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My First PC Graphics Card

Celcius

Celcius

°Temp. member
My first videocard was a weak 256mb geforce fx 5600 le or something. I put a monster overclock on it though and and it could still max Doom 3 lol.
 
R

rudieboy77

Member
I stopped PC only gaming in 1996, when I got a PS. Then I got into MMO's 06 and 07 but I only ever used the on board video from the mobo.

I have built a couple computers before my newest one, but this is my first GPU.
Vapor-X 7970 GHz


sapphire7970ghz.png
 
N

Nokterian

Member
My first even GPU was from 3dfx Voodoo 1 with 4mb memory.

This beast unleashed a lot when i played Unreal and Quake 2/3 and a bunch of other games. It changed how we looked at games from that day on.

3dfx-voodoo1.jpg
 
D

Death Row

Neo Member
Geforce 2 MX 32 MB Version. Half-Life 2 and Silent Hill 3 didn't work cause of small memory pool, although on 64 MB version they worked pretty well. Drove a little angry >_<
 
L

Lasthope106

Member
My first graphics card was a cheap ATI Radeon card I picked up at Wal-Mart in 2001/2002. Can't remember the name for the life of me. It could run Half-Life at max, but it had this bug and it accelerated the motion for some reason. Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 didn't run too well, so I ended up giving the card to a friend. Right after, I ended buying an nvidia 4200 Ti, which I regretted since it was the model below what most people were getting at the time - 4400 Ti.

After that I stopped gaming on pc, and didn't really get another graphics card until 2007 when I picked an 8800 GT, which was a godtier card.

Currently running a GTX 560 Ti, in combination with a ancient dual core 2 CPU which is not taking advantage of the power of the card. I'll probably build a new rig in a few months down the road with a 780 Ti, which will be my first proper gaming grade pc.
 
M

Mozendo

Member
Ugh, man I can't remember.
It was a graphics card that had Halo 1 on the back on the box, positive it was Nvidia.

Then I remember getting an FX 5600

Then I got a 8800 GT which I currently use

And I'm about to get a GTX 760.
 
J

JoseJX

Member
My first accelerator card was:
Dedge3d.jpg
Click to expand...

Yup, the Edge3D. I got it within the first month it was available. It was so awesome playing Panzer Dragoon, Nascar and Virtua Fighter. And the Sega Saturn controller was pretty cool too! And then nothing ever came out for it ever again. Complete waste.

I upgraded to a Diamond Monster3D after it was obvious I had made a terrible mistake.
 
Melchiah

Melchiah

Member
lethial said:
I had that card with a fast processor. I do agree how quickly it was bottlenecked. And funny enough I didn't upgrade for 7-8 years and didn't do much PC gaming.
Click to expand...

I had AMD XP2800+ with 1GB of system memory. Can't remember was the memory 333MHz or 400MHz, probably the former. I dropped PC gaming in 2006, when the PS3 came, and my system wasn't running new games properly.
 
C

crinale

Member
S3's 86C911 was the first "GPU" that I've purchased and implemented to my PC.
Up until then there were couple of VGA boards with fast RAMs, but never had separate processor to assist draw images on the framebuffer.
 
V

Videospel

Member
sniperpon said:
We talking just 3d accelerators? First one I ever owned was the Matrox Mystique, which I bought in 1996 if I remember correctly. It came with a hardware-accelerated version of Mechwarrior 2 which I remember being really impressed by at the time.

Of course, I owned a whole bunch of 2d-only video cards prior to that.
Click to expand...

I must have used most of my savings when I bought my first computer in 1997. I was 9 years old, and it had a Matrox Mystique. Upgraded to a Voodoo 3 2000 with 16GB RAM in '99 iirc. I remember reinstalling all of my games (and a lot of game demos, at that time I bought computer/gaming magazines just for the demo discs) and trying them in 3dfx mode. The jump in graphics in games like Quake 2 was crazy and I was one happy kid.

You don't see those big leaps in graphics anymore as far as image quality goes, it's more about fps improvements.
 
S

Sykotik

Member
I think the tale went something like this.

First "real" pc, no graphics card.

9800pro - Trying to play wow with this was almost as bad as not having a videocard.

x800xl - This thing was a beast at the time, iirc. CS:Source all day er day. And then WoW again.

8800gt - Fried after like a month of playing Age of Conan.

8800 GTX - Largest purchase at the time, $500 big ones for this thing. It could not fit into my PC, because my PC was one with the fucked up motherboard where the PCI slots were inverted. No room for the gigantic GTX. I somehow managed to get it in by prying the PS-2 port away from the card. In the end, I gained no performance anyway because I was still using a Pentium 4. Talk about a bottleneck.

After that happened, I built my first PC with the help of a family friend. I believe I had a 2.8ghz Core2Quad. I got it all put together - and then I completely forgot the heat-sink. I was wondering why the damn thing wouldn't boot. I'm surprised it didn't fry. So, I'm trying to find a heat-sink for a fairly top-end CPU, in the most ho-dunk town on the west coast - on a Saturday. The main PC shop here didn't carry Intel stuff. I guess the guy had a vendetta against them or something, so that was a bust.

No hope, completely desperate to get this thing running on the weekend so I don't have to wait another week to receive a heat-sink from Newegg, we see this other shop that I had drove by hundreds of times but never realized what it was. I walk in, ask the guy at the desk if they have any heat-sinks for a socket 775 cpu. They don't. Of course. Why would they - I need it!

But, then... a man walks in from the back area and brings in a stock 775 heat-sink from his custom rig he just put together. He hands it to me, no-charge, and I go on my merry way. I was the chosen one, destined from that day to be a part of the PC master race.

Then I got a hot loud-ass 5870 that lasted me a long time.

Now I use an OC'd 7970 with an after-market cooler. Dark Souls at 4k rez, doesn't raise the heat above 60c. I'm content.
 
F

Futaba

Member
I kinda miss the 3dfx days, where the solution to low framerate was always reduce resolution and every single hardware change had major impact on system performance.

Oh and closing aim and other apps for a few extra frames.

I remember mp3 being the news of the week with winamp 1, and marveling at the release of 1gb HDDs, but most of all, being there for the advent of divx and my PC not being fast enough to playback a dvdrip of gone in 60 seconds without stutter.
 
G

gibbsy24

Member
9800GT - My first build in 2010. The card was already a little old, but it was still good at the time.
GTX 460 768mb - Upgrade for the 9800.
GTX 560ti - Won in a sweepstakes. Still being used by a friend I sold the pc to.
GTX 780ti - New build done last month. Incredible card.
 
T

TheNamelessOne

Member
My GFX-card timeline

RIVA TNT2
Geforce 2 mx
Geforce 440 mx
Radeon x1950pro
Geforce HD4850
Geforce 560Ti
Geforce 770

Might be missing something... Feels like there's at least one Radeon card missing.
 
Green Yoshi

Green Yoshi

Member
Honorable Mention (Kyro II):

aufmacher.jpg


The last rival for AMD and Nvidia. It didn't render stuff that was not viewable on the screen.
 
M

Metalic Sand

who is Emo-Beas?
My first GPU was a voodoo 2 after getting home and realizing System Shock 2 wasn't going to run without this "GPU thingy" i needed. I must have been 12 at the time. Later got a Nvidia 5200 for SWG then a BFG 6800 for Half Life 2.
 
D

Dinda

Member
It was a 3dfx Voodoo and i got it together with POD - Planet of Death! Or something like that.

Didn't use it for very long thought. Not long after that i bought an Riva TNT (1)
 
thechemist

thechemist

Member
Not much of a PC gamer as my history below shows, but have had awesome times with counterstrike, etc.

Geforce 4 MX440 > GT8600m > GT750m (superior gddr5 version :D)
 
B

Bulk_Rate

Member
Original 3DFX Voodoo card paired with a god-awful 2D card from Number Nine - Quakeworld rocked on that setup, solid 30fps on P133
Then GeForce2 Ti for MOHAA and other goodness
GeForce 3 for a bit
Radeon 9500 Pro and 9600 (two different PCs) for BF1942 and SWG awesomeness. Even played a lot of L4D at low-res, 20fps on this sad setup :)
Geforce 7600GT which actually handled COD4:MW on a P4, and Bioshock - barely
Radeon 4670 for early WoW days
Radeon 4850
Now Radeon 6850, time to upgrade again though. 6850 has been a real warhorse, up there with my 9500 Pro for long-term value
 
R

Redmoon

Member
mili2110 said:
Same here. My first PC had a Gerforce 2 MX400. I Upgraded to a Radeon 9500Pro. That was really a Wooooow Moment. How could you hold out that long to upgrade? I got the 6800GT years later like 2006!?
Click to expand...

Wasnt into pc gaming back then, as I was still young(only pc we had was my parents at the time). Had some of the consoles up to the ps2 though (ps1/2/64/gc/dc), so I guess thats what made me capable of holding out that long. Nowadays I wouldn't think of going more than 2 generations before I give in, since I'v become more demanding in power. (Plan on doing 800 if they do 20nm, 900 if not)

The wow moment for me was when I got my own pc(with the 6800) and played HL2 on it(my first 3d game on the pc i think). Was an unforgettable moment.
 
coughlanio

coughlanio

Member
P262-1006.jpg


Radeon 9250 Pro 128MB AGP

I knocked a capacitor off it by accident, and it still worked perfect. This GPU saw me through Half Life 2 and Guild Wars, two of my favourite games of all time. Memories.

My timeline:

Radeon 9250 Pro
GeForce 8600M GT
Radeon 3850
Radeon 4850
Radeon 4850 Crossfire
GTX 460
GTX 580 SLI
Radeon 290x
 
B

Bii

Member
gibbsy24 said:
9800GT - My first build in 2010. The card was already a little old, but it was still good at the time.
GTX 460 768mb - Upgrade for the 9800.
GTX 560ti - Won in a sweepstakes. Still being used by a friend I sold the pc to.
GTX 780ti - New build done last month. Incredible card.
Click to expand...

Oh cool, mine and yours are similar.

9800GT - Got it in 2009 and it was fantastic.
GTX460 1GB - Needed a little more oomph and I caught it on sale for $200 instead of $230.
GTX 780 - New build done last month. Not quite the performance of a 780Ti but it's impressive nonetheless.
 
V

Vilifier

Neo Member
The first system my parents owned was an intel DX4 100MHz and I don't remember the 2d card it had.

The first 3d card I bought was a S3 Virge. Since then have been through a few cards as well as processors including cyrix, amd K6, intel celeron and intel core2 quad q6600.

All the various cards:
S3 virge
Voodoo2 (3d) / ET6000 (2d)
Geforce2 mx400
Geforce 6600GT
ATI Radeon HD5750
ATI mobility HD5650
 
A

ArtistDude88

Member
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...

h8sTwa6.jpg
 
S

Silent_Ocarina

Member
five_pictures1_2987_20131029171553_g.png


I'm pretty new to PC gaming, but this card works fine for my purposes. Unfortunately I haven't been able to use this as much as I'd like with school in the way.
 
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