Top 10 Most Significant Nvidia GPUs of All Time

[Avro Arrow]

It's funny to look back and see how worked up we got over things like four whole megabytes! Today we have GPUs with 24 GBs!

Tell me about it. My first build was a 286-16 with 1MB of SIMM RAM, two 20MB MFM drives (ran an RLL controller to get 40MB from each) and an ATi EGA Wonder card with a whopping 256k RAM.

The ratio of VRAM to system RAM remained similar at least. There are probably lots of computers in which the VRAM is still 25% of the system RAM.

 

[Avro Arrow]

BTW picking just 10 best is an easy task on nivdia. Now having a 10 worst, heck even 5 worst cards, that would be a challenge

I could do it easily because I've been around as long as I have. In no particular order:

• GTX 970 (1GB of VRAM slower than the other 3GB)
• GTX 480 (OMGWTFBBQ!)
• GTX 590 (Unstable and weaker than the HD 6990)
• 8400 GS (Glorified video adapter so weak that it can use PCI)
• GTS 250 (Re-branded 9800GTX+ but nVidia didn't want anyone to know)
• FX 5400 (Sounded like an old Electrolux vacuum cleaner)
• NV1 (Horrible picture quality compared to the competition)
• GT 1030 DDR4 (Half the performance of the GDDR5 version at the same price)
• Mobile 8400 GT (Bumpgate)
• Pick another mobile GPU that was affected by bumpgate

That bumpgate scandal affected SO MANY mobile GPUs (at least two entire generations) that you could do a bottom ten using only those. Nope, not a challenge.

 

[Lew Zealand]

OK I'd never heard of Bumpgate with that name until now, as I was using Macs at the time. However I'm familiar with the problem as Mrs. Zealand's MBPro with 8600M ended up with a failed GPU, which seems to be a bumpgate GPU. It was widely known in the Mac community to avoid used versions of those models.

I have 3x 2009 models with 9400M and 9600M GTs in them which are still working fine so I guess Nvidia must have fixed the problem by then.

 

[kmo911]

Sli gtx 7800 was nice too.

GeForce 7 series - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Rayneofpayne]

9800 GX2 specifically the ssc evga and xxxblack from xfx.
First and last time NVidia made the dumb mistake of coming out with a high compute card that rivaled the tesla workstation cards, at 650$ universities and other fields were buying them along with double spaced quad pcie mobos that helped birth larger standards of the atx that were unusual, but they had similar compute for a fraction of the cost.

One could argue this was the beginning of what would give birth to the Titan series cards.

 

[Rayneofpayne]

Tegra is not significant at all. Nvidia had excess amount of Tegra chips and sold them cheaply for Nintendo. There is no custom logic on chip Nintendo uses, it's just off the shelf chip.

It tells us two things:

1. It was never meant to be used on Switch
2. Nvidia had no interest developing chip for console like Switch

Basically same as saying AMD has made significant release with Ryzen 5 4500U because upcoming handheld console Aya Neo Founder Edition is going to use it. Again, no custom there, just off the shelf chip.

Nothing compared against Playstation and XBox chips that are custom stuff.

Off the shelf chips are significantly cheaper than custom ones dumb dumb console manufacturers can't seem to figure this out causing price increases for mediocre features.

 

[Stoly]

I could do it easily because I've been around as long as I have. In no particular order:

• GTX 970 (1GB of VRAM slower than the other 3GB)
• GTX 480 (OMGWTFBBQ!)
• GTX 590 (Unstable and weaker than the HD 6990)
• 8400 GS (Glorified video adapter so weak that it can use PCI)
• GTS 250 (Re-branded 9800GTX+ but nVidia didn't want anyone to know)
• FX 5400 (Sounded like an old Electrolux vacuum cleaner)
• NV1 (Horrible picture quality compared to the competition)
• GT 1030 DDR4 (Half the performance of the GDDR5 version at the same price)
• Mobile 8400 GT (Bumpgate)
• Pick another mobile GPU that was affected by bumpgate

That bumpgate scandal affected SO MANY mobile GPUs (at least two entire generations) that you could do a bottom ten using only those. Nope, not a challenge.

What!!?? No mention of the FX5800?

The 970 was a HUGE success in spite of its 512mb slower memory.
The GTS 250 was pretty much a rebrand, no problem with that, it was still a good card.

 

[Stoly]

Tegra is not significant at all. Nvidia had excess amount of Tegra chips and sold them cheaply for Nintendo. There is no custom logic on chip Nintendo uses, it's just off the shelf chip.

It tells us two things:

1. It was never meant to be used on Switch
2. Nvidia had no interest developing chip for console like Switch

Basically same as saying AMD has made significant release with Ryzen 5 4500U because upcoming handheld console Aya Neo Founder Edition is going to use it. Again, no custom there, just off the shelf chip.

Nothing compared against Playstation and XBox chips that are custom stuff.

I really can't remember what the Tegra X chip was designed for. I think it was made for tablets but don't quote me on that one.

Anyway it ended up mostly in the Nvidia Shield TV console.

Fortunately for nvidia it was quite powerful, it remained the most powerful ARM based SoC for quite a while.

I guess it was a great deal for both Nintendo and Nvidia as nintendo probably saved millions just getting a ready made chip with all the middleware support and nvidia who was rumored to be getting rid of the TegraX at the time then managed to sell millions of them.

 

[jdwii]

8800 Series and yes even Maxwell both impressed me the most from Nvidia in the past 25 years.

I hope they do the worst 10 GPU's from both of them too

 

[nismo91]

8800 Series and yes even Maxwell both impressed me the most from Nvidia in the past 25 years.

I hope they do the worst 10 GPU's from both of them too

I concur. 8800 series ftw. it was so popular there were GS, GTS, GT, GTX and Ultra variants. I had the 8800GT and was also delighted to see that it can act as a PhysX card.

the mobile 8600M GT is definitely the worst. the card itself is removable (MXM-II) but OEM specific bios means you can't easily swap it to another MXM-II card or even remove it to switch to integrated graphics. it's the worst when you're not in the US (part of settlement lawsuit) and your laptop is not one of those select OEM covered (Dell, HP, Compaq, Apple).

a friend gave me her acer 5920 with dead 8600M GT. at the time I thought I could maybe get some lower-end MXM-II card over ebay and have a pretty decent laptop at the time. boy I was wrong, even crappy card costs hundreds of dollars. I guess nvidia sort of "scammed' those OEM when they supplied them with the horseshit that is the 8600M GT.

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/new...faulty-processor-suit-dell-hp-compaq-mac.html

 

[Azurelas]

The GTX 970 or GTX 1060 should have been mentioned. Best cards price-performance wise Nvidia ever made and the only ATI/AMD card that comes close is the HD 5870.

 

[mrSister]

No mention to the GeForce FX series or the GTX970? Both pretty significant in their own ways

 

[Avro Arrow]

OK I'd never heard of Bumpgate with that name until now, as I was using Macs at the time. However I'm familiar with the problem as Mrs. Zealand's MBPro with 8600M ended up with a failed GPU, which seems to be a bumpgate GPU. It was widely known in the Mac community to avoid used versions of those models.

I have 3x 2009 models with 9400M and 9600M GTs in them which are still working fine so I guess Nvidia must have fixed the problem by then.

Yes, with the advent of the 9000 series, nVidia had fixed the problem. I seem to remember that the mobile 6800 may have been the first followed by pretty much all of the 7000 and 8000-series mobile GPUs.

 

[Avro Arrow]

What!!?? No mention of the FX5800?

The 970 was a HUGE success in spite of its 512mb slower memory.
The GTS 250 was pretty much a rebrand, no problem with that, it was still a good card.

Well, I tried to use only one card out of each generation. I know that none of the FX-5xxx cards were any good, I just happened to own a 5400 so I used that. The GTS 250 was a decent card, yes. It was how nVidia threatened tech sites not to mention that it was a re-brand that soured it in my eyes.

IIRC, that's when Charlie Demerjian declared war on nVidia.

The GTX 970 was a huge success, not because it was a great card but because it was in most people's price range during the nVidia craze. It was so bad that it resulted a class-action lawsuit. That makes it one of nVidia's worst cards because other cards didn't do that (except the bumpgate mobile GPUs that is).

 

[HardReset]

Off the shelf chips are significantly cheaper than custom ones dumb dumb console manufacturers can't seem to figure this out causing price increases for mediocre features.

True. But that makes it even less significant. That's my point. Other Nvidia chip(s) used on consoles are much more significant, see below.

I really can't remember what the Tegra X chip was designed for. I think it was made for tablets but don't quote me on that one.

Anyway it ended up mostly in the Nvidia Shield TV console.

Fortunately for nvidia it was quite powerful, it remained the most powerful ARM based SoC for quite a while.

I guess it was a great deal for both Nintendo and Nvidia as nintendo probably saved millions just getting a ready made chip with all the middleware support and nvidia who was rumored to be getting rid of the TegraX at the time then managed to sell millions of them.

Primarily for tablets yes. Nvidia had excess inventory of Tegras and then decided to dumb them cheaply for Nintendo. Question is, how that is significant? Flop product used on something else it was designed for is "significant"? Much more significant is Nvidia's GPU on first XBox. Significant because that meant Microsoft will never again use Nvidia hardware on XBox consoles...

 

[mrmason62]

Surely the Geforce 4 should be in this list. I had one of these and when it came out it had radically new capabilities.
Only Max Payne could take advantage of the cards new tech and boy it looked good.
I had a 21 inch flat screen monitor back then. My whole rig was incredibly expensive and I'd even got a 5.1 system. Right at the heart was the geforce 4.
In going back almost 20 years now but I'll never forget how max Payne looked and played.
If only we could get a 4k remaster.
Any list is highly subjective but surely the geforce 4 should be in there.

 

[Stoly]

Well, I tried to use only one card out of each generation. I know that none of the FX-5xxx cards were any good, I just happened to own a 5400 so I used that. The GTS 250 was a decent card, yes. It was how nVidia threatened tech sites not to mention that it was a re-brand that soured it in my eyes.

IIRC, that's when Charlie Demerjian declared war on nVidia.

The GTX 970 was a huge success, not because it was a great card but because it was in most people's price range during the nVidia craze. It was so bad that it resulted a class-action lawsuit. That makes it one of nVidia's worst cards because other cards didn't do that (except the bumpgate mobile GPUs that is).

Well, the 5800 series should get the 1 spot as the worst nvidia card ever. But the 5900 series was a best seller, it certainly sold a lot more cards than the ATI 9700/9800 series combined in spite of being beat by them in many cases.

The GTX970 was a great card, it was also a best seller, people just like bitching about it having just "3.5 GB".
There was pretty much no real world performance issues.
BTW the lawsuit was settled so officially nvidia did no wrong.

Man I loved Charlie's nvidia conspiracy theories, they were hilarious. I can't take count on how many times it proclaimed nvidia's death.

 

[Stoly]

True. But that makes it even less significant. That's my point. Other Nvidia chip(s) used on consoles are much more significant, see below.



Primarily for tablets yes. Nvidia had excess inventory of Tegras and then decided to dumb them cheaply for Nintendo. Question is, how that is significant? Flop product used on something else it was designed for is "significant"? Much more significant is Nvidia's GPU on first XBox. Significant because that meant Microsoft will never again use Nvidia hardware on XBox consoles...

Microsoft dumping nvidia was for financial reasons, it had nothing to do with the GPU performance.

 

[Stoly]

Surely the Geforce 4 should be in this list. I had one of these and when it came out it had radically new capabilities.
Only Max Payne could take advantage of the cards new tech and boy it looked good.
I had a 21 inch flat screen monitor back then. My whole rig was incredibly expensive and I'd even got a 5.1 system. Right at the heart was the geforce 4.
In going back almost 20 years now but I'll never forget how max Payne looked and played.
If only we could get a 4k remaster.
Any list is highly subjective but surely the geforce 4 should be in there.

There are a lot of cards that could be considered on the top 10, I'd even put the Geforce 2 and 3 series there. I'd refrain from listing the Geforce4 simply because it had to face the 9700 series and there was no contest there.

 

[HardReset]

Microsoft dumping nvidia was for financial reasons, it had nothing to do with the GPU performance.

Of course and that's why I didn't say it was about performance. Still, much more significant than many GPU's on list.

 

[Chagne]

Nvidia had excess amount of Tegra chips and sold them cheaply for Nintendo.

Yeah yeah, Nintendo selling millions asked Nvidia who just happened to have those millions of handheld designed chips "in excess"...

 

[HardReset]

Yeah yeah, Nintendo selling millions asked Nvidia who just happened to have those millions of handheld designed chips "in excess"...

Tegra flopped on tablets where is was intended to sell -> Nvidia had excess inventory -> Nintendo offered deal: "we buy your excess Tegra chips cheaply and if you want to sell more chips cheaply, we will buy them if our console sells well.

Now imagine how "good" position Nvidia was on those negotiations. For Nvidia, best choice was to sell excess Tegras cheaply for Nintendo (no-one else wanted them) and because Nvidia wanted to get at least something for them, those chips outside excess inventory surely went out cheaply also.

 

[Thretosix]

Of the list the 8800 stood out the most to me. The GTX 1080 was pretty big to the ti version put the punctuation mark on that series. The 20 series introduced ray tracing and DLSS which can't be ignored, the 30 series really just really a beefed up 20 series and actually made ray tracing viable which really is a huge step in gaming.

 

[Stoly]

Tegra flopped on tablets where is was intended to sell -> Nvidia had excess inventory -> Nintendo offered deal: "we buy your excess Tegra chips cheaply and if you want to sell more chips cheaply, we will buy them if our console sells well.

Now imagine how "good" position Nvidia was on those negotiations. For Nvidia, best choice was to sell excess Tegras cheaply for Nintendo (no-one else wanted them) and because Nvidia wanted to get at least something for them, those chips outside excess inventory surely went out cheaply also.

I don't know, nvidia is not known to sell thier stuff for cheap, just ask Sony and MS.

I think it was actually a happy accident. Before the deal, nvidia was rumored to be working on a portable shield tv console sucessor. So when Nintendo was on the look for a SoC supplier, they got a close to complete solution. Not perfect by any means, but it was the best that was available.

Certainly one of those rare cases when both parties get a good deal.

 

[HardReset]

I don't know, nvidia is not known to sell thier stuff for cheap, just ask Sony and MS.

For PS3 and XBox Nvidia developed custom solution. Sony messed up with Cell, they really didn't have much choices then. For Xbox, MS had no previous experience with consoles. Nvidia GPU deal can be considered as lesson learned.

I think it was actually a happy accident. Before the deal, nvidia was rumored to be working on a portable shield tv console sucessor. So when Nintendo was on the look for a SoC supplier, they got a close to complete solution. Not perfect by any means, but it was the best that was available.

Certainly one of those rare cases when both parties get a good deal.

If Nintendo wanted "best that's available", they would have asked someone to make custom chip.

Leaving out Nintendo deal, Tegra was simply huge and expensive flop. No-one else wanted it. Only way for Nvidia to make even some money from Tegra was deal with Nintendo. Since Tegra was not developed for Nintendo at all, Nintendo had no obligation to use Tegra. Since Nintendo could refuse deal without no problems (they could always use custom chip) and only way for Nvidia to get back development costs is deal with Nintendo, it's very easy to say who got good deal. Nintendo had options, Nvidia didn't. Simple as that.