Discussion Graphics Card history

[Watrevir]

Hi all

Years ago I'm sure I contributed to a thread on users' personal GPU history but I can't find it anywhere. I thought it'd be interesting to see what GPUs people have had over the years- what upgrade paths people have followed and how far back they go. Here's mine to start:

Riva TNT 2 (2000, my first PC running Windows ME and an Athlon XP 2800+)
Geforce FX 5200 (2003 - my first card able to handle Hardware T&L!)
Radeon 9700 Pro (2005 - finally able to run HL2 at max @ 1024x768!)
Geforce 7600GS (2006 - one of the last mainstream AGP GPUs and the best I could afford in my ageing Athlon PC - Oblivion ran pretty well on it)

I used a series of crappy laptops with iGPUs from around 2009-2013

Radeon 7670m (2013 - finally able to try Skyrim)
Radeon R7 240 (2014 - back to a desktop (FM2+)
Radeon R9 270x (2015)
Geforce 1060 3GB (2017 - plus an AM3+ FX 8350!)
Radeon RX 580 (2018)

Back to laptops

Geforce 1060 mobile (2020)
Geforce 1070 Max-Q (2020)

As you can see, I'm usually 2-3 years behind the curve and I'm pretty evenly spread between ATI/AMD and Nvidia.

 

[Eximo]

There was a list somewhere, couldn't find it either.

(Paradise Pipeline 64 (1mb)
--Voodoo 2 8mb, later went to SLI ) Unreal tournament, yes, this was good times
Voodoo 3 3000
Geforce 2 MX 400
Geforce FX 5200 (I may also have had a FX5500 or 5600 at some point, I recall selling something when I bought the 6600)
Geforce 6600
Geforce 8800 GTS 640MB (Last I knew it was still working running a browsing machine built out of an old Q6600)
BFG GTX 285 (still kicking along, outputs are flaky)
ASUS GTX580 DCUII
Later went to SLI, water cooling
EVGA GTX980 SC
Later went to SLI, water cooling
EVGA GTX1080 SC, water cooled

Not many laptops in my history worth mentioning. Still keep a Lenovo around with a 4700HQ and a GT740m. Mostly emulate Windows XP on it.

HTPC went through some fun evolutions
Started life as a AMD e350 embedded APU, added an HD6350 when it couldn't decode higher resolution videos.
Moved to a i3-4130T and a GTX750 Ti, couldn't get the Radeon to format 4K properly...
Then dropped in a GTX950 to get a fully featured HDMI 2.0 port, 750Ti went into someone's light gaming box
Replaced the 950 with a GT1030 passive, and the GTX950 went to someone's WoW box.

Other fun things, got myself a Voodoo 5 5500 off ebay. Have it in a Dual Pentium II server along with a ISA Sound Blaster AWE32 with Midi daughter board. (Really need to fire that up, been a while)

 

[renz496]

Riva TNT64 32mb
ATI 9250
ATI X1660
HD4550
9600 GSO
GTS250
GTX460
GTX660 (SLIed a few months later)
GTX960
GTX970 (2015 - 2020)
RTX3060Ti

 

[Prad_Bitt]

LOL

Some old Pentium from 2008 with integrated graphics
GT 610 (2012-2015)
GeForce 830M (2015-2020)
RTX 2070 Super (2020-)

I was always interested in computers as a child. But I didn't actually get a high end PC until after I finished high school which was this year lol so my track record isn't very interesting. But I plan to make it interesting in the next few decades

 

[Eximo]

LOL

Some old Pentium from 2008 with integrated graphics
GT 610 (2012-2015)
GeForce 830M (2015-2020)
RTX 2070 Super (2020-)

I was always interested in computers as a child. But I didn't actually get a high end PC until after I finished high school which was this year lol so my track record isn't very interesting. But I plan to make it interesting in the next few decades

Certainly was an expensive hobby in the 90s and early 2000s, if you account for inflation it was horrendous. You can tell when I started having independent money. Though I did make a bit of cash in the summer of 00, used that through most of High School to buy parts here and there.

You chose a good time to get started. PC Gaming has never been so popular. There was a time there where there was little progress being made in games or graphics, everything was catered to consoles. Luckily the consoles have basically become PCs and recent times have made gaming a much more favored option.

 

[Prad_Bitt]

Certainly was an expensive hobby in the 90s and early 2000s, if you account for inflation it was horrendous. You can tell when I started having independent money. Though I did make a bit of cash in the summer of 00, used that through most of High School to buy parts here and there.

You chose a good time to get started. PC Gaming has never been so popular. There was a time there where there was little progress being made in games or graphics, everything was catered to consoles. Luckily the consoles have basically become PCs and recent times have made gaming a much more favored option.

Yeah. That and the fact that I live in a country with exorbitant import duties. The 3060 Ti' official MSRP from Nvidia here is $500. 3070 is $620. 3080 is $860. It's crazy lol.

 

[digitalgriffin]

Matrox Millennium
Matrox Millennium 2
Matrox m3d
nvidia TNT2
Nvidia mx400
ATI 7700
ATI 9800 pro
Nvidia 460
AMD 7970
AMD 580
AMD 5700XT

Currently waiting on nvidia 3080/3080ti

 

[Eximo]

Ah Matrox, first to market with MIP mapping if I recall. My brother had the Millenium 2, how I ended up with my first voodoo 2 in fact.

Was a bit annoyed a few days ago when someone listed AMD/ATI, Nvidia, and 3DFX, but left out Matrox. They are actually still around, unlike 3DFX...

 

[spentshells]

voodoo 2 2000 -16MB!
nvidia 5200 64MB
radeon 7500 AGP 64MB
radeon 9000 mobile
geforce 6200 -256 DDR2 PCI
8800gt 512MB GDDR3
radeon 5770 1GB GDDR5
AMD 7850 1GB GDDR5
Gtx 570 1.2GB GDDR5
GTX670 PE 2GB GDDR5
rx570 4GB GDDR5
gtx1070ti - not really mine, it's my sons

really just a bunch of stinkers

 

[thepersonwithaface45]

970 FE, straight from best buy with the first run issues (something something 4gb VRAM)
1070ti MSI straight from best buy at the height of the crypto mining scandal (something something over-paid)
3080 TUF Asus from microcenter last week, hurt the wallet but not my eyes.
Here's to skipping a generation!