Top 10 Most Significant Nvidia GPUs of All Time

[UncleMikeRetro]

I still have a TNT, Geforce 6800, Geforce 8800, and a Geforce 256 DDR in my collection. Lots of other ones too, but can't be a "retro" computer guy without these classics!

 

[b3rdm4n]

I still have a TNT, Geforce 6800, Geforce 8800, and a Geforce 256 DDR in my collection. Lots of other ones too, but can't be a "retro" computer guy without these classics!

My current collection doesn't reflect what I've had in total over the years, some cards were sold to fund the next ones, but a brief snapshot of some ones I've owned and loved along the way (only mentioning Nvidia ones in this thread), with many more not listed for brevity;

MX440 pci
6800 Ultra
8800GTX
GTX295
GTX 260 core 216, 1792mb x2 in SLi
GTX570
GTX670
GTX970
GTX1080
RTX3080

Edit, and the brilliant X1 in my 2019 Shield Pro, damn that thing is a beast of a smart TV unit.

 

[punctualturn]

First, no. We were not paid to write this article or any other article about Nvidia.

First, I didnt say or mentioned that you were paid, I simply asked about calling them out on their anti-competitive and anti-consumer practices.

That has nothing to do with either getting paid, or your disgust with a given company or their practices.

Read above and my "disgust" has been documented by many other customers, but rarely by any sites like this, because they are scared of nvidia retaliation , so its not simply something personal.

which is borderline trolling.

Funny, when I call out someone in here with the word "trolling" my post always get deleted, yet here you are accusing me of such thing without being the case.

You will have to be more specific.

Glad you mentioned that, how about nvidia using their drivers to disable your already purchased GPU if it detected an ATI/AMD card in the same system?

Of course, its hard to find more, since none of the big tech sites dared in saying a word, but here is one link for your upcoming article: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforc...-disables-physx-when-ati-card-is-present-in-/

Or including telemetry on their drivers?

NVIDIA Adds Telemetry to Latest Drivers - How To Disable It

Over the weekend some news broke that Nvidia has added telemetry logging into it's driver. We know that GeForce Experience already is collecting users, hardware and game data, but new to us is that t...

www.guru3d.com

Or forcing their customers to have a nvidia account just to get drivers update notifications?

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforc...-I-need-to-create-an-account-to-download-dri/

We have covered the chip shortage. We have called them out for BS products when we've found that to be the case. And we've tried to put some light on the reasons for price gouging. Is that it? We're also ready to give a good product a positive review. TechSpot has been around for over 20 years now, we have a long-standing track record.

Those are ok examples, how about calling them out on how every time they release some "magical tech" its always with bad intentions towards the industry and their customers, since everything they release is a way to lock you into their hardware, like the magical DLSS, Physx back in the day, GameWorks, etc?

At this point, that should be the opening of every article that is about a nvidia product.

 

[punctualturn]

AMD's fandom has turned very toxic over the years.

Funny, I would say the same thing about Nvidia fans.

Need example? They are so petty that they are doing their darnest to make r/AMD useless to anyone that likes the sub.

Or here, your comment is a perfect example, since all you think that I am is an AMD fanboy, I am not, I simply hate nvidia anticonsumer practices.

 

[punctualturn]

My first GeForce was 256 SDR. Next, 2 MX400, 2 Pro, 4 4400, FX5900XT, 670, 980 and 2 1080's. The rest of the time I used Monster 2, Radeons 4870 and 6870. And now a Radeon 6900XT. That's all my graphics card history

My first "GPU" was a Diamond Speedstar, then plenty of Matrox, Rendition Verite, S3, Nvidia, ATI and like you, waiting on a 6900xt to replace my gtx 970.

 

[UncleMikeRetro]

My current collection doesn't reflect what I've had in total over the years, some cards were sold to fund the next ones, but a brief snapshot of some ones I've owned and loved along the way (only mentioning Nvidia ones in this thread), with many more not listed for brevity;

MX440 pci
6800 Ultra
8800GTX
GTX295
GTX 260 core 216, 1792mb x2 in SLi
GTX570
GTX670
GTX970
GTX1080
RTX3080

Edit, and the brilliant X1 in my 2019 Shield Pro, damn that thing is a beast of a smart TV unit.

I admire your ability to "let go" of older things as it makes sense to do so.
I am a bit of a tech hoarder myself

 

[Beerfloat]

Or here, your comment is a perfect example, since all you think that I am is an AMD fanboy, I am not, I simply hate nvidia anticonsumer practices.

So what you are saying is your many AMD-meme gif posts are not in fact juvenile, but valuable consumer advocacy?

 

[punctualturn]

So what you are saying is your many AMD-meme gif posts are not in fact juvenile, but valuable consumer advocacy?

The memes are simply a humor thing that its supposed to bring a smile to the ones not heavily invested in blindly worshipping a company, whom has a tendency to get triggered and post responses as a good white knight would....

 

[BadThad]

Fond memories of playing hours & hours of Call Of Duty 1 & 2 multiplayer with a 6800GT.

M1 Garand, Lee Enfield, Mosin Nagant & Kar 98 'Rifle Only' servers were amazing, creeping around the maps looking for those skilled single shot kills.

INDEED! It's very likely you played on an iX server - we were one of the first to mod COD1 & 2.

 

[DavevaS]

Nobody ever mentions 9000 series where they adopted PhysX taking the lend ever since ati and I am guessing well past AMD.

 

[DavevaS]

No one ever mentions the 7900gt. The 7000 series being the first to adopt PhysX and the performance increase was huge.

 

[Art5performance]

Fond memories of playing hours & hours of Call Of Duty 1 & 2 multiplayer with a 6800GT.

M1 Garand, Lee Enfield, Mosin Nagant & Kar 98 'Rifle Only' servers were amazing, creeping around the maps looking for those skilled single shot kills.

My childhood in a nutshell , what a time !

 

[grumblguts]

970 what a scam

 

[scavengerspc]

I enjoy reading these older articles around this time of the year.
Even if only a year old, it's interesting to see what we were thinking in the past.

 

[Neatfeatguy]

I've only owned Nvidia GPUs over the years. I can say that I was jealous that my younger brother was given a VooDoo 3 when they came out, I wanted that for the computer I was using....anyway.

When I eventually got a different system and it had a FX 5200. I didn't like it and picked up a FX 5500 (thought it would be a good upgrade....it wasn't, basically a side step into something just as sucky). But things improved for me from there.

After the FX 5500 I ended up getting these other GPUs over the years:

Geforce 6800 GT
Geforce 7800 GS
7600 GT (2 for running in SLI)
8800 GTS 640MB (2 for SLI)
8800 GTS 512MB (upgraded thru EVGA Step-Up, traded in the 640MB models and these two cards did not disappoint, the G92 chip made the G80 look like it was standing still)
GTX 280 (2 for SLI)
GTX 570 (2 for SLI)
GTX 980 Ti (2 for SLI, but ended up only using 1 as it was good enough alone).
RTX 3060
RTX 3060 Ti
RTX 3080

I'd have to say that the the G92 chip in the 8800 series is what made that series the best. Sure the 8800 GTX was a monster of a card, but when the G92 came out and went into the 8800 GTS 512MB cards and was priced roughly half the cost of the 8800 GTX and gave almost the same performance, that was awesome.

 

[Bullwinkle M]

The top card depends on what you are looking for

The 750Ti was the highest performing NVidia card (per watt) with the lowest power rating you could get and still have the widest driver compatibility available

Matched with the highest performing, yet lowest power Intel CPU that remains compatible with the widest variety of Operating systems, the 750Ti is unbeatable

Works as well with Windows XP as it does with Windows 11 on my Sandy Bridge

Nothing else could provide that level of performance at such a low power rating and remain driver compatible with Windows XP / Vista / 7 / 8 / 8.1 / 10 and Windows 11
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Waiting now for NVidia's Extreme UltaViolent Lithography GPU's from TSMC to reach the next level of High Performance at the lowest power rating (The Nexus Point) before dropping XP compatibility altogether on a new build

Waiting for the 3 - 5nm CPU's as well for the same reason

I don't need the very best performance for $10,000 - $20,000 per system

I need a system that performs as good as it possibly can within a very specific power budget

Current 35 Watt Sandy Bridge system idles between 38 and 60 Watts at the wall while running Windows 11 Pro with a 750Ti

Completely silent and never gets hot!

Entire system averages between 60-70 watts while gaming and the highest peak in GTA5 was 88 Watts

 

[hahahanoobs]

970 what a scam

lol
780Ti perf for $350. I had it 5 years. Many online review revisits followed. Helped take 20% market share from AMD and jumped to number one spot on Steam in one year along with the rest of the Maxwell lineup.

Try again...

 

[Valkyrie743]

Shocked the GTX 280 / 285 was not on this list. I remember when the card was released. it had a really decent performance uplift at the time and it was stupid cheap for a top tier gpu

 

[Neatfeatguy]

Shocked the GTX 280 / 285 was not on this list. I remember when the card was released. it had a really decent performance uplift at the time and it was stupid cheap for a top tier gpu

GTX 280 launched at $600+, I thought. I wouldn't call it a great card for a great price. The card, don't get me wrong was pretty awesome. I got the same performance out of one of these cards as I did with 2 - 8800GTS 512MB cards in SLI. Running two GTX 280s in SLI was amazing.

Spoiler

Fun side story about GTX 280s.

I had two from BFG. Just before BFG announced they were closing doors, one of the GTX 280s I had, the fan died. I sent it in for a RMA. A few days after I sent it in, BFG announced they were closing doors and no longer accepting any RMAs. They would honor any RMAs in the process. So I was relieved my RMA would be handled.

I was sent back a refurbished GTX 285. No big deal. I could use a single GTX 285 instead of a single GTX 280. I put in the 285 and got constant driver crashes and BSOD. I tried all sorts of things to remedy the issue; lower clocks, increase voltage, different drivers, confirmed the 285 was running the correct BIOS available for it and even a fresh install of XP. Nothing fixed it. I was sent back a faulty replacement GPU and now BFG is no longer taking RMAs. I was stuck with basically a $400 paper weight.

I went back to using the good GTX 280 I still had. I was pissed, but at least I had a functional GPU.

Out of desperation to get the GTX 285 functional, I figured I'd do one last extreme thing. I asked around on TPU if it had been done before and no one had answer, other than, it wasn't going to work. I didn't care. I literally had nothing to lose with what I wanted to do since the 285 wasn't working.

I copied the BIOS on the 285 to have for back up should I need it.
I copied the BIOS from the working 280.
I flashed the 280 BIOS on to the 285.....

And it worked! The GTX 285 was running off the GTX 280 BIOS. The 285 was fully functional with the 280 BIOS. It ran without crashing and I even ran the flashed 285 and the 280 in SLI for the next 2 years.

GTX 285 came out a short while later at a much better price of around $400.

Then the GTX 275 released a bit later (about a year after the 280) and gave the same or slightly better performance and only cost around $250.

The the 3xx series was ran, were limited to being rebranded 2xx series and were OEM cards, if memory serves me right.

The GTX 460 came out and gave GTX 275/280 performance at a significantly reduced power draw. I thought that was a pretty good deal, GTX 275/280/285 performance and pulling upwards of 75W less.

 

[urbanman2004]

You forgot the 1080 Ti

 

[Geralt]

The MX 400 was my first Geforce.

Upgraded from a Voodoo 3 3000.

The MX400 had more video memory and I noticed that details in my games, such as gauges in flight simulators (Janes USAF) looked animated and better.

From thence on, I prefer to get as much VRAM as possible.

Th3 most important Nvidia GPU is always the next one.

Right now my 3090FTW3 and the Kingpin 3090 are at the absolute top of the pile.

What Nvidia really needs is a 3080Ti for $1099 that isn't scalpable. IE: sell it direct to consumers.

I had MX 400 too. Anyway, I am surprised by your humble start with GeForce's. I thought you would be buying a GeForce 2 Ultra.

 

[Geralt]

First, I didnt say or mentioned that you were paid, I simply asked about calling them out on their anti-competitive and anti-consumer practices.

Read above and my "disgust" has been documented by many other customers, but rarely by any sites like this, because they are scared of nvidia retaliation , so its not simply something personal.

Funny, when I call out someone in here with the word "trolling" my post always get deleted, yet here you are accusing me of such thing without being the case.


Glad you mentioned that, how about nvidia using their drivers to disable your already purchased GPU if it detected an ATI/AMD card in the same system?

Of course, its hard to find more, since none of the big tech sites dared in saying a word, but here is one link for your upcoming article: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforc...-disables-physx-when-ati-card-is-present-in-/

Or including telemetry on their drivers?

NVIDIA Adds Telemetry to Latest Drivers - How To Disable It

Over the weekend some news broke that Nvidia has added telemetry logging into it's driver. We know that GeForce Experience already is collecting users, hardware and game data, but new to us is that t...

www.guru3d.com

Or forcing their customers to have a nvidia account just to get drivers update notifications?

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforc...-I-need-to-create-an-account-to-download-dri/

Those are ok examples, how about calling them out on how every time they release some "magical tech" its always with bad intentions towards the industry and their customers, since everything they release is a way to lock you into their hardware, like the magical DLSS, Physx back in the day, GameWorks, etc?

At this point, that should be the opening of every article that is about a nvidia product.

Don't expect TS to be revolutionary by calling Nvidia out on their anti-consumer practices, friend. The mindset here is rather ultra-conservative and ultra-commercial. I am not in love with it, obviously, but I tolerate because there are a few good things too.

 

[CrisisDog]

I remember purchasing the Riva 128 strictly for its ability to display 24 bit color at high resolutions. Months later I found out about its real purpose - 3D gaming. I was such a noob...

 

[RaXelliX]

All seems about right, my only issues is the 6800 may have has SM3 support. It grossly lacked the performance to use it by the time SM3 equipped games hit the market in mass. But those who bought an X800 or X850 ended up having more performance to run the newer games all Beit limited to SM2. The 6800 fell flat fast and was quickly replaced with the 7800.

Same here. I was buying my first dGPU at the time and was stuck choosing between X850XT or 6800. I chose X850XT because it had SM 3.0 support. Did not regret that decision. Later I bought 7900GTX too.