I don't feel that the 6800 series is particularly rare and most of them aren't as collectible as other cards from around the same era. But I was speaking with a friend who said that he had a 6800 with the mermaid on it that I could have.

It turned out to be a 6800 128mb vanilla. I'm happy to have it in AGP as I already several of the 6000 series in PCIe. I also didn't have any with the stock Nalu (mermaid) and this particular artwork has always been hard to find.

I often forget to take a "before" photo before. Just imagine the same card but looking like it was born out of a dumpster fire, sucked carpet and dog hair 24/7, and was raised by wolves.

I disassembled the entire thing and between a lot of elbow grease, two cans of compressed air, and a lot of scrubbing in the sink, has been lovingly restored.

I applied Noctua NT-H1 on the GPU and brand new thermal pads for the memory chips.

There was some minor rust forming on the metal housing of the clock chip and also some on a few of the screws. A bit more scrubbing and a soak in vinegar helped as much as it could.

The fan is dead; I don't know why. It moves freely with a spin from my finger but doesn't pull any power from my bench power supply. I've ordered a replacement which will sadly mean that the EVGA logo will have to go. I don't know how I can safely remove it without damage and I wouldn't trust it to stay affixed afterwards.

I hope you enjoyed this little storytime!