techspot The History of the Modern Graphics Processor

[ENTERPRISE]

Quote

The evolution of the modern graphics processor begins with the introduction of the first 3D add-in cards in 1995, followed by the widespread adoption of the 32-bit operating systems and the affordable personal computer.

 

The graphics industry that existed before that largely consisted of a more prosaic 2D, non-PC architecture, with graphics boards better known by their chip’s alphanumeric naming conventions and their huge price tags. 3D gaming and virtualization PC graphics eventually coalesced from sources as diverse as arcade and console gaming, military, robotics and space simulators, as well as medical imaging.

Source

 

Nice bit of nostalgia !

[pio]

There's some cards I haven't seen in years, names too. Good article!

[Snakecharmed]

Those early 3D accelerator days were a wild time with that many competing chipset manufacturers. At various times I was pulling for Matrox, Nvidia, ATI, 3dfx, and even PowerVR and wishing I could afford some of those cards that were coming out at the time.

 

When I think back on the video cards I've owned, I always bought them asynchronously from the rest of my system build, and I went through a period where I was cycling through ATI cards like I had nothing better to do with my money. Used GPUs were cheap back then though.

• Matrox Millennium (OEM) - Not a 3D card, but one of the first times in PC history people paid attention to their video card; I have no idea what the hell was in the 386SX box I had before this Pentium machine
• (Did I own a RIVA TNT here? Something had to be paired with my overclocked Celeron 366 build in 1999 and I don't remember it being the Millennium.)
• Nvidia GeForce 2 GTS
• ATI Radeon 9500 - The first time I bought a card only to upgrade it shortly thereafter. I also can't confirm that I actually ever got this card, but I remember the softmod to turn it into a 9700 and I thought I might have done this. Or maybe I got some variant of the 9600. I really don't remember.
• Hercules 3D Prophet 9700 Pro - Also bought an Arctic Cooling GPU cooler to go with this card; card later had an unrelated memory chip failure
• ATI Radeon X800 Pro - I honestly don't know what I was doing here because I got the X850 Pro two days later
• ATI Radeon X850 Pro - How did both this card and the X800 Pro cost me only $40 each?
• Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 - I forget the AIB partner, returned because it was depicted as having an aftermarket cooler and I got the crappy stock Nvidia blower instead
• PNY GeForce GTX 560 - Returned another for the same reason
• EVGA GeForce GTX 560 - This is where I more or less started favoring EVGA's custom PCB and cooling designs
• Zotac GeForce GTX 760
• PowerColor Radeon HD 7790 - I never even used this card; I originally got it for an eGPU dock before learning that AMD cards were sub-optimal for eGPU usage for some reason
• EVGA GeForce GTX 980 - Used for less than a year before upgrading
• EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti
• EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti - Used for a little over a month up until last month before realizing it didn't support HDMI 2.1
• EVGA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti

Every card I ever bought was pre-owned except the Millennium, first two 560s, 760, HD 7790, and 3060 Ti.

Edited December 1, 2021 by Snakecharmed

[ENTERPRISE]

9 hours ago, Snakecharmed said:

Those early 3D accelerator days were a wild time with that many competing chipset manufacturers. At various times I was pulling for Matrox, Nvidia, ATI, 3dfx, and even PowerVR and wishing I could afford some of those cards that were coming out at the time.

 

When I think back on the video cards I've owned, I always bought them asynchronously from the rest of my system build, and I went through a period where I was cycling through ATI cards like I had nothing better to do with my money. Used GPUs were cheap back then though.

• Matrox Millennium (OEM) - Not a 3D card, but one of the first times in PC history people paid attention to their video card; I have no idea what the hell was in the 386SX box I had before this Pentium machine
• (Did I own a RIVA TNT here? Something had to be paired with my overclocked Celeron 366 build in 1999 and I don't remember it being the Millennium.)
• Nvidia GeForce 2 GTS
• ATI Radeon 9500 - The first time I bought a card only to upgrade it shortly thereafter. I also can't confirm that I actually ever got this card, but I remember the softmod to turn it into a 9700 and I thought I might have done this. Or maybe I got some variant of the 9600. I really don't remember.
• Hercules 3D Prophet 9700 Pro - Also bought an Arctic Cooling GPU cooler to go with this card; card later had an unrelated memory chip failure
• ATI Radeon X800 Pro - I honestly don't know what I was doing here because I got the X850 Pro two days later
• ATI Radeon X850 Pro - How did both this card and the X800 Pro cost me only $40 each?
• Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 - I forget the AIB partner, returned because it was depicted as having an aftermarket cooler and I got the crappy stock Nvidia blower instead
• PNY GeForce GTX 560 - Returned another for the same reason
• EVGA GeForce GTX 560 - This is where I more or less started favoring EVGA's custom PCB and cooling designs
• Zotac GeForce GTX 760
• PowerColor Radeon HD 7790 - I never even used this card; I originally got it for an eGPU dock before learning that AMD cards were sub-optimal for eGPU usage for some reason
• EVGA GeForce GTX 980 - Used for less than a year before upgrading
• EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti
• EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti - Used for a little over a month up until last month before realizing it didn't support HDMI 2.1
• EVGA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti

Every card I ever bought was pre-owned except the Millennium, first two 560s, 760, HD 7790, and 3060 Ti.

Out of those cards I think I owned the 

 

Nvidia GeForce 2 GTS

ATI Radeon 9500

Hercules 3D Prophet 9700 Pro

EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti 

EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 

 

All great cards for their era, I mean the 980 Ti and 1080 Ti are still holding strong !. I remember the ATI 9500 and 9700 Pro well. Those were the days where you could unlock additional pipelines to get up to the "XT" performance. Until they got smart and started laser cutting and stopping us poor folk from getting better performance for free lol.

[Avacado]

13 hours ago, ENTERPRISE said:

Source

 

Nice bit of nostalgia !

I had every VooDoo card that came out. AGP 2x was a game changer. I actually looked on ebay to purchase one again..... GL finding a voodoo 3-5 for less than a 3060. 

[ENTERPRISE]

3 hours ago, Avacado said:

I had every VooDoo card that came out. AGP 2x was a game changer. I actually looked on ebay to purchase one again..... GL finding a voodoo 3-5 for less than a 3060. 

AGP, not something I have heard in a while. AGP was awesome, massive gamechanger over poor PCI.

[Sir Beregond]

I think my last AGP card was an ATI x1650 Pro. I think they had a PCIe version, but I remember being on an AGP motherboard at the time.