So what graphics have you guys had over the years?

2001-ish: I had a Dell with a 1.8Ghz P4, and integrated graphics.

2002: Moved up to a DIY computer and put in a GeForce Ti-4200 (I still remember my first time playing BF1942 with maxed out graphics). Then upgraded again to a Ti-4800.

2003: When they were relatively new, I bought a GeForce FX 5700 Ultra without reading any reviews first (last time that mistake happened). It then sat in its box for 5 months while I used my Ti-4800 because it was actually faster. Finally driver support got to a point where the FX 5700 was the better card.

2004: Decided after that fiasco to not buy midrange cards anymore. Bought a 6800 Ultra the day it came out.

2005: Then I bought a 7800GTX within a few weeks of it's release. Got 4600+ in 3DMark06 with an AMD @ 3.2Ghz (vs 2.2Ghz stock). Ah, those were the days...

Then I got out of PC for a few years and played the crap out of my Xbox 360. Finally realized that a controller SUCKS (even after 4th or 5th prestige in COD4), and that a mouse will forever be king. I still miss Forza though...

2009: Bought a Gateway P-7805u with a 9800m GTS. Crapped out on my so I replaced it with my current ASUS with a GTX 260m.

 

I dont think i can give to much detail of the early pcs anyway
My fist laptop was a dell m something about 2002 i think with a 1.4 ghz processor and a 64mb ati gpu i payed 1800 pounds for it and played project igi on it and quake.At the time i did not know anything about laptops it was a good laptop untill it was stolen,when i deployed to kosovo.

2003-2004 My first desktop from a buget pc manufacturer called time.Spec wize,amd 2.4 ghz cpu,1 gig of ram,and a 9700 pro,which i upgraded to a ati 9800 pro.Played farcry,and doom3 and avp2

2005 Bought a monster of a laptop a d900t 3.8 ghz pentium 4,2 gig of ram 6800 ultra 80gb raid hdd.I nick named it the paving slab,it sure pumped out some heat!!
I later upgraded the gpu to 7900 gtx 256 played everything at the time but i sold it to a friend.

2006ish I got the dell m1710 2.33 cpux2 ,4 gig of ram,7900gtx 512mb,Wow what a machine good performance good looks great speakers fing expensive!! Still got it going strong only replaced the gpu,main game was bf2 ,but it played everything at the time,even cryis only on low-medium.I really wanted to play crysis and i still needed a laptop so......

2007-2008 Again dell the flagship m1730 x7900 cpu, 8700 gt sli,Hell of a laptop nice looks functions but poo performance the 8700s did not cut it was not a happy bunny.Should have waited for the sli 8800s but did not know if they where coming,.Got a refund......

2008 Got my current laptop m571ru-u specs in sig,Fantastic machine cant fault it plays everything.My only concern is if i can upgrade to the 9800 gtx or 280-260 gpus.Want to buy again but cash is an issue and wife says no
Still should last a year or two more i hope

 

I went straight from a Mobility Radeon 9000 to an 8800M GTS, and am finally settled on a GTX 260M. That first jump was HUGE, the second not so much.

 

This was my first real 3D card too. I had a pair of them in SLI backing up an S3 2D accelerator with a massive 4MB framerate backing up a Pentium 133 with 64mb ram.

I then had, in the following order:
ATI Rage 128 IGP
Voodoo Banshee 32mb
Geforce 2 Ultra 32mb
Voodoo 3 3000
S3 Savage 4 64mb
Voodoo 4 4500 64mb
GeForce 3 Ti200 128mb
GeForce 4 4200 128mb
Radeon 9700 Pro 128mb
Geforce 6800 AGP 256mb "sidegraded" to
Geforce 6800 PCIe 256mb when I converted to PCI-Express
Geforce 7900GS 256mb and finally
Radeon HD3870 512mb

My next card will either be a 4890 1gb or 5770 1gb.

On laptops, my graphics history is:
Radeon 200 IGP
Radeon X300 128mb
Radeon HD3650

 

What did they put in the apple 2 plus in the mid 80s? That was my first pc. Then no pc for a long while. Then a 486 33 with 32mg ram (ram was $1000 by itself). Dont recall the video... Now that I think about it. I dont know what video cards i had in the 90s up until the vodoo 2. Then voodoo 4, then the geforce, somewhere along the way I remember a 440 in there, then a 5900 that I flashed to be a 5950, then a 8600mgt, and now dual radeon 3870s. Sorry If I dont get all the details listed as I am getting old and dont remember them all.

 

nice thread, only If I can remember. lol

I think I started pretty strong with the first 3Dfx card ever:
- voodoo1 2Mb
then it was
- voodoo2 4mb (I rember it was only 4mb as back in 97, might and magic 6 required 6mb to play, lol.)
- Then it was the best voodoo3 8Mb, released right with NFS3.
- Then it was long time nothing until I got Riva TNT2 32Mb and Quake 3!!
- Ge-Force1
- Ge-Froce 2MX
- Ge-Force w Titanium!! - kick !! that was my first card that I OCd.
- then it was the big playa aka Ati Radeon 9700Pro!!! payed $600 for it and it was the first 256bit card eva!!
- it died so i got 9800pro
- then I switched to mobile computers, first gaming lappy was toshiba P25 with go5700 128mb!!! lol
- couple of other laptops with integrated graphics
- powerbook G4 with Ati 9700m

and so on ...

you can see a vid I made long time ago about my laptop obsession:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9bfauQev4o

 

Very nice guys, great posts!!!! I think it's so cool to see how others have progressed through the years with this stuff. There are so many graphics accelerators that have been released through the years, and interestingly, they're more than useful for alot of the games we play these days. This thread is really making me long for that Mobility Radeon X600, and wondering what would've been with an extra 1 GB of RAM in that Gateway since BF2 surely would've benefited from it

.............and JESUS CHRIST WankelRotor lol.

 

3Dfx:
Voodoo 2

Nvidia:
6200
8600M GT

Intel:
X4500M HD

 

crappy 8200M which is not much better then integrated, to 280M sli. Huge jump I must say.

 

From '06-'09 I had an ATI Mobility Radeon x1400.

Now I value battery life over power in my portable machines, so now I have the Intel GMA 4500m HD.

 

Yeah, it must have been trident.

Actually, I am not sure what my first graphics card was, because my first computer was a 286 running DOS. Ah yes, going way back.

The trident was in my second machine (a 90 mhz pentium I).

 

Desktop
======
2MB ATi Rage Pro in 1996.
8MB Trident Cyberblade XP in 1998.
16MB 3Dfx Voodoo 3 2000 in 2000 (Still have this card, and it still works).
32MB nVidia Riva TNT 2 in 2000.
64MB ATi Radeon 7500 in 2001.
128MB ATi Radeon 9250 in 2003.
128MB ATi Radeon 9800 Pro in 2004.
256MB ATi Radeon X800XL in 2005.
256MB ATi All-In-Wonder X1900 in 2006 (Loved this card!).
Two 256MB nVidia Geforce 7900GS in 2007.
512MB nVidia Geforce 8800GTS in 2008.
1GB ATi Radeon HD 4870 in 2009.

Notebook
=======
4MB ATi Mobility M in a Dell Latitude L400 (2002).
128MB ATi Mobility Radeon X600 in a Gateway MX7525 (2005).
256MB ATi Mobility Radeon X1700 in an ASUS A8jp (2006).
128MB nVidia Geforce 8600M GT in a Santa Rosa Apple Macbook Pro (2007).
512MB ATi Mobility Radeon HD 2600 in a Gateway M-6864fx (2008).
512MB nVidia Geforce 9600M GT in a MSI GX620 (2008).
512MB nVidia Geforce 9800M GS in an ASUS G50vt (2008).
512MB ATi Mobility Radeon HD 4670 in a MSI EX625 (2009).
256MB nVidia Geforce 9400M in a Unibody Apple Macbook Pro 13" (2009).
512MB nVidia Geforce GT 230M in a Sony VAIO CW18fx (2009).

 

Nvidia 6150 LE IGP with 64mb shared memory in my only desktop ever..
random generic brand IGP in my previous 10 yea old HP laptop..

and now my beastly GTX260m w/ 1GB Vram and OC'd to 610/1000/1550

 

The graphics card that lasted the most is definitly the one in my nintendo ds, after al these years it can still play al the newest games. If only link would look like altair...then I wouldn't have to upgrade my graph card and perhaps my cpu too to play AC2 next year.

 

Lets see.... I don't remember what I had in my earlier computers when I was younger but from what I do remember....
Desktops:
nVidia 6600GT
nVidia 8800GT

Laptops:
nVidia 8600m GT (Compal IFL90)
nVidia 8600m GS (LG P300)
nVidia 7400 (XPS m1210)
ATI 3200HD (tx2500z)
nVidia 9800m GTS (Gateway P7811FX)
nVidia 9600m GT (MSI 1651)
nVidia 9800m GS (ASUS G50VT)

 

Chips GPU with 1mb vram (finished HL1 on it and lots of other games, had an overclocked CPU to help out).

NVIDIA Quadro NVS 110M (not much to say except that it was better than the X3100 I use now).

intel X3100 (works well with Fear1, HL2 and Gunz and even finished L4D on it).

Nvidia Quadro NVS 130m, dead (faulty G86 core) with a new one that should be here soon. Has GDDR3 vram that is rated at 700mhz so it overclocks well.
Crappy 64-bit bus.

 

Mobility Radeon HD 3450

Nvidia GeForce Go 7200

 

Desktop:

Cirrus Logic 8Mb my first GPU.
Geforce 2 64Mb Ultra
ATI X800 XT
XFX 8800 GTX
Now: MSI GTX 260 Factory overclocked.

Notebook:
Geforce Go 64Mb in HP Pavillion
Intel GMA 950 in Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Si1520
Go 7800 GTX in XPS M170
Now: 8800m GTX SLI in XPS M1730.

Then other than PC´s I have had Atari ST, Amiga 500 and still own Amiga 1200 and Amiga 3000 even today

 

Well let's see what I can remember:

Imac (the original, with the CRT built in and a 266 MHz CPU)-
This was my first computer of "my own." I got it as a christmas present. It had (I remember this specifically LOL) an ATI Rage 128 2D-3D Graphics Accelerator. OH! and 256MB of RAM (after I upgraded I think). That beast ran Mac OS 8 and 9. Barely.

PowerMac Tower - a gift for getting good grades in my Freshman year in High School - This had an 867MHz CPU and ran OS X. It originally came with a GeForce 2 MX, but I later upgraded to a GeForce 4 TI and then it became a beast (well, for what games you can actually play on a Mac anyways)!

I had a PC tower some time around my Sophomore year in HS, and it had a really hot graphics card.. I *think* it was a GeForce 6800 GTX (if there was a GTX model in that line). It was about 500$ and came overclocked out of the box. DAMN did that thing play Doom III good. I had to work after school for MONTHS to be able to afford that thing.

When I graduated from HS, I got a PowerBook G4 with a 1.67 GHz proc, and an ATI Radeon 9200 mobility I think. Nothing very good, but if I overclocked it I could play Unreal Tournament 2004 pretty well at high-ish settings. That thing lived until the *incident*.. Which involved me stepping on it and trashing the screen

Now I'm running an MSI Wind U100 Netbook with a GMA 950, which is killing me. But at least it can play Half-Life 1 (nothing from the source engine or later, however). It was cheap, however, at only 300 bucks, so I'm not really complaining.

In a couple weeks here I'll be getting my big ol' slab of beauty, and all will be well.

 

Nothing to see here...

 

I can remember back to ~2004 before that is a little sketchy. So here goes

custom SFF ~early 2004:
Pentium 4 3.2 HT prescott room heater OC'd to 3.6-3.8 on air
2GB DDR ram
x800 GPU

Story: I built this for gaming but shortly after my wifes computer died so I gave it to her and used my old pentium 2 laptop until I got my gateway. This desktop actually laster until the mother board died back about 3 months ago and is still sitting in my office.

Gateway 3018GZ ~late 2004:
celeron m 1.3GHz
512MB of ram
60GB HDD

story: bought this to replace my pentium 2 laptop but realized it wasnt going to work for long so I gave it to my mom ~1 year later and she still uses it to this day.

Averatec 2155 ~late 2005:
AMD MT30 upgraded to MT40 2.2GHz
2GB of ram
80GB HDD
ATI 200m

story: My wife bought this for me since every time we went into compusa I drooled all over it. In hindsight I shouldn't have bought it since I replaced it as my main rig shortly after. I used it until august 2008 when the motherboard failed finally.

Acer 5672 ~ early 2006:
Core duo 1.67GHz
2GB of ram
120GB HDD upgraded to an 80GB 7200rpm
ATi x1600 gpu

story: I was doing some CAD at work and needed a more powerful gaming rig so I bought this and put the averatec on light duty. Worked well and still does for my little brother to this day.

Shuttle SFF ~early 2006 and mid 2007
Core 2 duo 2.16GHz
ATI x1650 pro
2GB of ram
200GB HDD
sound blaster audigy

story: I finally decided to get back into desktops, and I wanted an SFF design. I loved and used the shuttle setup for a little over a year until I replaced the motherboard and transplanted all the parts into a danger den desktop for better Overclocking, cooling and looks. Fast forward a year later and I replace the shuttle I gave to my mom after the danger den upgrade and took the guts from the danger den into a cooler master centurion case for my mom where these parts are still in use today.

Dell vostro 1700 ~early 2008:
2.1GHz 45nm C2D
3GB of ram
160GB 7200RPM HDD
WUXGA screen
8600mGT

story: The Acer finally hit the point of being too weak for my daily tasks and my brother needed a computer so I bought this one. I used it for everything until I gave it to my brother to replace his broken computer (Im negotiating for its return home currently). I loved this rig and miss it terribly, still works perfect.

HP tx2510us august 2008:

specs in sig

story: Was looking at a more mobile solution then the vostro and started eying this in june and while on vacation for my family reunion the averatec died and I bought this without even thinking. Worked great for just about everything but ran hot and had a few other things that bothered me. gave it to my mom and it sat for a year doing nothing until I got it back and made it my home server. With a reformat its a totally new computer and I kinda like it, but have no need for it since the other PC I have is more then mobile enough and ALOT more powerful and power efficient.

Lenovo thinkpad t400 may 2009:

specs in sig

story: After ~5 years of working for my company they finally repaid me for all the many many personal computers I have used for work and bought this for me. I love it, its awesome and does everything I need. But I have 1 gripe about it, and that is I wish I got a different size thinkpad. Im wishing I would have either gotten an x200s to compliment my dell or a w700 to replace my dell and not have to worry about re-acquiring the dell. As for now it will have to do as even though the wife and I had an agreement about me getting a high end laptop before kids so i wouldn't have to worry about upgrading for a while. Im perfectly OK with this as it is a sweet laptop and as of now I do not PC game minus old games and occasionally TF2.

 

Dell Inspiron E1505 / Intel GMA 950 GM

Don't get me wrong, it was a great PC and still is. It had a C2D at 1.8ghz and it was plenty fast......but the integrated graphics sucked big time, which down the road, prompted me to get a better laptop due to a video game design class at my community college.

HP Pavillion Dv7t / ATI Radeon Mobillity 4650 1GB DDR3
My current one, and my pride and joy lol. The ATI is not the best card out there, but it plays Unreal Tournament 3, Left 4 Dead, and Call of Duty 4 (it can play Warcraft 3, and Age of Empires 3 on high easy) on medium flawlessly. Some people need everything to be on high to enjoy the game.....for me, if it runs on medium without a hitch, I have no problem at all enjoying a game. Very happy with this card.

I know, a short list....but i'm only 22 and I bought the dell in early to mid 2007.

 

I need to edit my post but I can't for some reason.

Corrections to my list:
ATI Rage 128 was actually a Rage Pro II integrated
S3 Savage4 was only 32mb and comes before the Voodoo3
And there was a GeForce2 MX after the Voodoo4 4500

To further add to the list, sometime a couple years after 3DFX died, I found a working Voodoo5 5500 at a used computer store for $5. They had an ultra-rare V5 6000, but the power supply was missing so I didn't buy it. I should've.

 

Well

1)onboard
2)onboard
3)onboard
4)8400m gs 128(ddr2) yes!!
5)4570 mobility 512(vram ) speed(680/800) the most powerful one yet that I possess.(cry)


The onboard ones are all desktops dating from 2001 to 2006.

The ATI performs decently 4100 score in 3dmark 06

How to overclock this ????

 

Laptops:
HP P3 1000Mhz / intergrated
Lenovo P3 900Mhz / intergrated
Asus C2D 2.4Ghz / 9500M gs (POS edition)

Desktops:
Pentium 4 3.0Ghz @ 3.8Ghz / X700 Pro
Pentium D 805 @ 4.0Ghz / X800 Pro later 7600 GT ko edition
Athlon x2 @ 3.4Ghz / 2900 Pro
i7 Core @ 4.0Ghz / 2900 Pro (5870 or 300 series card soon)

 

It's been too long, but here's the most recent...

ATi Xpress 200M- Compaq V2000
It worked, better than Intel at the very least, and is still working.

ATi MR X1600- HP Compaq nx9420
Loved it, played most of my games at the highest settings, and was competent for around 2 years. Still working.

nVidia GeForce 6150- HP tx1000z
Acceptable performance, but committed heat suicide after 1 year.

nVidia 8800 GT- Custom Desktop
Powerful, but started crashing in games after 1 year.

ATi HD4870- Custom Desktop
Great, powers through all my games, good value.

nVidia FX3700M- HP EliteBook 8730w
Working good so far, powerful, great for CAD.

I really haven't had good experiences with nVidia products.

 

I really haven't had good experiences with nVidia products.

Me neither, I thought it was ATI had faulty drivers. I guess Nvidia is not invulnerable like zealots may claim.

 

Alright here's one you probably haven't heard of:

S3 Savage 4 8.0MB Dedicated (1999)

My best one ATM:

8600 GTS 256MB

And my notebook:

3650 512MB DDR2

Actually, my 3650 and my 8600 GTS would probably tie, with the 8600 GTS only JUST ahead. I'm surprised by this little card in my notebook.

 

My first graphic card was an nvidia geforce card with 64 mb, I spend like 70-80 euros on it when I was like 15 old, that was a lot of money for me then. Then we got our new pc with integrated grafic which acutally made that nvidia card look really bad.
been using the nvidia 8600m gt for over 2 years now, aside from the overheating shutdowns during gameplay I still think the grafics are more than decent enough.

 

Geforce 2 MX 400 32 mb - Radeon 9000 Pro 64 mb - Radeon 9800 Pro 128 mb - Intel X3100 386 mb

 

Voodoo 3 32MB->Geforce 4 TI 4600 -> Geforce FX5200 (we were told by the computer seller than the FX 5200 was eating the TI 4600 for breakfast, how wrong were he) -> GF 6600 128MB-> 8600GT 256MB -> 8600M GT 512MB -> Radeon 5770 1GB

 

For my last few Laptops from 2005.

Intel Extreme Graphic 2 64MB
ATI X700 64MB
Nvidia 7600GO SE 256MB
Nvidia 9500M GS 512MB
Nvidia 9700M GT 512MB

 

I just got into PC gaming since I got the notebook in my sig, but before that I was running:

Intel Intergrated Graphics in a Dell Optiplex GX110 - Pentium 3 866MHz
NVidia GeForce 4 MX AGP 64MB DDR Memory - Pentium 4 Prescott 2.4GHz
NVidia GeForce 6200 AGP 256MB DDR2 memory - Pentium 4 Northwood 2.8Ghz
NVidia GeForce 9600M GT 512MB DDR2 Memory - Core 2 Duo 2.53 GHz

As you can see, I'm a Intel/Nvidia person, although all besides my laptop were given to me.

 

1. Geforce MX 440 (~2003)
2. Radeon 9200 (~2004)
3. Radeon 9600 (~2004)
4. Radeon X1600 (~2006)
5. Radeon 4850 (~2008)

Yeah, I'm an ATI kinda guy.

 

GF MX440(2003)
Asus 6800GT(2004)
Asus EN7950GT(2006)
Asus 9800GT Hybrid Power(2008)
GeForce 240M GT(2009)

I've switched the main gaming platform to PS3 in 2008. Now I really got into mobile gaming since I bought my acer in september and am quite happy about it. Not as smooth as a desktop but still pretty neat for 3kilo slim box :>

 

gma 81562 (or something like that)
geforce 2 mx
hd 2400

first laptop - hd 2600.

 

for me it was a jump from crappy GeForce 6100 integrated to ATI HD4650 mobility radeon.

although had a desktop 8800GT on my bro's comp which he didnt let me use much.


feels good to have somewhat gaming graphics now.

 

Crappy 8200m card on my HP to 280m sli on my m17x...wow.

 

super wow indeed!

 

There is just NO WAY I can remember all of those.Way to many to list.

Since 1999

 

Intel GMA900 - Desktop HP from 2002
Intel GMA950 - WalMart Back-to School special ACER 3680 for $399.
ATI HD3410 - HP DV2z
ATI HD3200 - HP DM3z
ATI HD4200 - HP DV7z
NVidia 9400m - Apple MBP 13"
Nvidia G210m - Sony CW series

I think I've been very impressed with the NVidia cards instead of the ATI ones. Even the integrated 9400m outpaced the HD4200 to the fullest extent.

 

I only remember back 5 years or so.

nVidia GforceGo 6800
nVidia 7950M GTX
nVidia 8800M GTX SLI
nVidia 9800M GTX SLI
nVidia 280M SLI

ATI FireGL V5200*
ATI HD3650*
ATI HD3870 Crossfire
ATI HD4850 Crossfire*
ATI HD4870 Crossfire*

*Still in use

 

Actually, I had one of these, but with the max ram it came with. Using the MeTaL render option with Unreal Tournament and the S3TC textures from the second disk make the game so much more beautiful than any other GPU on the market at the time!

 

Really? I thought they weren't as common as cards like ATI Rage and Voodoo, etc.

 

had both the PCI and VLB version of that card.
they were awfully nice for some of the old mechwarrior games as well

 

VLB? Is that some sort of video format like AGP, PCI-E, and PCI? I haven't been in the computing scene all that long...

 

Old desktop had crappy integrated graphics. Other than that, just my 7600 GS, which works well enough for me.

 

Cell Engine
8400M GS
8600M Gt
Nvidia 130M

 

it is an OLD bus format like PCI / PCIE, they were most common in the 486's Pentium overdrive machines and a few of the early pentuim series such as the P60, 66, 75 and 90.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VESA_Local_Bus

pretty much replaced by ISA / PCI motherboardd by late 95, early 96 but cards were manufactured for along time afterwards ( S3 and ATI ) until 2000 I think. Many machines were out there and the CAD/CAM bunch kept needing them as buses and card interfaces did not change much back then ( 16 Bit ISA was used from 1984?? until 2004 )

 

ATI 9700 for me. Was one of the first legitimate GPUs for laptops (in being reasonably close to their desktop compatriots). Spent 2k on that sucker. Now I'm merely mid range with the 230m but it does everything I need it to gaming wise.