9800 XT was, methinks, the first ($/€)500 AMD card ever and I remember it was the thing to have in 2003. If I remember correctly, there was a HL2 bundle with some manufacturers. Longevity wise it doesn't come close to the modern cards but back then it was a beast that served me until the pci-e switch.
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Where's gcn's last consumer breath big daddy vega??
Surprised the 5700xt isn't on this list.
I heard nothing but driver issue complaints during the rnda1 era so that doesn’t surprise me at all
What did it do to make it to a top list? even AMD forgot about it.
The 5700xt!!! Are you crazy. That's the worst AMD/ATI card I've ever owned. Driver crash,crash,crash,crash,crash. Fixed after 6 months my ass.
5700xt is by far the worse gpu ever released. Its has the highest rma rates and the worse drivers. It is down as the worst possible gpu’s to exist.
I remember wanting a 9700 or 9800 pro so bad. But I was just a poor teenager and could only afford a shit GeForce mx440.
I remember being a kid and selling stuff to save up for a 9600XT, the infamous Half Life 2 bundle. Had to wait for the launch and that's how i met Steam
you mean a geforce 2 ....
I have had 9500 and softmoded it into 9700
9800 pro was my first gpu purchase and it blew my mind. was able to play half life 2 with MSAA and everything looked smooth instead of the jagged mess I was used to.
This was me, a poor high school teenager with the MX440 64MB trying to play Counter-Strike the best I could. All my rich friends had 9700 Pro’s or even 9800 Pro’s. The evening of my graduation open house, I took $200 of the money I got and went to Best Buy and bought an X700 Pro 256MB AGP. I finally had something that beat my rich friends, until they all got X850’s or 6800 Ultra’s.
My 9500 was a beast. Just a slightly cut down 9700. It was faster than my buddies 9600.
Second video card I ever owned. After my voodoo 3.
i was buying Radeon 9000 pro instead GF MX440, at least 9000pro have pixel shader
….bruh how did the 9700 pro beat the 9800 pro it fucking came with half life 2 ffs .
It was AMD’s true domination card for the generation it was in. I saw the benchmarks on Anandtech and I was floored.
It’s funny how they call the 5870 the best AMD GPU of all time.
They are not wrong, but it’s also their biggest strategic mistake ever: right when they had Nvidia in the ropes and had a chance to crush them with top of the line performance by an insane margin, they decided on they brain dead small die strategy, leaving an escape route for a Nvidia to still remain on top with absolute performance even if their performance per area was a disaster.
It’s just another example of AMD marketing shooting themselves in the foot.
Yup. NVIDIA was able to pull ahead simply through brute force. Sure they ran hot and consumed a lot of power but that was negligible when they were doubling performance every generation.
Where's R9 290X?
The 290X wasn’t that impressive at launch. Ran hot and wasn’t cheap enough to be a good value.
What are you talking about man it was on par if not faster than the first Titan..
7900xtx
I feel proud to have owned R9-280X (HD 7970). Imo, it (HD 7970) was the best card.
How is the X800/850 not on this list? X1900? HD2900 (I kid, I kid LOL)? 3870? 4870?
Nonsense.
Personally, all time means amd stop making gpus
The 7900xtx is a marvel of technology today
The midrange 6800xt still holds its own
290 was an amazing card as I did run bf4 with eyefinity and pushed 100fps with Mantle.
good days.
I miss the days when a great card could cost below $500 and a good card below $200
external power and active cooling make them all terrible
I had a 9200, 9800pro, 1950pro, hd4850, 280x, now 6800XT
I've had a Rage, X1300 PCI (not PCI-E. Weird little card.), HD3450M, HD4850, HD5870M, R9 390 x2 in crossfire, Vega 56, 6700XT, and now 7900 XTX. I feel old.
I would chosen the 4870 over the 5870. The 5870 just was continuation of the 4870, which really was the generation that pulled Radeon from the disaster that was the HD 2000/3000 series.
That was my thought, the HD4000 cards were a much bigger deal when they came out. The reasoning they have is weird too, they said the 4870 fell short because it didn't beat the 280 but then talked about how the 5870 was great despite not beating the 480. They were both great cards but the 4870 marked a return to competitiveness for Radeon.
Not seeing the Rx 580 and the Rx 6700xt is a joke
7970 should've been #2 or #1 IMO. It was their greatest GPU in terms of overclockability. It launched at 925MHz. My reference one clocked to 1.3GHz on the stock cooler (40% OC) and ram also went to the moon (not too far though, e.g. it gained perf, not lost it due to ECC like some people do). Loud but fast. It was faster than the next generation from Nvidia lmao.
Sure it was a golden sample but damn it was insane to get that much performance for free.
not to mention you can just unlock the 7950
phenomenal card...i went back to buy one last year for my period-correct rig, ditto for the 8800 GTX
"Although the RX 480 didn't live up to its strange, communist-themed marketing campaign, it had a very long life. "
Anyone know what this is referring to?
9600xt, x1900xtx, hd4890, r9 290x, rx6900xt
Based and fantastic list. If it was me, replace the 480 with the 290x, but i fully understand why it was not picked as at first few years 290x was rough.
I expect the 7800 xt to be on this list in a very very short period of time
Shoot I had a 9700 pro and a 7970
4870, x850...
Radeon 9600XT
I love my 6800XT which I upgraded to a couple of months ago. Great GPU
I miss my All in Wonder Pro. Probably my favorite card of all time. (ATI)
Feels good to own a 6800 xt!
HD 5870 was something else. I still have mine. What a blast of a GPU.
I had the 7870 and R9 390 in the past.
I wasnt really following the computer market before, anyone know how well those were received back then?
6800xt better than 290x?