A Pictorial History of GPUs

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Yeah i know :D
But because i am only 18 so far and money was very short when i was younger i could not afford to own a pc. When i turned 14 and was finally able to earn some money oby myself, i worked my ass off with mowing the lawn and cleaning my neighbor's cars. Then i got the pc with the 9600 GT and kept that till last year in may when i bought my new pc. I will be upgrading GPU again when BF4 gets released.
Reasons:
1. ALL DAT FRAMES !
2. I'll get bf4 for free if i buy an AMD card.
3. All the other free games :D
4. Got a fixed job now and have been saving for quite a while now.
 
OP updated with three cards I missed. Oddly they were all in the USA and during the most stressful time of my life. Brains eh? must have blocked that part out.
 
Q: "How many cards would AlienALX buy if AlienALX could buy cards?"

A: "All of them!" :lol:

Dude before I got married I used to build a new PC every time a new part came out :o

So for example I built a P2 450 machine and three weeks later Intel released the P3 450. Instead of selling the CPU I sold the entire rig and built another one :lol:

That was back when I got parts for trade prices though so I actually made money. It started to get to the point where I was spending ridiclous amounts on PCs. The 3Dlabs / SLI Voodoo 2 PC cost me around three grand. It was basically the equivalent of building a SLI Titan rig now.

It's evident where the fun ended lmao. Not long after I got married.
 
It's evident where the fun ended lmao. Not long after I got married.

I sense an opportunity for a tasteless and worn out joke here but I'll refrain. :lol:

In any case, that seems to have been quite an awesome time for PC building for you :rock:
 
My first GPU was a standard GeForce 6200 that came in a Compaq computer:

nvidia-geforce-6200-turbocache.jpg


I burned that thing to death playing Call of Duty 4. All the caps had popped :rolleyes:

My dad had just bought a new laptop at the time (that's around 5-6 years ago now) so I got his old GPU. It was from a pc that he had custom built years ago (I think that thing is 11-12 years old by now, but it still runs!)

It was an ASUS V9520 Video Suite GeForce FX 5200 with 128mb DDR RAM! Wohooo. We put in in my pc, and I was really happy as I expected it to be better than my old GPU... Boy, was I wrong; My pc refused to even start up CoD4 with this GPU in it.
I couldn't handle Windows Aero either :lol:

v9520vs_l.jpg


So my dad knew this 'tech guy' which we visited and he sold us a GeForce 6200 (same GPU I already had) for like €20,-

This one was by MSI and it's still alive to date!

img121934657caba678b3.JPG


Then I got a bit more into computer building and on this webshop I searched a bunch of components together. I ended up with an i5 2500, Some Intel H61 mainboard, 4GB 1333MHz RAM aaaaaand a GTX 560 Ti by Gigabyte, which was really new at the time.

GV-N560OC-1GI.jpg


I paid the webshop extra (€55,-) for them to build it for me cause I was scared to do it myself :x

But when I got it; WHOA! This thing plays Call of Duty 4 at 1600x900 (My monitor res at the time) and all settings cranked up! IT EVEN RAN GTA IV!
I tried playing GTA IV on my GeForce 6200 but I would literally only see blue around me, the black car that I was in was just a black box and when I pressed a key it took the game 5 seconds to respond :cool:

I then got a 24" Samsung monitor, which was full HD. I noticed that my card would start to struggle with games like GTA IV and Mafia II so I wanted a new one. By the time I had also read a LOT of computer magazines, forums and I had watched a lot of videos so I knew more about them.

Sold my old rig and used the money for my new one; 3570k, 8GB 1600MHz RAM and a GTX 670 by EVGA:

EVGA-GTX-670-FTW.jpg


I built this rig myself and I really love it. Though I'm looking to sell it again cause youknow... I like building them and spending time on it, I just can't keep buying rigs without selling anything :lol:

I really love the 670, it runs most games really smooth at max settings on 1080p. Maybe my next GPU set-up will be 2 somewhat lower end cards in SLI. I'm really willing to give that a try :D
 
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I sense an opportunity for a tasteless and worn out joke here but I'll refrain. :lol:

In any case, that seems to have been quite an awesome time for PC building for you :rock:

Kid in a candy shop basically mate.

You should have seen the monitor I had back then.. /Googles..

http://www.telecompaper.com/news/maxdata-unveils-belinea-monitors--138633

I had a 17" CRT with a Nakamichi sound system built in. The front and center speaker were in the monitor shell and the base was the subwoofer.

Cost? an eye watering £550.

Edit. Actually price wise I'm thinking of the 19" Belinea I had. The 17 Nakamichi I got for around £240 trade price.
 
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Hey Alp, if that Titan needs a nice warm place to live and be loved.. I know of somewhere?

I'll find pics later on but my history goes as thus (probably in the wrong order, memory escapes me) but these are the notable ones I remember :)

Riva TNT2

Voodoo 3

Geforce MX 2

Geforce MX 440

Gainward Geforce 4 golden sample
(are these 2 the same thing?)

ATi 9200 (512MB ram version < got conned into this one, saw the ram and went GIMME)

ATi 9800 Pro (flashed to XT and waterblocked god damn fine card that one, learnt from my earlier mistake)

BFG nVidia 7800GT

BFG nVidia 7800GT x2 (first sli venture)

BFG or EVGA nVidia 8800GT 640MB (first release)

Ageia PhysX Card (the high end one) < watercooled that puppy, for physx it's still a beast compared to the gpu's today believe it or not

EVGA nVidia 280GTX

EVGA Hydrocopper 2 3072MB version

EVGA Hydrocopper 2 3072MB x2 (sli)
 
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I burned that thing to death playing Call of Duty 4. All the caps had popped :rolleyes:

Nice going mate! :o :lol:

Kid in a candy shop basically mate.

You should have seen the monitor I had back then.. /Googles..

http://www.telecompaper.com/news/maxdata-unveils-belinea-monitors--138633

I had a 17" CRT with a Nakamichi sound system built in. The front and center speaker were in the monitor shell and the base was the subwoofer.

Cost? an eye watering £550.

Edit. Actually price wise I'm thinking of the 19" Belinea I had. The 17 Nakamichi I got for around £240 trade price.

Ha my dad also used to have Belinea monitors (CRT's and later TFT's).

Hey Alp, if that Titan needs a nice warm place to live and be loved.. I know of somewhere?

*winkwinknudgenudge* :lol:

Don't worry, it will get plenty of love (and work), at least if all goes according to plan :rolleyes:
 
My first Video Card within my first ever desktop pc:

Nvidia GeForce 8500 GT 512MB
Nvidia_GeForce_8500_GT_512MB.jpeg

After that card crashed i replaced it with a Sapphire Radeon HD 5550 1GB Graphics Card:
5550_ddr3_2.jpg

In december 2010 i got a Sapphire Radeon HD 6870
293624d1292361159-sapphire-radeon-hd-6870-l_09002344.jpg

Mid 2012 i added a second one to build up a crossfire system.

And now i got a Gainward Nvidia GTX 660ti Phantom Graphics Card.
gainward_geforce_gtx_660_ti_phantom_3.jpg
 
I love the Phantom.

Alpen - Maxdata (AKA Belinea) used to make some stunning PCs. We used to get them in completely maxed out..

P3 450, Voodoo 3 and a Terratec sound card which at the time was really expensive. Lovely solid builds they were :)

Edit. OP updated again with more misc cards.. I need to go through my photobucket really and see what off piste cards I had that weren't part of my main daily rig :)
 
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it is fairly recently that i got into gaming, but the first gpu i bought when i built my first computer was the sapphire ati 9800 pro.


then my missus bought me a laptop and a xbox 360.


after a couple of years of that i got fed up with no gpu grunt so i built a new pc, i didnt have enough money at the time for a decent card so i picked up a cheap ati 4650


when i got a bit more money i bought my first decent gpu., an xfx 5770, great card.


then i managed to save up and build me first intel system im currently using,
i had to keep the 5770 for a while but as money came available i bought my sapphire 7870, the 5770 is still in use in my gf's pc, still a good runner
 
I love the Phantom.

+1 for that, one of the most awesome cooler designs I've ever seen. Put them in an inverse
ATX layout case and you can truly show them off :rock:

Alpen - Maxdata (AKA Belinea) used to make some stunning PCs. We used to get them in completely maxed out..

P3 450, Voodoo 3 and a Terratec sound card which at the time was really expensive. Lovely solid builds they were :)

Never got one of those, but I remember Terratec used to make some absolutely eye (well,
ear, really) watering sound cards. I lusted after those for many, many hours :drool:
 
Hello well I dont have any old Graphics Cards as I have only been gaming on pc for just over a Year now.

For my first setup I had a XFX Radeon HD5950 1GB I cant find a picture anywhere for it.


Then Upgraded to a Asus 6950 Direct CUII 2GB
P_500.jpg


Then I bought my first Nvidia Card bought 2 Asus GTX680's as I had to wait atleast 6weeks to get my hands on a 690 cba to wait lol :(.
IMG_5955.jpg


Then I sold 1 of my 680's because they were bottlenecking with my CPU (X6 1090T) left me with 1.

But now I'm not sure if I should get another 680 or buy a 780 as I have heard they are coming out on the 23rd may and my Bday is on the 26th of may hehe :D,I know it's not much but that's my GPU list.
 
Started out really early with an ISA video accelerator in a 386, but I can't remember what that was so I'll exclude it.

First up was an S3 trio64V with the extra ram added. (which allowed you to move up from 16-bit high colour to 24-bit true colour IIRC) Used on a cyrix 686 166MHz.
s3triopci1mb.jpg


Next up was a 3DFx voodoo 3 2000 pci used with an ibm P166. Got it for playing Unreal, UT99, F22 lightening 3 and tachyon: the fringe.
Voodoo3-2000PCI.jpg


After that was a 3DFx voodoo 3 3000 TV with a cyrix 686 MII 333MHz. Upgraded to AGP motherboard so a friend donated it.
card.jpg


Next up was an original Radeon DDR 64mb used with a Duron 800. Replaced the voodoo 3 as it couldn't play GTA 3.
Radeon_DDR.jpg


Replaced by a Radeon 9800XT with zalman ZM-80D and ZM-OP1 fan. The old DDR couldn't play Prince of persia: the sands of time due to a lack of pixel shaders. Used this one with an overclocked athlon XP 2500 overclocked to 2.3GHz.
zalman_roundup_1_thumb.jpg


This then got replaced with an x850XT PE with a zalman VF700-cu. Bought because of the upgrade to pcie. Used this with an athlon 64 3700+ overclocked to 2.8GHz.
886-overview.jpg


This then got superceeded by a Radeon HD3870 which i swapped the VF700 cooler on to. Upgraded because the x850 wasn't able to handle NFS most wanted at decent frame rates. This card was used in both the old athlon64 system and my current Phenom II system.
gigabyte_radeon_hd_3870_512mb.jpg


This brings us to the current Radeon HD6950 toxic card i have presently. I upgraded in advance of the release of skyrim as i predicted it wasn't going to fair well. It's now had an aquacomputer waterblock fitted and the shaders are unlocked making it a 6970.
sapphire_radeon_hd_6950_toxic_2gb.jpg


I gave the 9800 to a friend and the x850 & 3870 went to my brother. The rest of the cards are probably still in the loft. Out of all of the cards, my favourites were the voodoo 3 2000 and the 9800XT as they lasted a long time and allowed me to play some games that I've never forgotten. Somehow I still miss glide.
 
First up was an S3 trio64V with the extra ram added. (which allowed you to move up from 16-bit high colour to 24-bit true colour IIRC)

Do you remember the demo that S3 included on the disk?

It was a video of a guy jumping out of a plane. However, being those days and there not being any decent compression the video was like one second long :lol:

So I just stuck it on loop at stared at it for ages :lol:
 
This actually isn't my first GPU, i had two more before this but i don't remember which anymore, all i know is that the first one died because of dust and the second one i gave my cousin.
Anyways, this is the first GPU i ever bought:

WzLZX2n.jpg


The nVidia 7600GS, i can't remember which manufacturer, i still have the package but i don't want to get it out of my basement just to check who made the card

L4eUpvJ.jpg


i couldn't find a picture of the nvidia gt320m, but this laptop was all i used for about 1.5 years, i still use it but only for streams and such. i had to have a laptop at that time because i was travelling between my parents a lot.

gZzToDI.jpg

Sapphire HD6870
this was the GPU i used for my first completely self built PC, i built in GPUs etc. earlier, but this was the first PC i really built from scratch without any help.

VJQ9YkQ.jpg


about half a year ago i wanted to upgrade, so i got this HD7950 DCII TOP V2, the cooler is truly outstanding, overclocking it was fun, it was amazing in benchmarks, but unfortunately not in the games i play. i had to RMA it after 2 months.

jWU994u.png


this is what i am currently using, the EVGA GTX 670 FTW. the cooler is awful for overclocking, but at stock it does fine. It's getting wet sometime soon anyways.
 
my 1st card >

Voodoo
card_p.jpg


2nd card i got an nvidia 6250 turbo catche 256mb dedicated 512mb shared >>
1332932437_339190334_1-Nvidia-GeForce-6200-turbocache-model-colonykazimabad.jpg


i then stepped up when i got my e6400 cpu which has a 650i chipset i purchased 2x 7600GT for sli >>
and these were my exact cards >>
7600gt-front.jpg


then my 7900GTX>>
7900GTX-front-big.jpg


after that i went 8800gtx single card >>
another image of my exact card
bfg-gf8800gtx-front.jpg


i stuck with bfg until they went bust when my 8800gtx failed i stepped upto the 1GB 9800GTX which out performed it in every way i still have my 9800GTX's here both are dead but heres my own image >>
wp000019v.jpg


and now my final card which is a Gigabyte 7950 windforce >

Image_02S.jpg
 
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Here's mine:
cirrus logic 512k
s3 virge 1mb
matrox mistique (matrox)
3dfx voodoo (orchid rightuoes 3d)
riva tnt2
geforce 256 sdr (leadtek)
geforce2 ultra (hercules)
geforce4 Ti4200 (gainward)
geforce 6800le (leadtek)
ATI Radeon X1900XT (sapphire)
geforce 8800gtx (zotac)
ATI Radeon HD5770 (XFX)
 
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