What was your first GPU?

What was the first GPU you bought as a separate purchase ( not included with PC )

This was mine ( image from the web, not my own )

I bought it as the PC I had bought previously had an ATI all in wonder 16MB and it wasn't cutting the mustard in Quake 3. 32 MB felt so powerful!

Always a graphics whore.

Nvidia 8500 - 512 MB.

The original 3DFX Voodoo card. Tomb Raider 1 was my first 3d accelerated game.

-Byshop

Pretty sure it was a Sapphire Radeon 9800.

The original Riva TNT. I also bought the Creative version. My next card was the Riva TNT 2 Ultra as well. I remember buying it to run Quake 3 with nice framerates :) My friend used to have a Voodoo 2. That was my first time playing with 3D acceleration. Tomb Raider and GL Quake looked so good.

I loved that TNT2 Klunt. Felt like a real powerhouse at the time - seeing that box brings back memories.

My first discrete GPU purchase (well, gift from the parents at the time) was I believe a 4mb S3 Virge card. Rockin' it old-school there...

I sure wanted a Voodoo card back in the 90s!

@klunt_bumskrint: xfx 5770 I was late to the pc game....

If you mean video cards with 3D-acceleration.......

3dfx Diamond Monster 3D

Blurry photo back in 2005: The Monster 3D would be third one down.

I was one of those selected to be given an opportunity for an early (mail order) purchase. I got mine on Christmas 1996. The 3dfx Voodoo wasn't widespread retail until a couple of months (1997) later. In fact, I had to wait until February 20, 1997 before the Quake MiniGL (GLQuake) patch appeared.

I still have some of the bundled software: Descent II, Mechwarrior II, EF-2000. Don't know why. They probably don't run with current Windows OSes.

Quake at 640x480 (with overclocked P-200 MMX CPU) went from ~18-24 fps to a consistent 40+ fps with GLQuake. Were we happy? You betcha. I swear I heard a collective sigh of relief from Quake-heads.

@klunt_bumskrint: I really can't remember the brand but it was something just like yours !

My first dedicated video card with 3D-acceleration was a 4 MB STB Velocity Riva 128 back in late 1997. At that time, I assembled a brand new PC which had a P2-266. But, I still relied on the Diamond Monster 3D for gaming until March 1998 when I bought 2 STB Black Magics (3dfx Voodoo 2 SLI).

Musta been an Nvidia GeForce GT 240. Or sth like that.

I think it was a 12mb Voodoo 2 graphics card, back in the good old Intel Pentium 1/ AMD k62-500 days. Back when my hard drive was in megabytes.

a GT420... which chugged along until I got a GTX 970 :P

Geforce 2. I don't remember which. I was so little, I was just happy to have a 3d-gfx accelerator so I could play dat Everquest and AvP. I've definitely spent many years of my life playing things on low-end gaming gear - makes you really appreciate when you can afford to step up your hardware.

Mine was the GTX 970 from Asus. I didn't start PC gaming until late last year actually.

It was a matrox card forget the name. I think it had 4mb of ram. It sucked and I upgraded to a voodoo1 not to much later.

Nvidia 7300 SE 256MB

8800 GT 512MB

R9 270x Dual-X OC

Welcome to the master race. Good choice on the 970.

@Legend002: Darn good for a first Gpu

Ati 1gb 4890

It blew my first psu, I didn't really game on pc when I had it and it was wasted only being used for football manager.

GeForce 4

8800gts 320mb. Loved the card for a period.. even tho it was a gutted g92 core
then to a 4870 (long story) which lasted me foreverrrrrr..
until my 560ti in 2014 second hand
Soon to be buying an r9 3xx series

Never liked this 560ti/8800gts, AMD from here on out

VODOO 2!!!

@klunt_bumskrint said:

This was mine ( image from the web, not my own )

I bought it as the PC I had bought previously had an ATI all in wonder 16MB and it wasn't cutting the mustard in Quake 3. 32 MB felt so powerful!

Always a graphics whore.

OMG CREATIVE! 3D Blaster! RivaTNT2! ULTRA GAMER! Even Y2K certified!

There is so much win there.

A relatively no name AGP Card with the huge 8 MB of RAM. Was around the time where everyone and thier mother tryied the buisness of making GPU's,

All I can remember about it really, was from a prebuilt store purchached PC in 1997. I just remember that depending on the game it was compatible compatible with different API's, which was odd.

But man Halflife looked good on that PC the year after :D

Hmmm...

The first is an S3 Virge 2MB and it was my 1st Graphics Card.

The Second is an 1MB Uknown Graphics Card. Which I replace the 1st one when it died. :P

And the 3rd one, most experienced people would already now from its Scan Line Interleave, a Voodoo2 12MB, my first 3D accelerator.

If I decide to remove the dust I will post better images :P.

@klunt_bumskrint said:

What was the first GPU you bought as a separate purchase ( not included with PC )

This was mine ( image from the web, not my own )

I bought it as the PC I had bought previously had an ATI all in wonder 16MB and it wasn't cutting the mustard in Quake 3. 32 MB felt so powerful!

Always a graphics whore.

Wow, what a coincidence. This was also my first video card purchase and for exactly the same reason (Quake 3). I can't remember for absolute certain that it was this exact one but I know it was a Creative something (Was the full name Creative Labs? Can't remember for sure) that was 32 megs. But it was also my last video card purchase cuz outside of the temporary obsession I had with that game I haven't cared about PC gaming.

Edit: Memory is telling me though that mine was probably a PCI version cuz I don't think the PC I put it in had an AGP slot.

I bought an integrated gpu with a cheap laptop some years ago.

I couldn't even play the original deus ex on high settings.

Then I got a 8660gt. Could only play fallout 3 on medium settings and had to play Crysis 1 on low - med settings.

Then got a 590gtx which I still have to this day.

ATI X800 XT PE , big spending for me back then. It is still running to this day!

That would be a ATI X1600XT. I had no idea about computers back then. Luckily it recommended a 300W PSU and the dell computer we had, which it would replace the X300 in, had a 305W PSU.

From memory it was a Radeon 9600XT Extreme... great little graphics card.

.. 3dfx Voodoo 3 3000... Followed by Geforce 440, followed by Sapphire 9600 XT.. Followed by BFG 6800 GT.. Followed by EVGA 8800 GTS.. Followed by HIS Radeon 4870.. Followed by HIS Radeon 7850.. Followed by MSI 970 GTX.

Shared a computer with my bro. He bought a 8500 le ati which ran unreal 2k3 beautifully :D back when each generation yielded huge jumps in performance, Moore's law in full effect. Since then I shared or had parts handed down from my older brother. It wasn't until I had fafsa and work in which I finally bought my own gtx 460 I believe.

radeon 6850

XFX Geforce 5200 fx

It was the 256mb AGP card and i remember the box saying it was Windows XP ready. :P

I cant even remember what the actual first one was, but most of my early ones...

Diamond Monster 3d, Stealth II, S3 Virge, TNT2..

But holy shit, I hated proprietary 3dfx.

I remember GPU back then being so much smaller than the ones we ahve today.

The first 3 you mentioned could be one Graphics card. Haha xD. Diamond was never a GPU architecture manufacturer.

They were like ASUS, Sapphire, MSI etc etc.

How do I remember this? Well the first GPU I posted it was a Diamond Stealth 3D 2000 which was an S3 Virge 2MB :D.

@horgen: haha, that's right GPUs were a lot smaller. My SoundBlaster AWE 32 was huuuuuuuuuuuuuuge :P.

I also remember (and we all probably miss this and we want it back) that if you can see in this picture there are some strange things between memory chips. These was because back then you could add more VRAM if you like. My GPU was 2MB and it could be upgraded to 4MB. Imagine if you could do this now at your GTX680. :D

@Coseniath: Well if I could, I would switch with faster memory... and more of course. Basically get my GTX 680 upgraded to a GTX 770... :P

One of the voodoo cards I think voodoo 2. Then went for a NVidia card. After that I got a ATI Radeon3800HD I think it was then a 5770HD ATI. Then 670GTX and now just bought a 970 GTX a couple of weeks ago..

Glad to see I'm not alone on the S3 Virge team

It was an S3 card with 4MB VRAM. I don't remember the card name.

The one and only.

"The first 3 you mentioned could be one Graphics card. Haha xD. Diamond was never a GPU architecture manufacturer."

No shit sherlock. Heres my caring face.

I can't remember my first card because I was really young and just getting into computers and talked my parents into letting me buy a new Graphics card for our home PC. We picked one up at Staples and went home and my computer didn't have a PCI slot only an AGP slot. We returned it and a year later i bought a custom built PC from cyberpowerpc.com and I don't know what I got either. Then I built my first computer which I got a Sapphire Radeon HD5770 which lasted me untill i recently bought a EVGA 4GB GTX 770.

If it wasn't the Virge, it was probably a Savage 3D/Savage Pro. My wife's first PC had one.

Looking back, I had forgotten there was a time when the upgrades that got you excited were an 8-bit sound card and a CD-drive.

And "can my computer run this" was less about PC specs and more about inputting the right commands to autoexec.bat and config.sys for extended memory and...whatever the other thing was called.

Diamond Voodoo 2 12mb PCI was my first dedicated gpu.

when i first got into gaming, the cards were in the nvidia 6 series and radeon somethings. the first dedicated gpu i bought was a 7900gs. i always buy good price/performance parts. something i learn way back from gamespot being a lurker.