First post, by Rhuwyn
So, here is what I mean with my question. For retro systems we choose our GPUs for a variety of reasons. OS compatibility, driver support, AGP compatibility, API support (particularly Glide) , or maybe it's just nostaglic.
Here is my question. All modern hardware is pretty much Windows 7 and newer compatible, and XP support was really only discontinued last generation. So lets assume we have either a Windows XP or Windows 7 system. You can still get Geforce 960 GTs for about $125 and they work with XP and perform very well. Taking cost completely out of the question. Meaning lets assume all older video cards would also cost us $125 dollars. Is there any practical reason to use an older card over a newer card outside of the fact that you might not find it interesting?
For older systems I can think of reason to use Geforce 4 or Geforce FX because of features that were dropped in FX. The same with even older systems or 6000 series is the last series with official Windows 9x driver support. The 900 Series will probably be pretty sought after at some point because it will be the last generation to have official XP support. But for anything between Geforce 7000 Series and the 900 series (And it's AMD equivalents of course) I can't think of anything that an older card would do that a 960 GT wouldn't. Curious if anyone else has any thoughts on this matter. Now keep in mind I am talking about practical reasons around running software not anything around nostaglia for the hardware itself or you think a particular card is cool or anything like that, I have those reasons also as my ebay purchase history will attest to. I simply want to understand from a feature/compatibility perspective are their games that an earlier card will run better that a 960GT won't.
EDIT: corrected some spelling and grammer.
