Your very own first Video Card, post here!

[GTaudiophile]

I believe I had an S3 Virge/VX chip on my circa. 1996 Pentium Pro machine from Gateway. No idea how much memory it had.

Here is my history:

STB Velocity 128 4MB + STB Blackmagic Voodoo2 12MB (circa. 1998)
Creative Labs 3D Blaster TNT2 Ultra 32MB (circa. 1999/2000)
ATI Radeon 32MB DDR (circa. 2000/2001)
ATI Radeon 7500 64MB DDR (circa. 2001/2002)
ATI Radeon 9600 XT 128MB DDR (circa. 2003)
eVGA GeForce 7900 GT 256MB DDR (circa. 2006)
HIS Radeon HD4850 1GB DDR (circa. 2009)

 

[Ninjazx]

Matrox m3d
Riva TNT
MX 400
TI 4200
Radeon 9700 Pro
7800GT
9800GT.... still


looking back i think i did pretty decent. They all lasted up until i replaced them at least, more than i can say for the motherboards they were in.

 

[n7]

ATi Radeon 9000 Pro (AGP)

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

No love for Tseng Labs?

 

[Sahakiel]

First discrete card: One of the Trident Microsystems 9440 PCI Windows accelerators. I think it even had a VRAM upgrade socket.

 

[Modular]

My very first card (that I purchased for gaming) was a Leadtek 6600gt AGP.

I picked it up for FarCry and to replace an FX5200 that was in a Dell I bought. Man, what a difference that card was! From there I upgraded to a whole new platform and an HD4850 512.

 

[Pinepig]

Matrox Millennium 8mb, I also had one of the original pass through Open GL cards paired to it when it came out.

Just picked up a 5850 today and waiting for the rest of my goodies from Newegg to show.

Man things have come a long way.

 

[Dravic]

Voodoo (dont remember which one, but not the voodoo2 monster) -> Riva 128 -> Kyro -> ti4200 -> 6800nu (unlocked pipes) -> 7800gt -> 8800gt -> 4890 -> 4890x2

always right around that $150 -$200 mark until the 4890

 

[normalicy]

Rendition Verite V2200 here (oddball I know). Got me through a number of games though (one of the last I remember was Star Wars Pod Racer). No heat sink. Remember those days? It also had S-video out, I was the bomb.

 

[normalicy]

Oh yeah, while everyone is listing their history:

1. Rendition Verite V2200 4mb
2. ATI Rage 128 32mb
3. ATI Radeon 8500LE 64mb
4. ATI Radeon 9500SE 128mb (still mad as Sapphire because the fan died in a few months & they never replaced it despite multiple contacts, never owned one of their products again)
5. ATI Radeon 9800SE 128mb (got me through many games)
6. Nvidia 7900gs 256mb (from the Woot on faith with no reviews yet, later to be found they were all stolen, since that meant no mfr. warranty, Woot extended their own & at 2 years in I actually needed it & received a proper refund, go Woot)
7. 8800gs 384mb
8. GTX260 896mb
9. ATI Radeon 4890 1gb (present)

 

[411tech]

FROM THE TOP:!!!!

Memory Lane

ATI: 64 MB DDR VIVO [Built for Counter Strike and Morrowind] Poor College Kid build late 90's

ATI: 128 MB 9600 PRO [Built for Doom..faster Counter Strike] still no money

ATI: 256 MB X800XL [Built for BattleField 2, Oblivion, CS Source] finally got a job..out of college

ATI XFX: 1GB 5850 [Built for ANNO 1404 and the future....] a couple of promotions later...and I don't have to break the bank

AND Yes I pulled them out of the closet and my present build just for this shot!!!

:awe:

This thread is awesome the flood of memories!!!

 

[CraigRT]

ATI Xpert 98 8MB PCI

I wish I could remember all the junk I had afterwards

I think one of my biggest upgrades ever was from the Xpert98 to a TNT2 Ultra AGP

Man, I bought so many video cards!

 

[sweeper2]

lol.. i have bought MANY over the years... I believe the first one I bought was an FX5200 128mb agp ... I might have had some in some older computers ... lol.. I bought a 1mb chip years and years ago for an old Dell PC to upgrade it from 1mb to 2mb !! cost me like 65$ back then !! Using AOL and dial-up ...

 

[nolodo]

gainward 8400 gs(passive cooling) which came with the pc. it had a heat issue with the gpu with 30 mins into Company of Heros, the temperature reached over 100 degree celius.
bought a Leadtek 8400GS
Changed to a PowerColour 4670 1 GB

 

[gbeirn]

Rendition Verite V2200 here (oddball I know). Got me through a number of games though (one of the last I remember was Star Wars Pod Racer). No heat sink. Remember those days? It also had S-video out, I was the bomb.

Yes! I had/have a Diamond Multimedia Stealth Version. I think it was the V2100 which was slightly lower clocked. Same 4MB PCI. I remembering playing VQuake and Descent on it (Vquake being Rendition's own 3D API). I also remember it being very hard for me at the time to get the miniGL drivers workging properly.

I still have the card. I remember pulling the sticker off the chip and gluing on a 486 heatsink so I could overclock it!!

 

[normalicy]

Yes! I had/have a Diamond Multimedia Stealth Version. I think it was the V2100 which was slightly lower clocked. Same 4MB PCI. I remembering playing VQuake and Descent on it (Vquake being Rendition's own 3D API). I also remember it being very hard for me at the time to get the miniGL drivers workging properly.

I still have the card. I remember pulling the sticker off the chip and gluing on a 486 heatsink so I could overclock it!!

LOL, of all the cards I used to have, this is the only one (well, I still have the 7900gs, but it may be leaving soon). Though it's through an odd set of circumstances. I ended up selling it to someone in a computer I built & just last year, they had me build them a new one & said I could keep the old one. Sure enough, they had been using that V2200 (mine was actually a Rendition branded card) all the way until last year in happiness. So it is now sitting in my parts stack. I still use it to test computers when I doubt their graphics.

I was both disappointed & impressed by the card. When I first got it, it played everything. But it seemed not long after, the games became too much for it. That & the Rage 128 came out (in hindsight, the Nvidia had it going on).

The V2100 actually ended up having a firmware update later that brought the clocks up to the V2200 speeds. At the time I had never heard of overclocking a VGA card. Though I was well known for sticking heatsinks on things that didn't even need them .

 

[Deathray2K]

Riva TNT2 M64
GeForce FX 5200
GeForce FX 5600
GeForce 6600GT
GeForce 7900GS
GeForce 8800GTS 512MB
And that's it so far... Though probably going to get a 5850 soonish if Fermi's release pushes the price down.

 

[Leyawiin]

A horrible old Hercules Prophet 4000XT (Kyro based) PCI. Had a cheap little Toshiba desktop and wanted to try Diablo II. First PC, first card, first game I ever had.

Damn it was fun!

 

[Aquila76]

rookies.

oem trident 1mb vga

I thought we were talking about performance cards. The very first of all time card I bought was an MDA card with a built-in Printer port. It was a triangle-shaped card. Went into a USIT chassis with 80286 CPU, 256K RAM, & 20MB HDD running SCO (I shudder at that now).

 

[User28373a]

Some 2D Trident, if I remember correctly, I even had to change jumpers to change the refresh rate D:

 

[CraigRT]

A horrible old Hercules Prophet 4000XT (Kyro based) PCI. Had a cheap little Toshiba desktop and wanted to try Diablo II. First PC, first card, first game I ever had.

Damn it was fun!

I remember the Kyro now! The 4500 wasn't half bad for its time... The 4000 though, maybe not so much. (Can't recall benchmarks)

My friend had a 4500... Ran everything we played at the time pretty well.

 

[terentenet]

My whole history:
First video card was a Cirrus Logic with less than 1Mb vram, in 1991, on a 386.
Then a S3 Virge D2X 4Mb on a 486.
Then a TNT2 on a 586 I believe.
4200Ti on Athlon 1700+
6600GT on AMD 4200 X2
7900GTX on Intel X6800 ES
7900GTX x 2, same X6800 ES
7900GX2 x 2 on C2Q x6700 ES
8800GTX x 2 on C2Q x6700 ES
9800GX2 x 2 on C2Q x9600 Retail
GTX 280 x 3 on i7 965 c0 Retail
GTX 285 x 3 on i7 975 d0 Retail
Waiting for Fermi....

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

Diamond Monster 3d 4 megs of ram

 

[mfenn]

First real GPU was a 16MB TNT, but that came with the computer, so I guess it doesn't technically qualify.

First AIB that I bought individually was a Geforce 2 MX (200?). That system has been through many many complete overhauls including Geforce4 MX 440 (damnnn you Nvidia marketing!), Geforce 4 Ti4200, ATI Radeon 9800 PRO, Geforce 6800 NU, Geforce 7600GT, Geforce 8800GTS 320MB, and finally the current Geforce GTX 260 Core 216.

Looking back, I guess you could call me an Nvidia guy, but that's never been a conscious decision on my part. Just bought what was the best bang for the buck at the time. Currently eyeing a Radeon 5850, but I may hold out for a possible price drop/refresh on AMD's part once Fermi comes out.

 

[finbarqs]

hmm... Trident 9680 with TV-Out. Then went on to pay $150 for the Matrox Mystique! Then after that came the big one: My first VOODOO card, which cost $200 bucks. It was the Canopus Pure3D with 6MB ram (as opposed to traditional Voodoo cards w/ 4MB). Naturally, I went with the Canopus Pure3D 2 after the original Pure3D 6MB