From what I can see it is the hardware that can do something unique or hardware that is fastest of its kind for specific purpose. Hardware that has software that has specific support for that hardware like glide game specifically support vooodoo cards. Also sometimes first of it's kind seem to be popular among collectors. I don't think 1080ti is going to be sought after. There isn't anything unique about it and it can be easily be replaced by faster cards of same type. I think that some day something like fastest graphics card that had windows 7 drivers might become sought after for example.

I don't think a GTX 1080 Ti will command much, but given the reasons above, its Maxwell predecessor, the GTX 980 Ti and corresponding Titan X, may command a surprising premium years later.

Why? With the way things are going now, those top-tier Maxwell cards are the last ones to feature native VGA output, 400 MHz RAMDAC and all. Current DisplayPort to VGA adapters are woefully inadequate of driving high-end FD Trinitron or Diamondtron NF CRTs to their full capabilities; they just can't handle the pixel clocks required, on top of potentially adding some input lag for the conversion.

As for software support, I've noticed that the following tend to be particularly sought-after, for reasons I can guess:

-3dfx cards of any kind (Glide support, nostalgia)
-GeForce 6800 Ultra (most powerful Win9x card IIRC)
-GeForce 4 Ti 4600/4800 and Radeon 8500 (most powerful Mac OS 9 cards)
-GeForce 7800 GS, Radeon X800 XT/FireGL X3-256 (most powerful AGP cards in general, often flashable for OS X use)

-Gravis Ultrasound and deriatives (sample-based synth as opposed to the AdLib/Sound Blaster FM synth)
-Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold (high SNR for the era, S/PDIF output includes PCM sound effects if you want even better quality, will actually fit in most cases unlike early AWE32s)
-Aureal Vortex 2 AU8830 derived sound cards (only way to get A3D 2.0, Aureal SQ3500 Turbo has a neat DSP daughterboard and is especially rare to boot)

NamelessPlayer wrote:

I don't think a GTX 1080 Ti will command much, but given the reasons above, its Maxwell predecessor, the GTX 980 Ti and correspo […]
Show full quote

I don't think a GTX 1080 Ti will command much, but given the reasons above, its Maxwell predecessor, the GTX 980 Ti and corresponding Titan X, may command a surprising premium years later.

Why? With the way things are going now, those top-tier Maxwell cards are the last ones to feature native VGA output, 400 MHz RAMDAC and all. Current DisplayPort to VGA adapters are woefully inadequate of driving high-end FD Trinitron or Diamondtron NF CRTs to their full capabilities; they just can't handle the pixel clocks required, on top of potentially adding some input lag for the conversion.

As for software support, I've noticed that the following tend to be particularly sought-after, for reasons I can guess:

-3dfx cards of any kind (Glide support, nostalgia)
-GeForce 6800 Ultra (most powerful Win9x card IIRC)
-GeForce 4 Ti 4600/4800 and Radeon 8500 (most powerful Mac OS 9 cards)
-GeForce 7800 GS, Radeon X800 XT/FireGL X3-256 (most powerful AGP cards in general, often flashable for OS X use)

-Gravis Ultrasound and deriatives (sample-based synth as opposed to the AdLib/Sound Blaster FM synth)
-Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold (high SNR for the era, S/PDIF output includes PCM sound effects if you want even better quality, will actually fit in most cases unlike early AWE32s)
-Aureal Vortex 2 AU8830 derived sound cards (only way to get A3D 2.0, Aureal SQ3500 Turbo has a neat DSP daughterboard and is especially rare to boot)

You left out cards like the 3850 and 4650 agp and the 7800 gs isn't even the fastest Nvidia agp card, that honor goes to the 7950 gt agp.

Anything that was a game changer when new. If people lust after it now, collectors will in 20 years.

The last best gasp of a dying platform people will remember fondly.

Technology that failed in the market, particularly if it was hyped, otherwise promising or weird as hell fits the bill rather nicely. Practically everything that was on the market only a short time or sold very little is a good candidate. There is a reason why, for example, in the NES collector scene most of the rarest, most sought after games are rather shit. they are rare for a reason.

nforce4max wrote:

NamelessPlayer wrote:

I don't think a GTX 1080 Ti will command much, but given the reasons above, its Maxwell predecessor, the GTX 980 Ti and correspo […]
Show full quote

I don't think a GTX 1080 Ti will command much, but given the reasons above, its Maxwell predecessor, the GTX 980 Ti and corresponding Titan X, may command a surprising premium years later.

Why? With the way things are going now, those top-tier Maxwell cards are the last ones to feature native VGA output, 400 MHz RAMDAC and all. Current DisplayPort to VGA adapters are woefully inadequate of driving high-end FD Trinitron or Diamondtron NF CRTs to their full capabilities; they just can't handle the pixel clocks required, on top of potentially adding some input lag for the conversion.

As for software support, I've noticed that the following tend to be particularly sought-after, for reasons I can guess:

-3dfx cards of any kind (Glide support, nostalgia)
-GeForce 6800 Ultra (most powerful Win9x card IIRC)
-GeForce 4 Ti 4600/4800 and Radeon 8500 (most powerful Mac OS 9 cards)
-GeForce 7800 GS, Radeon X800 XT/FireGL X3-256 (most powerful AGP cards in general, often flashable for OS X use)

-Gravis Ultrasound and deriatives (sample-based synth as opposed to the AdLib/Sound Blaster FM synth)
-Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold (high SNR for the era, S/PDIF output includes PCM sound effects if you want even better quality, will actually fit in most cases unlike early AWE32s)
-Aureal Vortex 2 AU8830 derived sound cards (only way to get A3D 2.0, Aureal SQ3500 Turbo has a neat DSP daughterboard and is especially rare to boot)

You left out cards like the 3850 and 4650 agp and the 7800 gs isn't even the fastest Nvidia agp card, that honor goes to the 7950 gt agp.

My knowledge isn't 100% comprehensive, admittedly, and I didn't even know the 7950 GT even had an AGP version!

Not that I had even considered it, since I haven't heard of the 7950 GT being Mac-flashable before. My attention's been focused on the 7800 GS for that exact reason; my MDD G4 needs a Core Image card badly, but people keep snapping up the cheap AGP cards while I'm waiting on other financial stuff to clear.

Radeon 9000 cards are the fastest Mac OS 9 ATI card.

Koltoroc wrote:

Technology that failed in the market, particularly if it was hyped, otherwise promising or weird as hell fits the bill rather nicely. Practically everything that was on the market only a short time or sold very little is a good candidate. There is a reason why, for example, in the NES collector scene most of the rarest, most sought after games are rather shit. they are rare for a reason.

This and nothing else!

NamelessPlayer wrote:

I don't think a GTX 1080 Ti will command much, but given the reasons above, its Maxwell predecessor, the GTX 980 Ti and corresponding Titan X, may command a surprising premium years later.

Why? With the way things are going now, those top-tier Maxwell cards are the last ones to feature native VGA output, 400 MHz RAMDAC and all. Current DisplayPort to VGA adapters are woefully inadequate of driving high-end FD Trinitron or Diamondtron NF CRTs to their full capabilities; they just can't handle the pixel clocks required, on top of potentially adding some input lag for the conversion.

I agree with this. The 980Ti and Titan X will be sought after. While the 780ti/960 have official WinXP drivers, the 980TI supports it if the device ID is added to the .inf file.

Total blanket statement, but I always find that the "first" and "last" (and there are lots of ways to look at this) command a huge premium. Stuff in the middle is for the "sane" people 🤣

There could also be technological curve-balls, like a new display technology that could remove certain legacy requirements.

Yeah, I believe Windows 7 is the major factor in recent times. The stuff that gets you the best compatibility, quality and performance on that platform is going to build value in the future without a doubt.

In general it's proprietary gear: consoles, tablets, phones, VR headsets, if they don't get covered with backward compatibility; game controllers with unique ergonomic or performance features, including special mice and keyboards, etc.

How long you have to wait for prices to bottom out is the guessing part. And the best deal will most likely involve some huge bulk lot of whatever item you're looking at as an investment.

Unknown_K wrote:

Radeon 9000 cards are the fastest Mac OS 9 ATI card.

I'm pretty sure the Radeon 8500 would be even faster, since the 9000/9200/9250 all use a considerably cut-down 8500 GPU.

However, finding reference Radeon 8500 64 MB cards is a bit of a pain; if not for the Mac-flashing requirement, I'd just use the All-in-Wonder Radeon 8500 128 MB that I already have and be done with it.

Even so, though, I mentioned Core Image specifically, meaning it's for Mac OS X use. Leopard REALLY wants Core Image to feel smooth.

I found that running a flashed and resistor-modded Radeon 9250 PCI will do the job just fine in OS 9, but for me to really test this theory of having working Core Image + OS 9 acceleration in a single system, I need an NVIDIA AGP card (or, really, a non-ATI card to avoid potential extension conflicts in OS 9) that works in OS X. MDDs supposedly don't like GeForce 6800s, either, so that means stepping straight up to the 7800 GS or downgrading to a 6600.

vetz wrote:

Titan X will be sought after

Not so much the Titan X, these are only the 'Titan' version of the Maxwell GTX's. The Titan Black might be desirable (given its tuned slightly higher than a Titan)... but the Titan Z (which is 2x Kepler Titans) will certainly be desirable. I still don't understand the price of these cards though, given you can SLI 2xTitans for less o.0.

GeForce GTX Titan/Titan Black/Titan Z are the last top tier cards with Windows XP support. Definitely will be sought after.