AMD

Awesome list ! My first build is highschool was a 9700 pro ! , used a 7970 and a 6800xt . I definitely agree with the list b

7970 is probably the gpu with longest life cycle from "can it run x" point of view.

I was a huge fan of the multimedia capabilities of ATI cards. I remember NVidia cards had wonky TV-Outs in the 90s, which is why I started on ATI, then the All-In-Wonder series came (with the excellent Remote Wonder), which made my PC a DVR years before that was a common. I'd have thought they'd be worth a mention in a "best of list", but oh well...

ATI Xpert@play (Rage Pro), All-In-Wonder Radeon 7500, All-In-Wonder Radeon 9700 Pro, All-in-Wonder X1900.

After that I switched to Macs (due to work), my first one had an ATI Radeon HD 5770 (Mac Pro), but after that it was Macbooks. I did stop gaming* (sort of grew out of it) around my switch to Macs, which proved to be very convenient :D

I do agree that from my recollection, the 4870 was a more important release than the 5870.

* I still disappear for at least a week every time there's a new Civ game. Been doing that since Civ I - over 30 years ago.

The 6950xt I bought at $599 was a fantastic value. While it's launch price was a little hard to stomach, I think as it started to go down in price it deserves a place on the value list.

I tell my children stories of the 9700 Pro. A legendary piece of hardware.

5700xt should have been on the list, aged so well….

Surprised to not see the 390 on here. I remember back when the 970 drama went down you basically got the same performance and double the VRAM.

Hey I've owned/have two of these GPUS. My current GPU is the RX 6800 XT and my previous one was the ASUS ROG Matrix HD 7970 Platinum. Before my current GPU was a RX Vega 64 LC.

The only bit that really confused me was a sentence towards the end of the article:

Although Nvidia claims to have invented the first GPU with the GeForce 256...

1. I have never heard this claim before.
2. The GeForce 256 came out in 1999, years after cards from makers like 3DFX, Matrox, S3, etc. I'd figure something like the S3 ViRGE (Video and Rendering Graphics Engine) would hold the claim. That 2D/3D card came out in 1995.

My Sapphire RX480 just finished its long service and earned its well deserved rest. My new Rx 5600 OEM has some very big shoes to fill.

The R9 290 was truly a beast for me personally!

I had a 9800 pro, best card ever. Played far cry like a dream

WRONG.

7950>7970

EVERYONE knows that

Rx 5700xt is the goat

AMD really did have a golden era from 2008-2013. Somehow they managed to blow it.

I'd add the RX 6800. Perfect balance between Performance, power consumption and plenty of VRAM.

• 6800XT FTW!

Feel incredibly lucky to have snatched one only 4 days after launch at £659

And for American folks out there.. that's including tax.

My first ever GPU was ATI 9200 I got in Christmas, god I remember the good times playing RollerCoaster Tycoon on it :)

Total bullshit imo.

My first Radeon was a 9600SE (Abit with LED COOLER!!) Yes it was with 64bit memory, but after a mx440 it was lightning fast, and I got for the price of a TNT2 that time, sonwas a really good deal.

Rx580

R300 really was something Special back then. I switched from gf4200ti to an 9800se that i modded to xt. The R360 Chip was remakably good. Almost 500mhz with selfmade watercooler. Results from that time:

GF4 4200ti

R360 at 490MHz

Shout out the the Duron line. Suddenly we could get decent a FPU without paying the Intel tax, and that mattered to me back then because I sure did not have a lot of spare cash.

My Duron 900 was a heck of an upgrade from the old K6-400. It lasted me until the Athlon 2500+ provided a similar incredible performance hike at a very forgiving price.

Ah the 9700 Pro...

I'll always remember it because I could only afford the 9600 Pro lol.

Not that i cared. I freaking loved that PC.

My list:

1. R9 290 - last GPU before 20 nm disaster (not mentioned in the topic, it wasn't Kepler that got parity in terms of tech process, it was that ATi lost its edge when 20nm didn't bear fruit)

2. 9500 non pro (L-shaped memory bank) - a fairly good chance to unlock it to 9700

3. N21 varieties (it'd be the first but mining craze killed it)

4. Cypress - another Khan like success that forced nV to start to play dirty (mGPU frametime "analysis", GameWorks, PhysX etc), wood screw-augmented "Thermi" flagship in Jen-Hsun hands

5. R580 - another glimmer before the big disaster (history certainly repeats sometimes) and an example of quick recovery after so-so R520 (and terribad medium/low-end parts)

9700 Pro was my first AMD/ATI GPU. It was paired with an Athlon XP 2500+ at the time.

I thought the Radeon VII was good. Just needed better driver support. I can mine really well.