Nvidia GeForce FX 5800 Ultra

Do people ever pay that kind of price for a completely standard non rare, no really old either video card, without even being tested ?

I think I threw one 5800 ultra in the trash not so long ago.
My babies, LukeTbk



1232.jpg
 
Do people ever pay that kind of price for a completely standard non rare, not really old either video card, without even being tested ?

I think I threw one 5800 ultra in the trash not so long ago.
They do. Collectors go wild specifically over the reference design FX 5800 Ultra with FX Flow cooler, it's up there with Voodoo 5/6 cards for cult status these days. I'm not a collector so I can't say exactly why but I admit these are pretty cool looking cards (especially ones with the green shroud) and are kind of rare.
 
They do. Collectors go wild specifically over the reference design FX 5800 Ultra with FX Flow cooler, it's up there with Voodoo 5/6 cards for cult status these days. I'm not a collector so I can't say exactly why but I admit these are pretty cool looking cards (especially ones with the green shroud) and are kind of rare.
KATEKATEKATE

I'm after one of these rare ones from MaximumPC:

1606794362658.png


1606794373695.png
 
A few years back I snagged a Quadro FX 1300 on eBay for a song. That was basically a 5900XT GPU married to the RAM from a 5800 Ultra, and it was amazing how much more effective, quiet, and capable the resulting card was. The 5800 Ultra was pushed too hard to compete with ATi's 9700 Pro, full stop.
 

Attachments

  • 98786352ab62965a07c516ba5d449e8a_XL.jpg
    98786352ab62965a07c516ba5d449e8a_XL.jpg
    389.9 KB · Views: 0
Last edited:
Then you're ridiculous. You literally threw a car payment in the trash.
Yes I had no absolutely idea it had any value (I could imagine why they would be rare, it was not that rare of a card back in the days, not a 9700 pro but still one of the most common model out there, I imagine many were thrown away or in storage by people with no clue).

I am not 100% sure I had that specific 5800 ultra, were some model of less interest ?

Would have been nice to known (specially if people do not care if they do not work)
 
  • Like
Reactions: erek
like this
Yes I had no absolutely idea it had any value (I could imagine why they would be rare, it was not that rare of a card back in the days, not a 9700 pro but still one of the most common model out there, I imagine many were thrown away or in storage by people with no clue).

I am not 100% sure I had that specific 5800 ultra, were some model of less interest ?

Would have been nice to known (specially if people do not care if they do not work)
5900 / Ultra

---

5800 Ultra was super rare
 
  • Like
Reactions: Halon
like this
Doom3 was a rare instance where the 5800 ultra did look good versus the 9700/900 pro from memory, they went too soon to 32 bit instead of 24 or something of the sorts.... It was a really nice era (probably because the battle with ATI was full on and really competitive with short turn around like that one, rapid exponential growth help as well)
 
Doom3 was a rare instance where the 5800 ultra did look good versus the 9700/900 pro from memory, they went too soon to 32 bit instead of 24 or something of the sorts....
agreed, it did pave the way for a lot of programmable stuff and the future
 
It is true that it was a really bad card to buy, I just checked very old e-mail it was a 5900 ultra I bought (and threw away), few !
Still
 

Attachments

  • Screenshot_20201202-001919_eBay.jpg
    Screenshot_20201202-001919_eBay.jpg
    215.8 KB · Views: 0
  • Like
Reactions: erek
like this
Not to veer too far off the rails and off topic here, but here's some more information about the NV30 Ultra that more spells out the architectural flaws

i also considered the 128-bit memory interface to be a bad design...





I assisted this YouTuber with ultimately getting a working card after they broke their's due to overclocking. and even the Broken one was repaired from a friend and fellow collector Over Seas...


Broken video:




Resolution I assisted with: (starts at 55 seconds regarding the Mention, my nickname on twitter is Beaver)

 
A few years back I snagged a Quadro FX 1300 on eBay for a song. That was basically a 5900XT GPU married to the RAM from a 5700 Ultra, and it was amazing how much more effective, quiet, and capable the resulting card was. The 5800 Ultra was pushed too hard to compete with ATi's 9700 Pro, full stop.
You can get a Quadro FX 2000. It's basically a vanilla FX 5800. I think I picked one up for like $30 shipped 2 years ago.

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/quadro-fx-2000.c1362

erek , I saw that video. The sticker on the fan on the FX 5800 Ultra looks almost exactly like the reviewer tin can.
 
Blah.. 5800 Ultra. Sure it is rare-ish, but not near the best card in the series. FX 5950 Ultra or go home!

The Quadro FX 2000 is also a much cheaper card and you can clock it up to 5800 Ultra speeds and if you really want you can mod it to a 5800 Ultra.

For that matter, put a better cooler on the Quadro FX 1000 and you can do the same.

Then the Quadro FX 3000 is the same as the FX 5900 which you can clock up to FX 5900 Ultra speeds.

The Quadro FX 1300 is the same GPU as the 5950 Ultra, just on PCIe and clocked way lower.

I would really love to get a Geforce PCX 5950 (5950 Ultra in PCIe with slightly lower clocked RAM).
 
I miss the days of BIOS flashing those cards. I had quite a few 6800s that were essentially ultras after modding. Some weren't overnight 3DMark stable but a downtick in clocks fixed that.
The last card I BIOS modded was my original Titan (6GB one from 2013). Volt and clock modded because both of 'em were good ASIC quality and had solid copper EK blocks and ran near ambient at full load (BOINC 24/7). I still have them in my SR2 box which sadly is a box of mothballs at the moment. :-|
 
  • Like
Reactions: erek
like this
Prices of these cards are really starting to skyrocket. Glad I got into collecting them like 10 years ago and scooped up a handful of geforce 5XXX cards for cheap. Have 4x 5950 ultra reference cards, 3x 5900 Ultra reference cards 1 is a developer card, 1x 5800 Ultra, some are in box like new.
 
  • Like
Reactions: erek
like this
You can get a Quadro FX 2000. It's basically a vanilla FX 5800. I think I picked one up for like $30 shipped 2 years ago.

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/quadro-fx-2000.c1362

erek , I saw that video. The sticker on the fan on the FX 5800 Ultra looks almost exactly like the reviewer tin can.
It's weird how prices on the AGP Quadros have started to skyrocket after years in the doldrums, while the FX 1300 I mentioned earlier is still maybe $25. Hooray for a PCIe bridge, I guess. If I had a use for it, I'd snag one again, but it'd force me to run an old distro of Linux or Windows 7 with the last released XP driver. It's also a safe bet that the fan's probably toast, which could require a level of jerry-rigging I just don't have the patience for now.
 
  • Like
Reactions: erek
like this
It's weird how prices on the AGP Quadros have started to skyrocket after years in the doldrums, while the FX 1300 I mentioned earlier is still maybe $25. Hooray for a PCIe bridge, I guess. If I had a use for it, I'd snag one again, but it'd force me to run an old distro of Linux or Windows 7 with the last released XP driver. It's also a safe bet that the fan's probably toast, which could require a level of jerry-rigging I just don't have the patience for now.
4097DE9F-980C-49F7-B58F-B23A3683F664.png
 
The actual top AGP cards are getting pricey now too:

Radeon 3870 AGP (only ES)
Radeon 3850 AGP
Radeon 4670 AGP

Technically the 3850 AGP is more powerful, but you'll be CPU bottlenecked on the majority of AGP systems.
 
That is true, unless you were lucky enough to snag an i865G motherboard for Conroe or one of the weird, late-surviving nForce4 motherboards adapted to use AM3. For a little while I had a 3850 AGP and a Core 2 Duo E4400, and I was surprised by that system's longevity.
 
  • Like
Reactions: erek
like this
This one got away from me, have confidence it could be repaired too
 
I never thought I'd see the day when people pay more for an FX 5800 Ultra than an RTX 3070, considering that both cards seem to have equivalent rarity right now.

Jokes aside, I never thought these NVIDIA cards would have such a cult following for being the generation where they blew it hard compared to ATi, and also for the reason cyclone3d cited that the FX 5950 Ultra is the highest-end card of the range (and as it just so happens, I own one of those).

3dfx cards have their current reputation and inflated value because they have a proprietary API (Glide) that was widely adopted and all to themselves (though wrappers thankfully make Glide-only games very playable on other GPUs now), were the brand to push 3D acceleration to the forefront and cement that "glorious PC gaming master race" culture Yahtzee snarked about, and they also happen to intersect with another subculture infamous for overpricing vintage hardware because the PCI versions of the V3, V4 and V5, tough as they are to find, work as Amiga RTG cards and Warp3D accelerators if you have a Mediator PCI busboard.

By comparison, GeForce FX cards were the last to support paletted textures and some other old features that were dropped with the 6 Series onward, so they actually do have some value from a vintage PC gaming standpoint in the turbulent era of Win9x gaming and rapidly changing standards. However, they're still a bit too new for certain games, like the infamous case of the PC port of Splinter Cell where the dynamic shadows outright break if you're using an NVIDIA driver that's too recent, and the newest card that can render them properly is a GeForce 4 Ti because the FX cards weren't out yet.
 
I never thought I'd see the day when people pay more for an FX 5800 Ultra than an RTX 3070, considering that both cards seem to have equivalent rarity right now.

Jokes aside, I never thought these NVIDIA cards would have such a cult following for being the generation where they blew it hard compared to ATi, and also for the reason cyclone3d cited that the FX 5950 Ultra is the highest-end card of the range (and as it just so happens, I own one of those).

3dfx cards have their current reputation and inflated value because they have a proprietary API (Glide) that was widely adopted and all to themselves (though wrappers thankfully make Glide-only games very playable on other GPUs now), were the brand to push 3D acceleration to the forefront and cement that "glorious PC gaming master race" culture Yahtzee snarked about, and they also happen to intersect with another subculture infamous for overpricing vintage hardware because the PCI versions of the V3, V4 and V5, tough as they are to find, work as Amiga RTG cards and Warp3D accelerators if you have a Mediator PCI busboard.

By comparison, GeForce FX cards were the last to support paletted textures and some other old features that were dropped with the 6 Series onward, so they actually do have some value from a vintage PC gaming standpoint in the turbulent era of Win9x gaming and rapidly changing standards. However, they're still a bit too new for certain games, like the infamous case of the PC port of Splinter Cell where the dynamic shadows outright break if you're using an NVIDIA driver that's too recent, and the newest card that can render them properly is a GeForce 4 Ti because the FX cards weren't out yet.
it's a faulty FX 5800 Ultra too, and 0 rep on the seller
 
The actual top AGP cards are getting pricey now too:

Radeon 3870 AGP (only ES)
Radeon 3850 AGP
Radeon 4670 AGP

Technically the 3850 AGP is more powerful, but you'll be CPU bottlenecked on the majority of AGP systems.

I have at least 5 of the AGP HD3850... Never even really tried to get them. The first one I got I was wanting one and then I randomly found other ones for sale cheap and so I picked them up as well.

Pretty sure I never even paid as much as $50 for a single one.
 
  • Like
Reactions: erek
like this
I have at least 5 of the AGP HD3850... Never even really tried to get them. The first one I got I was wanting one and then I randomly found other ones for sale cheap and so I picked them up as well.

Pretty sure I never even paid as much as $50 for a single one.
When you don't look for one, its usually when its cheapest.
 
  • Like
Reactions: erek
like this
When you don't look for one, its usually when its cheapest.
Sometimes... I do have over 100 saved searches on eBay. Without those, almost all of the stuff I have gotten for good prices I would have never found.
 
  • Like
Reactions: erek
like this
Sometimes... I do have over 100 saved searches on eBay. Without those, almost all of the stuff I have gotten for good prices I would have never found.
Speaking of which, I just scored another AGP HD4670 for less than $20 shipped 😁
 
  • Like
Reactions: erek
like this
Blah.. 5800 Ultra. Sure it is rare-ish, but not near the best card in the series. FX 5950 Ultra or go home!

The Quadro FX 2000 is also a much cheaper card and you can clock it up to 5800 Ultra speeds and if you really want you can mod it to a 5800 Ultra.

For that matter, put a better cooler on the Quadro FX 1000 and you can do the same.

Then the Quadro FX 3000 is the same as the FX 5900 which you can clock up to FX 5900 Ultra speeds.

The Quadro FX 1300 is the same GPU as the 5950 Ultra, just on PCIe and clocked way lower.

I would really love to get a Geforce PCX 5950 (5950 Ultra in PCIe with slightly lower clocked RAM).
5950U ftw. I'm still looking for a 5800U though.

csPrUv8h.jpg

iTetSw9h.jpg
 
5950U ftw. I'm still looking for a 5800U though.

View attachment 306198

View attachment 306199
I had that exact card. Funny how silly those ram "heatsinks" look these days. Looking back at cards the first card I had with an active cooling solution was the CL TNT2 ultra IIRC. Those fans were garbage. The pin heatsink on my Matrox G200 was much better. The Nidec powered blower (squirrel cage) style showed promise and ejected a great deal of the GPU heat from the chassis for sure, but some were quite whiny. And speaking of whine, the coil whine/inductor sing that came later was the icing on the cake. If you had a quiet system and kept vsync off the squealing particularly in game menus where frame rates were measured in the 1000s was absolutely nuts!
 
Back
Top