SLI (12mb cards with a grand total of 24MB of ram!!!) - Custom Built PII 400mhz system
    Voodoo3 - Custom Built PIII 700mhz system
    Geforce 3 - Custom Built PIV 1.4Ghz system (with awesome expensive RAMBUS memory...)
    Radeon 9000m - Dell Inspiron 8200 laptop
    Radeon 9600m - Thinkpad T42
    Radeon x850xt - Custom Built PIV 3.0Ghz System
    Geforce 8800GTS - Custom Built C2D 2.4Ghz System
    Radeon 3470 - Thinkpad T400
    Geforce GTX 260 - Same C2D.

    Just off the top of my head, I'm sure there were more.I didn't want to list the specs of my systems either cause it is just too much to remember.
     
  40. Alexrose1uk

    Alexrose1uk Music, Media, Game

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    Here's the majority of the cards I've got hold of over the years

    S3 integrated
    Cirrus Logic 1MB
    Cirrus Logic 2MB
    Diamond Stealth 2(?)MB
    ATI RAGE128 16MB
    Voodoo3 3300? (forget the model, wasn't the top one)
    Geforce256
    Chrome Integrated
    Radeon 9800Pro
    X1900XT
    Mobility X1800
    Intel GMA900
    7300GT GDDR3 Galaxy overclocked edition (basically an 7600GS)
    8800GTS 512
    9600GSO 384
    2900XT
    4870 512
    5750 512
    GTX280M SLI

    Pretty sure I've forgotten a few as well.
    As you can see there I dont really have a brand preference in buying kit, as long as it does the job it's needed for.
     
  41. Charles P. Jefferies

    Charles P. Jefferies Lead Moderator Super Moderator

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    This is in the last several years:

    -2004-05: HP Pavilion zv5000z - GeForce 4 440Go 64MB
    ---Garbage card, DX7 only. I don't know why it was still being sold at that time when DX9 was in full swing. I loved the laptop but end up selling it after one year because of that video card, it did not play many games well. I did not know a whole lot about computers back then.

    2005-08: Sager NP-5320 - Mobility Radeon 256MB
    ---Beast! It was a great video card and a great laptop. It could play basically any game on high settings at the time. Other notebooks offered the X700 in a 15.4" size but only a 128MB version. ;)

    2008-Now: HP Pavilion dv5t - GeForce 9600M GT 512MB DDR2
    ---It can play nearly all modern games at medium settings/resolution but has never actually impressed me. The fact that it is DDR2 and not GDDR3 is disappointing. Nonetheless I have been satisfied with this card's performance.

    2009-Now: HP ProBook 5310m - GMA 4500MHD
    ---Not much to say about integrated Intel graphics; they work fine for everything but games.

    Cool thread idea BTW. :)
     
  42. Cobra03

    Cobra03 Notebook Evangelist

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    Over the years:

    (Desktop) Gigabyte 128MB (Died)

    (Desktop) Radeon 3850 512MB (Sold)

    (Laptop) 9600m GT Radeon Mobility 3870 (Sold)

    (Desktop) ATI Radeon 5850's Crossfire 2GB (Current, upgrading to 5970's in Crossfire)
     
  43. ichime

    ichime Notebook Elder

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    When it comes to laptops/notebooks:

    Started in 2005 with a GeForce go 6800 Ultra from a Dell Inspiron XPS Gen 2 (first notebook that got me into the world of gaming notebooks)

    Spent some brief time with a Geforce go 7800 GTX in a Voodoo Envy Hu709

    Started a notebook building project where I built an XPS M1710 from parts on ebay and parts from my Gen 2. Used a Quadro FX2500m (basically a go 7900 GTX) and got it for $100 while the actual geforces were going for $500 :D

    Then, got an Alienware M9750, equipped with a go 7950 GTX

    Next: OCZ Whitebook/Arima W840Di with Dual Mobility Radeon HD3870s in Crossfire

    Next: Asus W90 with Dual Mobility Radeon HD 4870s (fine, 4850s) in Crossfire

    What could have been: Alienware All Powerful M17x with Dual nVidia Geforce GTX 280ms in SLi

    Current: MSi 1722 with GeForce 9600m GT (mom's computer, but she never uses it).

    Coming soon: Geforce 8700M GT for a project I'm working on, but that could change to dual MXM 2.1 compliant ATi mobility 3870s, 4850s or 4870s...

    2010: probably an ATi Mobility 58xx or a GeForce GTX 3xxM (if it's not a rebrand and is DX11 compliant).

    And if you thought this list was long, wait till you see my desktop based GPU card list ;)
     
  44. fifafreak18

    fifafreak18 Notebook Evangelist

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    Man I can't wait till I actually have a job with steady income

    First computers:

    Apple somethin or other: Not good for much, it was my dads work computer at home, but me and my brother played Mortal Kombat III and some starwars game on it all the time.

    Dell: Dads company switched to PC, thats when we started getting dells at home, not sure what this had either, I could go into my basement and look but I'm too lazy. It played Diablo 2 so i was a happy camper.

    Dell Dimension 8200 (2004) - "My" first computer, really just a hand me down. Came with a 2 Ghz p4 and a poopie video card that was only used because it offered dual monitor support. This was My first time upgrading the hardware inside of a computer. Ran out and bought a Radeon 9550 (AGP 4x) for $100 on sale. Now that I actually had a decent card i started to get into more pc games. Doom 3, Half-life 2 (and other source games) started playing really well. Then this machine started to poop the bed.

    Dell Opti-Plex - Intel 8xxxxx something integrated card, another hand me down just used as a place holder. Eventually donated to grandparents.

    *My First Laptop* Toshiba Satellite P-105 (Summer 06 - now) - First dual core machine with a 17" screen...and an intel GMA 950. I was so excited to have a laptop, and I knew the GMA 950 couldnt do much but I had read up and learned their was some tweaks to play good games. Unfortunately for some reason the source engine always crashed on this laptop. Oh well, still use it today.

    *First Built Desktop* (December 07 - now) - Merry Christmas! Packed with a Quad Core, 4gb of ram, and a 8800GTX this was my first journey into the world of serious gaming. I could run anything, and I mean anything. I loved downloading demos of the newest games just to see how well they could run. God I love this thing. 3dMark 06: 11xxx
     
  45. Phinagle

    Phinagle Notebook Prophet

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    Motorola 6847 - TRS-80 Color Computer 2
    MOS Technology VIC-II - Commodore 64
    VGA - Smtih Corona Acer PC210/286
    Matrox Millennium G200 - Quantex Pentium 200Mhz PC

    Can't remember my next GPU after the Millennium because this was the point I started building custom PCs (still used the Quantex case for awhile though). I want to say it was a Diamond.

    ATI Radeon 9600Pro - Built-to-Order PC
    Sapphire HD3850(AGP :)) - Upgrade/Custom PC
     
  46. Hydeo

    Hydeo Notebook Evangelist

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    Desktop:
    -Something in a 486 (But I was like too young to remember what it was, just remember it played Prince of Persia 1)
    -Voodoo Banshee (Died)
    -Voodoo 3 3500 x 2 (in a SLi setup)
    -Voodoo 5 5500 (last great card of 3DFX)
    -TNT2 (Don't remember why I had this, but it sat in the box a long time before I sold it off)
    -GeForce 3
    -Radeon 9800
    -Radeon X1800
    -Radeon HD 4850

    Laptop:
    -GeForce 9800M
    -GeForce 260M GTX (Current ASUS G51J)

    Edit: Missed a card
     
  47. fred2028

    fred2028 Sexy member

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    • 1998-2004: Some integrated graphics with an Intel Pentium 1 desktop
    • 2004-2006: Some integrated graphics with an Intel Celeron desktop
    • 2006-July 2008: Intel GMA 945 (128 MB) inside a Toshiba Satellite A100 PSAA8C-0FH00E. This was before I knew anything about computers and I just wanted a $1000 laptop, didn't realize I couldn't play games with a relatively good processor. Played Halo 1 on max (1280x800) and MOHAA, however CS: S lagged like there's no tomorrow.
    • July 2008-June 2009: nVidia GeForce 9500m GS (512 MB) inside my Acer Aspire 6920G. After researching, I wanted a 15.4" laptop with a 2+ GHz processor and best graphics I could for around $1000. Was going to go for the GeForce 8400m GS but saw this one and decided to go for it. Great laptop, big but ran very coolly. Ran CoD 4 on max at 1366x768. Gaming really took off with this one.
    • July 2009-July 2009: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3670 (512 MB) inside my Dell Studio XPS 1640. Got this after learning a lot more about laptops, and I wanted 1 that was thin, 1080p screen, good processor, and good GPU.
    • July 2009-today: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4670 (1 GB) inside my SXPS 1640 and SXPS 1645. After Dell released this 1 month after I got my original SXPS, I got this for the better GPU. And also an i7 now.
     
  48. nindustrialny

    nindustrialny Notebook Consultant

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    1991 1995 Trident 1MB
    1995 2000 S3 Virge 4MB (I had a patch for Motoracer and tthe game was so smooth)
    2001 2006 GeForce2 GTS ASUS
    2007 Ati X850

    In Laptop GF9300M 256MB
    and 9800GTS 1GB
     
  49. sean473

    sean473 Notebook Prophet

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    2004-2008: 2 Pentium 4 Desktops with crap intel integrated graphics which was very useless and could only play runescape.

    2008-till now : Hp Dv5t... with 9600M GT.. plays MW2 easily with 1280X800 2X AA High Details...
     
  50. Kade Storm

    Kade Storm The Devil's Advocate

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    That Voodoo FX 2 or whatever it was called. Nice card back in the 90s.

    ATi Rage 3D with 8MB VRAM.

    Something by S3 in my Compaq Presasio, 64 MB and 128 MB total from shared RAM.

    Geforce 5700.

    ATi Radeon x1250.

    ATi Radeon 9600 - 64MB. (Had two of them in two different machines.)

    ATi Radeon 9700 - 128MB. (Upgraded my inspiron from 9600.)

    GeForce 6800.

    ATi Radeon X800.

    GeForce Go7900 GS.

    GeForce Go7900 GTX.

    GeForce Go7950 GTX.

    GeForce Go7900 GS SLi.

    GeForce 8600m - DDR2.

    GeForce 8600m SLi DDR3.

    GeForce 8800m GTX SLi.

    GeForce 9800m GTX SLi (temporary item that I had for testing on M1730).
     
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