Going through some AdoredTV YT vids, I eventually stumbled on some GPU history. I know that I tend to favor Nvidia. The video made me ask the question: Why have I used the GPUs that I have used? Why the Nvidia bias? What I am actually interested in is other people’s take on the subject.
What GPUs you have used, and why did you buy them? What did you think of them back then and what do you think of them now?
I will go ahead and list the GPUs I have used as an example. Table organized by date of purchase. Pictures below. I mostly buy used high-end or new cheap GPUs.
| Chip Designer | AIE | Model | Interface | Life Status | Misc Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nvidia | XFX | GeForce 6800 | AGP | Died randomly | Looked fancy. Terrible performance. |
| ATI | Sapphire | HD 3650 (?) | AGP | Died | Good performance, death by OC. |
| ATI | ATI (?) | non-HD X1950 (?) | AGP | Arrived Dead | DoA. Fans spin up, no video out. Would have had incredible performance. |
| Nvidia | MSI | 8800 GTS 384 MB (x3) | PCI-E | Died | Someone liquidated their SLI setup. Decent FPS. Were very large, ran hot, noisy and then died (all of them). |
| ATI | HIS | HD 4650 (?) | AGP | Gifted | Had a fancy IceQ cooler. Very ugly and outdated, but was quiet. Current status unknown. |
| Nvidia | Sparkle | 9500 GT | PCI-E | Lives! | Large heatsink, no fan, terrible performance. Was paired with dedicated PCI dual-fan config for silent operation. |
| ATI | Sapphire(?) | HD 4850 | PCI-E | Not dead yet 
|
Good performance but fancy pure copper heatsink not contacting with die lead to constant overheating. Fixed by reseating heatsink but 3-pin fan runs constantly very noisy, even if idle. Removed from personal PC as a result. Used in sister’s PC after that 560 Ti died. Would have replaced with my old 550 Ti, instead of this, from my old build, but that one had died too. Very sad this card still lives. |
| Nvidia | EVGA | GeForce 550 Ti | PCI-E | Died | Purchased because was cheap, lower-power and NOT an ATI card. Probably died due to mishandling. |
| Nvidia | EVGA | GeForce 580 | PCI-E | Sold | Bought from and sold back to ebay. Was too power hungry and noisy. Blower designs are just bad. So what designs are good? |
| Nvidia | Gigabyte | GeForce GTX 660 2GB | PCI-E | Alive |
| Nvidia | MSI | GeForce 560 | PCI-E | Died | Was very quiet, stylish, great performance and a sizable heatsink with a dual-fan design. Purchased for sis. Very sad it died. |
| Nvidia | MSI | GeForce 1050 Ti 4GB | PCI-E | Just born | Very quiet (fan whine fixed after burn-in period), cheap, lower power, excellent performance, runs hot (45*C idle, 75+ load). |
Pictures!
GeForce 6800. Terrible performance. Was outdated at purchase time but compatible with mobo. Was either this or a PCI/onboard graphics adapter.
HD 3650. Newer tech on an outdated AGP interface. Excellent card with excellent performance considering the interface limitations.
DoA. Nuff said. This was a beast in it’s day, but not for me. For me? It let me down. A large portion of why I don’t like ATI is because of this DoA card. It raised my hopes so high and then dashed them, thoroughly.
9500 GT. First PCI-E graphics card. Better performance than HD 3650 on AGP but was held back by the non-GDDR memory. The GDDR enabled similar cards were impressive.
Second PCI-E graphics card (x3). Very good FPS, but large, power hungry and guaranteed to die due to manufacturing defects.
HIS HD 4650 on AGP. Terrible outdated technology, but was reasonably quiet and very cheap upgrade for older PC.
Was so-so in performance, noise, temps and price. Would still be using today if had not died one day.
HD 4850. Was $50. Overheating fixed via-remounting heatsink. Still noise machine squared however. Still works
$180, Worked, but noisy under load. Sold off.
GTX 660. Ugly workhorse GPU. Was always at 100% and silent. 
Still lives.
That MSI 560 design is so pretty. Still is actually, but is dead.
Compared to my old 660, MSI’s 1050Ti is smaller, cheaper, uses less power, is even quieter and even performs better. And yes I have benchmarks to show that. <3 technology.
ATI has given me a lot of dead, noisy cards and lots of number of driver issues over the years so I just stopped buying them after a while. The ATI APUs seem unaffected however, and I have a high opinion of them. So, I have decided to try to overcome my bias by purchasing an ATI card for my next dGPU, probably a low-end vega model or vega refresh. FreeSync is just too awesome and giving money to Nvidia is just bad for competition in the marketplace as long as ATI can make a video card that does not sound like a vacuum cleaner under load.
Formatting tips:
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| this | as | shown |
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for | a | table
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in | markdown | do
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Practice website: stackedit.io/editor
Also: Drag and drop works for pictures
And Here is the vid btw:
