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[alysonwheel]

My first GPU was an S3 ViRGE. It was the only part of my first PC that I actually bought, because the rest of it was a combination of three or four defunct office PCs from some local business that recently closed. I don't remember exactly what CPU it was paired with -- a knockoff 486, I think -- but I do remember it could barely cope with Tomb Raider.

My first GPU that actually did stuff was a Voodoo Banshee. I built a K6-2 300 to play Half-Life and it looked pretty great in software mode, but I got fed up with the low resolution and bought a Voodoo 1, which promptly had a fight with the S3 and refused to work. The local Game store let me exchange it and I ran the Banshee for ages, almost all the way through university.

The next one was, I think, a Geforce 4MX, alongside a Duron 950. Freespace was amazing on that card.

After that I built a second PC, because the house I lived in was huge and I wanted to play games on the TV. I put a Geforce 5200 in with an Athlon XP of some kind, I think. This lasted a while, until Half-Life 2 forced an upgrade to an Athlon 64 and a 6600GT.

World of Warcraft prompted an upgrade to a 7800GT, which was always kind of dodgy. When it eventually failed we got a pair of 8800GTs, one for my PC and one for my girlfriend's, and an upgrade to a Core 2 Duo E7200.

My 8800GT lasted until The Witcher 2, which I saw running on my girlfriend's Phenom X4/GTX460, so I threw in a Palit GTX560. This turned out to be a horrible decision, because the card was crap, suffered from weird problems throughout its life, and finally collapsed a few weeks ago. Meanwhile, that 460 is a year older and still perfectly fine.

I was kind of annoyed because the 460/560 has enough grunt to run modern games at okayish settings still, so it felt like I was being forced to upgrade early, but I have to admit the Sapphire R9 270X that lives in my PC now, alongside an FX8350, is making my games look really nice.

 

[SHL23]

my dad had pcs in the 90s with nice as fuck video cards, but the first i remember he getting me for my own was a pentium 4 2.4ghz with hyper boost with a x850xt or something like that.

 

[Chris_IWS]

A buddy at work built me my first PC with a Radeon 9550. For some reason, I still have my first upgrade sitting in a closet with me.

 

[Lazlo]

First graphics card, S3 3D Virge DX 4mb

Second Card, Savage4, terrible drivers.

Third Card, Good old riva TNT2 m64. Ran GTA2 really well, quite the step up.

Fourth Card, Leadtek TI 4200 came with some nvidia game where you could fly around as a jet and turn into a mech.

Fifth, ATI Radeon All in Wonder 9800 pro. Watching tv on your computer was SO cool at the time. Pretty sure I used this for World of Warcraft.

Sixth Card, EVGA 7800 GT OC. Now with 256 MB ram!

Seventh Card, went big with the best I could get at the time. Only replaced it late last year with...

780 GTX. This should last me for a while now!

Quite the history of cards, and I probably have most of them kicking around in drawers or storage somewhere haha.

 

[JaseC]

I may as well join in on the history fun:

~1996: 2MB S3 card that was only DirectDraw-capable
2001: 12MB Voodoo 2, which was just a small gift from the person who was to build my parents a new PC
2001: 64MB GeForce 2 Ti
2006: 128MB GeForce 6600GT
2007 (early): 256MB GeForce 7900GS
2007 (later): 512MB Radeon 2900XT
2010(?): 512MB Radeon HD5750
2011: 1.28GB GeForce GTX 570
2012: 2GB GeForce GTX 670
2013 (current): 2x 2GB GeForce GTX 670

 

[Not Spaceghost]

ATi rage 128 pro was my first card! Oh my god icannot believe it was 16Mb of VRAM.

I went from that to a radeon 9550 which was a 256mb monster, i got that just for battlefield 2.

 

[CF_Fighter]

Such love for that card. First boxed GFX card for me as well. I remember my family waited months for our local PC shop to get it after we ordered it because there was such a backorder on the cards when they first came out. Once we did get it I loaded up Quake 2 and my entire summer of 1998 was lost to playing multiplayer all day and night.

 

[OldGangWarily]

My first card upgrade was the 8800 GTS back in 2007.

Then I left PC gaming for a loooooong time.

Then after graduating college in 2011, got 2 GTX 580s.

Then 2 GTX 680s in 2012.

Then went single card for GTX 780 TI this year :]

 

[Phreak47]

My first card was the Voodoo Banshee

I didn't know much about computers back then. Wanted to play Need For Speed 2 and Incoming. Was told I needed a 2D and 3D card.

Same one here! I remember playing Half-Life first with the software rendering, then installing this thing and enabling the magical "3dfx mini driver". Ran this in a AMD K6-2 333Mhz, I believe with 128MB RAM.

Yeah, I only knew I wanted "3dfx support".

 

[pottuvoi]

First 3D graphics card was Verite 2200 with 8MB of memory.
The card had superior image quality at the time with 32bit framebuffer and excellent edge antialiasing.

 

[antipod]

Started my PC 3d accelerated gaming with one of these.

 

[Yoday]

S3 Virge/DX

I wasn't lucky enough to have the luxurious 4MB version, I had the 2MB version. Matter of fact, I still have it. Here it is in all of it's 2MB glory (you'll notice the slots where the other four 512KB chips were supposed to go).

 

[Shining]

Loving this thread. Respect to all the first gen 3DFX card buyers.

1997 - Orchid Righteous 3D 4MB 3DFX VOODOO 1
Came bundled with lots of games like MechWarrior 2 and Fatal Racing. Mind blown.

1999 - STB Velocity 4400 Riva TNT 16MB
This one was a beast compared to the VOODOO 1. I could play Quake 2 in 1080*768!

????

2003 - ATI Radeon 9550 ??MB
I remember this one could be softmodded into a Radeon 9700. Something about unlocking extra pipelines.

2006 - ATI Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition 256MB
I could run Doom 3 and FEAR at decent frame rates. Yay!

????

2009 - SAPPHIRE VAPOR-X HD 5770 1GB

2012 - Gigabyte Geforce GTX 670 OC Windforce 2MB

 

[CyanideFuse]

I had always been a console gamer but decided to get into PC gaming back in July 2012.

I spent ages researching all the components of a PC because I didn't have a clue. My first card was a GTX 670 which I am still happily using now.

 

[wwm0nkey]

My first card was a 8800 GTX. Such a good card.

 

[curlycare]

If I remember correctly, my first deticated gpu was Geforce 256 DDR, and boy it was a beast at the time.

 

[Unknown One]

My first card was a Nvidia FX 5200. What a great card to play Counter Strike 1.3-1.6 with. It fell flat on CS:S. For that I bought the 9600 XT.

 

[KojiKnight]

First card was a voodoo 2, from there I got a TNT2 I do believe which didn't feel like an upgrade, probably wasn't. Then I believe a geforce 5200. Then my first "real" card after the voodoo 2 which was a 6600GT. Man playing WoW with all of the graphics turned up was niiice with that baby.

From there I switched to ATi with a 9600 XT, unlocked the shaders to turn it into a 9800 equivalent. Then a HD2600, HD3850, HD5670, HD5770 (5670 went into my wife's PC), and most recently my 7870. LIkely won't upgrade graphics again for quite awhile.

(edit) Fun fact about my Voodoo 2... I think it saw more action in SNES9x via it's glide filter than any 3D games. Full screen bi-linear filter image and full 60fps was gorgeous at the time. It also let me play Ocarina of Time at full speed on UltraHLE which was amazing.

 

[tkscz]

First graphics card I ever got was the nVidia Geforce mx 4000 with the sole purpose of playing Halo and Half-life.

Then I got the nvidia GT 6800.

Third card was the all powerful:

The GTX 9800 was a beast and pretty much lasted me a few years.

Fourth card:

Reliable and able to run things well past what it should. Still have the ol' GTX 460.

Currently:

 

[Futaba]

This was mine :
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Orchid-Ri...Graphics-Card-Full-Retail-Boxed-/201033945621

Every time I'm in Birmingham I look at the derelict building that used to be a pc shop and remember going to buy this bad boy with my birthday money lol. Also how is it £65 now!

My brother had one if those while I was still rocking an s3 ViRGE, so much jealousy ensued.

 

[LoudCore]

my first card was a MSI Champion Edition Geforce4 Ti4600-TD

It was purple and remembering being crazy awesome. Still have it somewhere in the house. Wish I had the box still.

Then I had a Sapphire x1650pro 256mb a long time later and recently just sold it (I have no idea why anyone would want it).

Then I had a HIS HD 4670 1GB and that was the worst card I've ever had to go through

now my current card is a HD6950 and does everything perfectly well.

 

[otapnam]

Cards n games i played with them - from late 90s to current

voodoo 2 - doom 2, tribes, quake 3 etc
tnt ultra 32mb - CS beta 7.1, DoD beta etc
radeon 8500 - CS Source, DoD, BF2
geforce 6600gt - TF2
sapphire radeon 5770 - TF2, Mass Effect
sapphire radeon 5770 (crossfire) TF2, BF3
sapphire radeon 6970 BF3
MSI radeon r9 280x BF4

 

[MattyH]

Picked up an nVidia GeForce4 MX 440 64MB at a Best Buy to slap into my crap-tacular HP Pavilion desktop I had when I first started out.

I remember playing NFS: Underground with it and was struggling with low settings at 640x480...

i went from a MX440 to a GeForce4 Ti 4800SE just to play NFS underground at full settings

 

[ArtistDude88]

i went from a MX440 to a GeForce4 Ti 4800SE just to play NFS underground at full settings

I bet it was glorious! I didn't upgrade again until I finally built my first PC some years later, haha.

 

[Divus]

Can't remember the model but my first was a one of the original 2MB Voodoo cards. It kicked ass playing Quake and Carmageddon after I installed that.

Fun fact it's still in use as a gaming computer. I gave my computer to my grandparents and loaded some educational games and others on it so that way all the great grand kids would have something to do when they were there. As of a month ago I seen it running Decent, lol.

 

[Ryoohki360]

My first was a 3DFX..

 

[MattyH]

I bet it was glorious! I didn't upgrade again until I finally built my first PC some years later, haha.

went from the TI to a ati 9800 used that up untill far cry came out then i got a geforce 6600

 

[Adnor]

My first graphics card was a 3dfx Voodoo 3, it was SO GOOD.
I miss you, 3dfx

 

[StarCreator]

My first PC with discrete graphics had an ATI Rage Pro. Quake 2 looked awesome on it. Quake 3, not so much. FF7PC looked nice but the 3D graphics overlaid onto the FMVs were always hilariously desynced.

Owned many All-In-Wonder cards after that, but my current card is a HD6870. Probably due for an upgrade this year or next.

 

[borghe]

first upgrade EVER was a Diamond Stealth Video VRAM in the mid-90s for around $300. Card was absolutely god-like. 1024x768x32 at like 100Hz or something... drooolllll.....

first 3D accelerated upgrade was 1996 (or was it 7?). The first time I saw Voodoo in action (Tomb Raider of course) there was nothing even close to it. PSX and Sega Saturn were like "wow". 3DFX was like "whooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. /dead"

 

[dark_prinny]

This was my first card too.

 

[Voho]

GTX 560 Ti.

Still have it, but I'm upgrading to a GTX 770 4GB in the next month.

 

[sestrugen]

I don't remember if it was a Riva TNT2, MX 4000 or a Ti4200. I had them all but don't remember the order.

 

[copelandmaster]

A GTX 485m. Still use it in my Sager np8170 3D when I'm at school.

 

[alejo0121]

I have fond memories with this card:

Watching TV on PC, and struggling with N64 emus at the time. Lots of Q3A, UT at the time. Playing pranks on friends by taking over the mouse using the ATi remote while they were using the PC...

 

[Rnr1224]

Radeon 7790. bought it for my budget build in January and im loving it so far. Coming from a mac with a 320m, it was amazing being able to play the games in 1080p and 60 fps.

 

[CrunchyFrog]

The first I bought separately would be the MSI GTX770 4GB OC that I used in my first handbuilt PC this past December, so I'm still pretty green. I remember an old family computer though that had a voodoo 2 in it. Ran Descent 2 like a dream.

 

[oflaherty01]

Watching TV on PC, and struggling with N64 emus at the time. Lots of Q3A, UT at the time. Playing pranks on friends by taking over the mouse using the ATi remote while they were using the PC...

Is there any way to get a coaxial cable pass through for computers now, because that would be something I would really like to have.

Also, first graphics card was the GTX 760 reference design. I switched to a GTX 760 Hawk. Tried SLI but my micro atx board has them running at 80-84 C when under load. I'll eventually return to SLI when I can't get 60FPS at 1080 or when I switch to higher res.

 

[BIGWORM]

Watching TV on PC, and struggling with N64 emus at the time. Lots of Q3A, UT at the time. Playing pranks on friends by taking over the mouse using the ATi remote while they were using the PC...

Oh man, I remember having to tinker around with Project 64 too much. NOW look where we are in terms of emulation...simply astonishing.

 

[ShowDog]

I had a Voodoo 2, which was later SLI'd in 99. I believe it needed a separate 2d video card for Windows so I had 3 video cards in the PC. Great days for Team Fortress Classic, Counter Strike, UT and Q3.

Oh, and I gamed on a trackball if you can believe that. And I was generally above average despite it.

 

[Dr. Zoidberg]

Surprised to see so many other Virge-ins here. I don't remember the dates but:

1. S3 Virge
2. 3DFX Voodoo 1 (Diamond Monster 3D)
3. 3DFX Voodoo Banshee (A maligned card but I liked it)
4. Nvidia Geforce2 MX400
5. Nvidia Geforce Ti 4200
6. ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
7. Nvidia Geforce 8800 GT
9. ATI Radeon HD 5850

As you can see, team red or green doesn't make a difference to me. I've usually gone where the price/performance is the best ATM.

 

[vvise]

GeForce4 MX 440
6600GT -> 7600GT
8800GT (2 or 3 of these with RMAs)
GTX260
GTX670

 

[DavionStriker]

Looking at Voodoo cards, I BELIEVE this was it. Its a 3Dfx Voodoo 1. I remember it being a Diamond card. I even think we put this in our 486DX.

 

[Zizbuka]

It's getting harder to keep up with what's newer/faster, the model numbers used to be a good identifier. I hate this new way.

I've been using ATI/AMD GPUs since I switched to the Radeon 9700 Pro. Still remember how happy I was with that card. Now have a HD 6870, and this will probably be my last AMD GPU. I'm just tired of the driver situation, and the fact that they still have software issues and haven't fixed them.

Why can't I make an AMD GPU always take the full screen, regardless of the resolution the game is using? The whole overscan setup just sucks.

 

[RayMaker]

RIVA TNT2

its ran half 1 and red alert 2 super smooth, and max payne 1 worked well but did stutter somtimes.

 

[theRizzle]

My first card was a Voodoo Graphics that was bought solely for GLQuake. The lighting blew my mind at the time.

I think the most impressive card I ever owned was a Radeon Pro 9700. The PC I got at that time cost I think a little over $5,000 CAD (including monitor and 5.1 surround) and the CPU was over $1,000 by itself. P4 2.8ghz Northwood and 2gb of that sweet sweet Rambus RAM. (not really, that shit died 18 - 24 months after I built the PC and then I had to basically do a complete rebuild because RDRAM wasn't even being made anymore IIRC).

Doom 3 and Battlefield 1942 on that thing were AMAZING.

I currently have a GTX 680 2gb that I built basically the week they came out. It's a pretty sweet card, but I am not nearly as impressed with it as I was with the 9700 Pro at the time.

II've been using ATI/AMD GPUs since I switched to the Radeon 9700 Pro. Still remember how happy I was with that card.

 

[KiraXD]

im regretting my r7... i kinda want to get an r9 now lol.

 

[Damigos]

TNT2...it was GODLY!

 

[Rodpad]

Here's a little history of my graphics cards, starting out in 1997 with a prebuilt PC from Time Computers. It had a Cyrix 150+ CPU (which couldn't run Quake well at all thanks to a poor performing FPU), 16MB of memory and an onboard SiS graphics chipset which used system memory as VRAM, thus reducing available system memory to around 14-15MB. It sucked of course.

S3 Virge DX - A temporary card until the Voodoo 2 cards came out

Canopous Pure 3D II (3DFX Voodoo II) - This rareish card featured 12MB and tv-output. Turned your computer into a living room console/arcade. My favourite card ever.

Nvidia Riva TNT II - Came pre-built inside a new PC. My first AGP card

ATi 9800SE - The "SE" part meant it was a crippled 9800. Thankfully you can softmod it to unlock the disabled pipelines

Nvidia 6800LE - A crippled 6800. Again, was softmodded to a full 6800. Possibly the ugliest cooler ever manufactured

ATi 4850 - Absolutely amazing card for the time. Probably the last time ATi was really leading the charge. I later modded it to run silent and fanless with an Accelero S1 cooler

ATi X1950 Pro - Another great card for the time. My first PCI-E card I believe. Noisy card, but good performance

Nvidia 275 - Modded with an MSI Twin Frozr II cooler

Nvidia 560 Ti - MSI Twin Frozr II variant. A little noisy at load, but silent otherwise

Nvidia 670 - Asus Direct Cu II variant. Unbelievable cool and quiet. Amazing performance too

I'm now currently using two Nvidia Asus Direct Cu II 660 Ti cards. One of each either sits in two computers, or occasionally I'll SLI them up in the one PC.

 

[Clawww]

I remember playing Half Life 2 for the first time with this baby

yup! same card, same game