Every GPU That Mattered
Posted by Mastbubbles@reddit | hardware | View on Reddit | 204 comments
I tracked most of the GPUs since 1996. $299 to $1,999 (MSRP) in 30 years.
went through every flagship launch from the Voodoo to the 5090 and tracked what we actually paid at launch
some things that hit different when you see it all together:
- GPUs stayed between $250-$600 for literally 20 years
- the 8800 GT at $249 in 2007 might be the best deal in GPU history
- the GTX 1060 was Steam's #1 card for 5 straight years at $249
- then the 3090 showed up at $1,499 and it was over
- RTX 5090 is $1,999 and the connector melted again within 10 days
made a full interactive version too where you can compare any 2 GPUs side by side and explore all 49 cards, what was your first GPU? mine was a 970 (yes i got the 3.5GB)
AHrubik@reddit
FYI... the Voodoo 3 series matter A LOT. It was an early example of a card that didn't look as good on paper but outperformed all it's competitors by a large margin.
QuinQuix@reddit
It was a fast card but at the time I already disliked the lack of 32 bit color versus the tnt 2 ultra.
SoSKatan@reddit
So my first card was a Riva TNT.
By the time Voodoo 3 was released, it seemed like they were mostly banking of developer lock in via the glide API.
NVidia was targeting open API’s and were the underdog.
Anyway, I voted with my wallet on NVidia for that reason and due to the fact they were cheaper and a good combo 2D and 3D card.
With the voodoo cards you still needed a separate 2D card (another reason why the card prices weren’t exactly comparable the NVidia ones were a 2 for.)
MWink64@reddit
The Voodoo 3 was a combo 2D/3D card. You didn't a separate 2D card to use with this series (or the earlier Banshee).
AHrubik@reddit
There were a lot of Glide games and some were very popular. Maybe I'm biased because I had a Voodoo 3 but I remember specifically playing games that didn't run well on my friends Nvidia systems with "better stats" but ran super smooth on mine.
nismotigerwvu@reddit
Yeah, there are a few glaring omissions. I think the PowerVR Kyro II is the big standout (budget price, high end performance, unique architecture) and you really can't mention pioneering 3D hardware without the S3 Virge (the FX dust buster and Thermi jokes are welcome, but no 3D decelerator?).
Viper_NZ@reddit
And yet they including the absolute trash that was the GeForce FX series.
Weird list in places.
ltcdata@reddit
Rendition vèritè with hardware 16-bit color rendering, bilinear filtering, per-polygon MIP mapping, and edge anti-aliasing!
ClerkProfessional803@reddit
Kyro wasn't high performance. No real TNL and terrible fillrate. It got lucky at high resolution due to tiled rendering, but geforce and radeon scaled much more gracefully when you lowered resolution.
nismotigerwvu@reddit
You must have an odd definition of high performance or are misattributing the shortcomings of Kyro I to the latter release. Anandtech glowed about this card at launch as you can see here.
https://web.archive.org/web/20010410185102/http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1435&p=10
You can't just equate theoretical fill rate to real world either. There's tons of overdraw in raster workloads (especially so back then!) and reducing it can be just as big of a performance boost as cranking fill rate up. While it was basically the end of the line for PowerVR on the desktop, it absolutely had it's time in the sun.
ClerkProfessional803@reddit
No, it didn't have its time in the sun. It's decent for older games and is fine up to quake 3/ unreal tournament 1. It absolutely gets destroyed in situations where overdraw is not a bottleneck. It can't deal with dx7 games and has no chance to play anything needing a high fillrate.
It was a cheap novelty.
nismotigerwvu@reddit
Okay so when faced with facts and figures you double down on your distorted memory or opinions (which does paint an image of either someone who wasn't around back then or wasn't really into the hobby at that time). Let me know if you find an article from a solid source holding this up. Considering Anandtech was the cream of the crop at that point, I suspect you'll have a pretty huge mountain to climb.
ClerkProfessional803@reddit
The anandtech review shows it getting smoked in Unreal Tournament as the resolution rises. UT uses a scaline culling method similar to quake 1 that leads to 0 overdrawn. So fillrate matters. Hence the card loses steam. Quake 3 uses a hybrid portal system with tons overdrawn, and kyro works well there.
Look, I'm not trying to argue over 20 year old hardware. But you don't really know how a kyro actually works. It doesn't do anything special when overdraw is not an issue, and the fillrate is poor. No tnl is the icing on the cake.
spyder22446688@reddit
I respectfully disagree. At the time, the Voodoo 3 series was outperformed by both the Nvidia TNT2 Ultra and the Matrox G400 Max. The Voodoo 3 was also criticized for having only 16MB of RAM (compared to 32GB on the other options) and supporting only 16-bit color depth (compared to 32-bit on the other options). However, the Voodoo 3, particularly the 3000, was a bit cheaper and offered Glide support, which still mattered for a small handful of games.
TheGillos@reddit
Sorry. TNT and TNT2 were much better for one reason. 32-bit color.
DoNotPursueLu@reddit
Nah, Glide all day.
TheGillos@reddit
Glide was impressive in its day, but by the time of Voodoo 3, that day was coming to an end.
Vb_33@reddit
How much did Jensen pay you to say this
TheGillos@reddit
Just $500 in Nvidia stock in 1999.
beigemore@reddit
I'm pretty sure most people went TNT2 back then. A huge reason was because the Quake 3 alpha and beta only supported full OpenGL and could not run at all on 3dfx cards.
an_angry_Moose@reddit
Relatively sure this is exactly what I did and for the same reason even.
I spent SO much time playing Quake 2 on dialup though, man was that great.
Verite_Rendition@reddit
2^32-1 dollars.
jenny_905@reddit
It didn't outperform, it got crushed by the TNT2 and first Geforce.
ClerkProfessional803@reddit
Actual list from someone who was there:
Voodoo 1 Voodoo 2 Sli Geforce 1 Radeon 8500 Radeon 9700 Geforce 6600gt Radeon 1900xtx Geforce 8800ultra Geforce 8800gt Radeon 4850 Radeon 5850 Gtx 480 Gtx 560ti Radeon 7970 Gtx 670 Radeon 290 Gtx 750ti Gtx 970 Gtx 1080 Gtx 1080ti Rtx 3080 Radeon 6950xt Rtx 4090
These are the most relevant video cards in gpu history.
The3rdGodKing@reddit
The 3060 has arguably beaten the 970 legacy. No 1060?
Gippy_@reddit
lol this didn't exist thanks for outing yourself. It was called the GeForce 256. Also it was the flagship for only 5 months. Released October 1999, then the GeForce 2 GTS was released April 2000. The product cycle was so fast that the GeForce 256 simply came and went.
No, it was the 9700 Pro. 9700 Nonpro was a slower alternative that nobody bought because of the 9500 Nonpro. There was about a 2 in 3 chance it could be successfully unlocked to a 9700 Nonpro. So people bought 9500 Nonpros and returned the ones that couldn't successfully unlock.
lmao no. 8800 Ultra cost 20-25% more than the 8800 GTX for 5-7% performance increase. Nobody bought this except the stupid rich. 8800 Ultra was a predecessor to overpriced Titan cards. The 8800 GT was legendary because it offered 90-95% of the performance of the 8800 GTX for less than half the price. See here.
blahyawnblah@reddit
How does hardware T&L not have a demarcation?
MWink64@reddit
Especially since that is arguably THE defining feature of what constitutes a GPU.
Fluffy_Panda_97@reddit
First implentarions of T&L were slower than CPU.
It wasnt a killer feature, it is like RT nowadays.
SohipX@reddit
I remember when I used to have Radeon 7000 back in the early 2000s that refused to play certain games due to the lack of T&L, while the Geforce 256 had it. I was bummed because I couldn't afford to upgarde.
kasakka1@reddit
From what I remember, T&L was more like RT in the Nvidia 20 series era - rarely used, performance demanding feature.
Fluffy_Panda_97@reddit
First implentarions of T&L were slower than CPU.
It wasnt a killer feature, it is like RT nowadays.
blahyawnblah@reddit
I didn't know that. Can you link me to something?
OkidoShigeru@reddit
Weird stuff with “unified” shaders and “the end of separate vertex and pixel shaders” too. I think the author confused the introduction of general purpose compute shaders with everyone jumping ship to software primitive assembly and raster…maybe kinda sorta in the last few years with virtualised geometry pipelines (nanite), but not really…
Dghelneshi@reddit
This is about "separate vertex and pixel shaders" as a hardware concept. They used to be separate ALUs with different capabilities and instruction sets.
frudi@reddit
Some early cards that I'm missing and think deserve to be included:
Voodoo 3, while not as technically advanced as the TNT2, it still traded blows with it both in terms of popularity and performance due to popularity of glide/minigl titles at the time
GeForce 4, yes, it got smacked hard later on by the Radeon 9700, but it still ruled as the fastest card in the period between GF3 and R9700. It was also extremely popular due to Ti 4200's very competitive pricing. As for GF 4 mx series... the less said about that, the better
Radeon 9800 Pro was only a relatively minor update to the R9700 in terms of architecture, but it was where the Radeon 9000 series really matured and solidified its position as the card to own and to beat at the time
radient@reddit
My 9800 pro lasted seemingly forever. I was so sad to retire it.
Gippy_@reddit
I was around back then. The 9800 Pro wasn't very popular. Everyone got either the 9700 Pro or the 9600 Pro. The 9600 Pro was the mainstream option because it sold for less than the 9500 Pro. Long story short, it was cheaper for ATI to produce than the 9500 Nonpro/Pro, and could not be unlocked like the 9500 Nonpro.
ReplacementLivid8738@reddit
I went to buy a 9600 at the time and I think I learned later that it was an LE, slower RAM was it? Do you remember that?
frudi@reddit
9800 maybe wasn't popular as an upgrade to the 9700, but overall it sold much better than the 9700. That's still clear to this day as you can find many, many more 9800s than 9700s on flea markets, ebay or retro hardware forums/classifieds. Some of that is down to 9700s being prone to dying, but 9800s weren't exactly a shining beacon of reliability either.
Obviously the 9600 sold even better, that's just the nature of mainstream vs high end sales figures. GTX 1060 also sold many times more units than the GTX 1080 Ti, but that doesn't mean the latter wasn't very popular.
pythonic_dude@reddit
If you cherry pick hard enough you can prove any point really. (8800 ultra for $830 sends its regards)
pfohl@reddit
People used to have dual GPU setups a lot more. Manufacturers basically opened up the high end for that segment of the market.
Olde94@reddit
GTX titan at 999$ from 2013 too
InflammableAccount@reddit
Titan cards were different. For starters, Titans weren't different dies. They were just perfect dies. So the performance difference between a Titan and 80 or 90 card wasn't huge.
What a Titan was, was max die with more VRAM and, most importantly, access to all the Quadro features. Titans existed as gaming/workstation hybrids. So what you were mostly paying more for was workstation capability that otherwise would cost you even more if you bought a Quadro.
So many people gloss over this.
Olde94@reddit
Yup! They were beasts for semi pros and pros, but rarely worth it for gaming
InflammableAccount@reddit
If you look at the data (adjusted for inflation with 2024/2025 $) of MSRP/die size, which would be the primary manufacturing cost factor, shit really did get significantly worse recently.
Before the 9800GTX, MSRP/Die was closely tied. But since dies were much smaller, it wasn't terribly expensive. Then we started getting fierce competition between ATI/AMD and NV and suddenly prices were REAL generous.
Fast forward to the 30 series, where NV had already gained an insane market share, and suddenly MSRP/Die size skyrockets. Coincidence? Hell no.
Plank_With_A_Nail_In@reddit
Also they only charge these prices because people pay them, its a card for the 1% who don't really care how much the best costs...see also super cars and yachts. People constantly surprised by the rich for some reason.
Swoly_Deadlift@reddit
Yeah it was fine when the halo card was maybe 10% faster than the flagship card for 2x the price. Now we have 90 cards that are 60% faster than 80 cards for 2x the price. Halo cards are no longer just for people who are willing to pay more for slightly better performance. Now there is an upsell at every tier of performance and the halo card isn’t just for people with more money than sense.
thegreatpotatogod@reddit
Neat comparison, thanks for sharing! I think it would be interesting to be able to see both the original price and 2025 equivalent without repeatedly scrolling to the top to toggle the switch, maybe instead of always specifying (2025$) after each item, you could list both prices, one in parentheses and the other as it is now?
barthw@reddit
funnily enough I literally had every GPU of the pioneering era due to my quake2/quake3 addiction back then :)
Gippy_@reddit
I don't think the FX 5800 Ultra should be on there. It was ridiculed hard. If that's on there, then you may as well include the Matrox Parhelia which the Radeon 9700 Pro also curbstomped.
RTX 5080 text is incorrect because the 4080 Super was $999, not the 4080. Perhaps the 4080 Super should replace the 4080 as it was the more sensible card.
simo402@reddit
Wasnt "fx" bas as branding for.nvidia as it was for amd?
Send_heartfelt_PMs@reddit
Was wondering if anyone would mention the Matrox cards. My dad built my sibling and I our first real computer in early 1994 - I upgraded it and kept building my own from there and had a few different Matrox Millennium cards over the years
MWink64@reddit
IIRC, Matrox never really did well with 3D gaming cards. They were mostly known for image quality and being one of earlier companies to embrace dual-output (AKA "dual-head") cards.
Ratiofarming@reddit
They didn't do well, but they were the "AMD" of the time in terms of value. Yes, the lacked features and performance at times. But Ati and Nvidia charged a significant premium for the real deal.
Send_heartfelt_PMs@reddit
Yeah I remember being somewhat disappointed in them, but hoping if they sold well that they'd provide competition and get better in future generations. Parhelia was too much of a let down though and I switched to ATI cards
Gippy_@reddit
Parhelia wasn't actually that bad. It would've been a giant killer if it had been released even 6 months earlier, January instead of June, because the GeForce4 launched in February. Just very unfortunate timing during the days of very fast tech progress. It actually had better IPC than Radeon 9000/GeForce4, but Matrox made the stupid decision to 1) clock it at 220MHz and 2) use an IHS instead of switching to direct die like the Radeon 9000/GeForce4 which allowed those to be clocked higher.
They also could've dropped the price $50-$100 and reloaded for a successor, but stubbornly kept it at $399 when the Radeon 9700 Pro was also $399.
WorriedSmile@reddit
I think it was more of Matrox not being able to clock the Parhelia high due to design choices or limitations. Even the Radeon 8500 from the similar era could do 250-275mhz easily.
jaguarone@reddit
The mystique was fantastic for its time
jaynoj@reddit
I had one of the Matrox Millenium cards. I think it was the Millenium II. Seemed like a decent card at the time.
bestanonever@reddit
I'd add side scrolling with mouse wheel on desktop.
Nice website, otherwise!
Also, my first ever GPU was the Geforce 9500 GT 512MB DDR3. It was such a monster for me, the same PC went from struggling with GTA Vice City with the integrated graphics to play Half-Life 2 at max settings, TES IV Oblivion, Mass Effect and so much more.
amidoes@reddit
Mine was a 9400GT 1GB DDR2
I went with that over a 512MB 9800GT because as a trusting kid I went with the salesman talk of "more memory = better"
Lesson learned the hard way, but it only made the following GTX 260 taste all the sweeter
bestanonever@reddit
Uuuf! Massive difference!
Was it a good upgrade for you, though? My GPU never won any awards but I enjoyed it for years.
Also, I wanted to buy and had the money for a 9600GT, but had to upgrade the PSU and the 9500GT was what I got. Turned out to be much better than what the benchmarks said at the time.
Mastbubbles@reddit (OP)
Added the scrolling
steik@reddit
Doesn't work for me on chrome (windows)
wqfi@reddit
should change pic of 7970 to XFX 7970 Black Edition, it was the best looking card tbh
PJ796@reddit
should also change the pic of the 680 to a 680 instead of a 690
Xmien@reddit
What about NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GX2 - that is a iconic card!
Sutanreyu@reddit
Dual cards were never fully utilized the way they should have been for games... Had all sorts of micro-stuttering issues that made the games effectively feel like they're running on one GPU, despite the FPS counter. The closest we got to having this work efficiently was with AMD's Hybrid Graphics, which in some ways led the 'Infinity Fabric' because AMD needed a solution to the interconnect problem. There was a company before this, Lucid Logix, that made the "Hydra Engine" chip that later became software, that promised to fix the issue and properly load balance between multiple GPUs (even across different vendors) but it never saw the light of day... It eventually became software, and I think that software became the basis for the attempts to remedy this with API changes -- I distinctly remember DirectX12 being billed as multi-GPU capable, as well as Vulkan's architecture being made such so that you use multiple GPUs, as a carryover from AMD's 'Mantle' API.
kasakka1@reddit
Yeah I remember I went from dual GTX 970 -> single GTX 980 Ti even though the performance was similar. The single card just had less stutter issues and of course better compatibility since not everything worked with SLI.
Still, dual GPUs was a cool thing and I wish they had kept it going. On paper it seems like a win-win for both Nvidia and AMD to sell people two GPUs if they want more performance.
I'd love to see add-on cards make a comeback too. We had those PhysX cards that didn't amount to much, but today something like a 1 slot RT/AI addon-card you could use for RT processing in games would be cool.
Sutanreyu@reddit
If Nvidia gets their way, we'll have a GPU and a slopification card alongside it.
superbblunder@reddit
My first card was a Matrox Mystique, and when I got some scratch together I got the Canopus Pure3D (Voodoo 1). I've had a lot of GPU's since then, and most of them aren't on this list.
imaginary_num6er@reddit
Shame AMD only has "Radeon Graphics (integrated)" and "Radeon Graphics" in the charts
feckdespez@reddit
This list is all over the place in general. I like the idea but it skips a lot and includes many that were really meh.
One odd aspect imo is the inclusion of Nvidia flops but deliberately not including the AMD flops?
It's just weirdly inconsistent...
JJ3qnkpK@reddit
It's heavily Nvidia-tinted.
If someone were unaware, they'd think early graphics was an Nvidia parade with occasional peeps from competitors. Plenty of early Nvidia cards were nigh-disastrous, and it wasn't until much later that they achieved the market dominance that they celebrate today.
I like watching PixelPipes on YouTube for old graphics cards shenanigans: https://youtube.com/@pixelpipes He does a fantastic job at providing the history, context, and performance around any particular card.
MWink64@reddit
Nvidia wasn't even a player when it came to early graphics cards. Their first 3D accelerator worthy of attention was the Riva 128. I don't think most people today realize just how crowded the field was back then. Had you told me back then who the last three players standing would be, I'd never have believed you.
JJ3qnkpK@reddit
Add in that hardware iterated much more quickly, old hardware had much less staying power, and the "winner" of each generation changed with every release, and it was tough to tell who'd be dominant and who'd go bankrupt.
There's a reason consoles got a reputation for being easier to buy and just use, and it ain't from modern PCs lol.
James_Jack_Hoffmann@reddit
It seems that there was very flimsy methodology with what falls on the definition of "mattered". What makes an RTX [1-4]060 matter that the equivalent AMD card make it not matter?
There are so many cool ideas for a list of "GPUs that matter". On top of my head: Titan? S3? SLI/Crossfire? pound-for-pound kings? OC record holders? the TDP warriors like 4770/5770? the GX2s? Quadros/FireGLs? influential/honorable mentions? there's so much space for other GPUs but OP just concluded at *that*.
Mastbubbles@reddit (OP)
hey, those two "Radeon Graphics" entries are only in the Steam survey section at the bottom, that's how Steam aggregates integrated Ryzen APU users into one bucket, not really a choice on my end
if you scroll through the timeline + showdown + evolution sections, AMD/ATI actually has 12 named cards in there: Rage 128 Pro, Radeon 9700 Pro, X800 XT, X1900 XTX, HD 4870, HD 5870, HD 7970, RX 580, RX 5700 XT, RX 6800 XT, RX 7900 XTX, and the new RX 9070 XT. plus you can pick any of them in the showdown to compare against an nvidia card
the 9700 Pro and HD 5870 in particular were huge moments where ATI/AMD straight up dethroned nvidia, so they def get their flowers in the writeups
jdw9762@reddit
The 7970 also was the fastest consumer GPU for a time. It was released before the GTX 680.
multubunu@reddit
But Radeon 8500 was neck-in-neck with GeForce 3, and the 7200 surely deserved a mention, being pretty much the only competitor to the GeForce 256 (later overtaken by GeForce 2).
_MAYniYAK@reddit
Yeah the 7970ghz not listed is a shame.
That card did so well that it caused the GTX 8 series to not have a normal launch and was an crossfire beast. It's ports and larger amount of included memory is what made the GTX 970 need to exist.
Fun project, super incomplete list especially when talking about cards that mattered.
Noreng@reddit
The 7970 GHz Edition didn't do well. It was hot and loud, and it didn't have the goodwill of Nvidia features. The GTX 800-series was released after the 700-series, and the GTX 780 was far ahead in terms of performance at the time.
slvrsmth@reddit
Distinct lack of ATI Rage Fury Maxx.
Fitting, since support for it was also severely lacking :)
MWink64@reddit
The Rage Fury is why I avoid bleeding-edge products.
Oxezz@reddit
I get that it might be more of display technology but no mention of FreeSync or G-Sync (VRR) is criminal since GPU needed to support it also the whole debate around G-Sync at that time being proprietary and pretty expensive license for manufacturers to pay if i remember correctly.
usedUpSpace4Good@reddit
Where is the RIVA128? I had those when I was a teen and was the only way to afford Voodoo like performance.
MWink64@reddit
It really should be there. It wasn't just a solid chip, it basically saved Nvidia from bankruptcy. The world might be very different today, had that chip not existed.
BTW, I think I still have my Diamond Viper V330 (as well as my VooDoo 3 3000).
an_angry_Moose@reddit
So you’re saying the RIVA128 was the catalyst for Skynet? We have to go back.
MWink64@reddit
Unfortunately, yes. And Sega played a key role, so we might have to take out a blue hedgehog.
Asgardisalie@reddit
I mean, was Wukong or AW2 ever a defining game? People on the west never really cared about the monkey game and most doesn't even know, that AW2 is on PC.
kasakka1@reddit
Yeah the game choices are weird and probably reflect OP's preferences more than anything.
How do we go from Quake 3 Arena being a defining game then the next one is Diablo II which has always ran on a potato?
Cyberpunk 2077 with the path tracing update is the defining game for the Nvidia 40 series. Frame gen + better RT performance + improved DLSS all made path tracing viable.
this_knee@reddit
GeForce 2 was my entrance to the gpu.
ExcitingImage9211@reddit
cool
HeavensNight@reddit
Quantum3D Obsidian, first game to run on it was quake 2
AirFlavoredLemon@reddit
Meh. I feel like there's some recency bias here. Like excessive numbers of cards on later generations for being just a midrange version of a higher end card.
There's no issue including midrange cards; but they're usually highlighted if they were actually good, or a mid generational refresh with a new core/die - like the legendary G92 (Launched as the 8800GT, powered cards like the 8800 GTS 512MB, 9800 GT, 9600 GSO...).
No GF4 TI4200/4600 either; which was effectively the staple DX8.1 card and probably helped solidify PC gaming as the definitive high end gaming experience; along with the MX400 series that it brought to budget gaming and drove the original (direct)Xbox.
I wouldn't mind if this was titled differently, but "every GPU that mattered" when this isn't really quite a representation of how the market felt at the time nor the eventual cultural impact the cards would have (1080ti is considered legendary - but so was the GF4 Ti 4000 series).
Like, can you explain why the 4060, 4070, 4080, and 4090 are all individually on the list?
No call outs to long standing entry level cards like the 1660ti?
No All in Wonder cards?
panix199@reddit
it was so crazy how much performance you had for 50% of price compared to 8800GTX... man, i miss Crysis DX10 tests with that GPU
Gippy_@reddit
I would actually disagree here. GeForce 4 was beat by Radeon 9000 and only lasted a while as a midrange option because GeForce FX was dogshit. In fact, GeForce FX came out less than a year after GeForce 4.
The lasting legacy of the GeForce 4 was actually the low-end GeForce 4 MX cards, because this was during the middle of the internet cafe boom, and the GF4MX was the cost-effective card that they could buy 20+ of and ran Counterstrike well. I recall multiple internet cafes running GF4 MX cards but none running GF4 Ti. They all moved up to GF6 or X800 for the World of Warcraft upgrade cycle.
WikipediaBurntSienna@reddit
I wasn't that deep in the scene back then. But I feel like the 9800 Pro was the graphics card everyone wanted.
AirFlavoredLemon@reddit
I agree on the GF4 MX. MX420's could run every DX7-8 title because they were built to run on it - and the Xbox helped extend that by building a slew of console games designed around its limitations (and subsequently PC ports/engine optimizations). (We have source engine Half Life 2 on the original xbox).
The GF4 Ti legendary status for me came by being performant for so many generations until, not unlike a Radeon 9500/9700 Pro. They were workhorse cards that ran the next decade of games. Their omission (GF4 Ti and MX) is baffling compared to some of the inclusions.
MWink64@reddit
All-in-Wonder was a series of cards, not GPUs. They were essentially various Rage/Radeon GPUs combined with a TV tuner/capture card.
AirFlavoredLemon@reddit
Agreed. I said that there wasn't a card mentioned, not that all of them should be mentioned. The key here is that they both have relevant cultural and technical relevance. More so than a 4060 on this list would. by a significant margin.
All in Wonder cards were part of the reason Microsoft made a bet on making both Windows Media center edition *and* compatibility of that on the Xbox 360.
Its no small movement.
BopSupreme@reddit
1050Ti and 3060Ti best modern deals
KushKingKyle@reddit
I’m so glad the 980Ti is getting its flowers here 💐 My first “real” GPU purchase after years of awful iGPU.
Objective-Method7378@reddit
Unified shaders just mean the same cores handle vertex/pixel stuff, but fixed-function rasterization is still hardware. Compute shaders are more about general GPU compute, not replacing traditional pipelines entirelyNanites a CPU-side thing too, kinda.
Woodboah@reddit
r9 290x performance held strong through repeated iterations
290x - 390x - rx480 - rx580
each generation had negligible improvements. if you bought the r9 290x is was a long lasting card.
dlwlrma_22@reddit
looks great. might be a attractive tool for who are with GPU hearts
Dear-Regret-9476@reddit
RIP my overclocked as fuck 7900 GRE
Sosowski@reddit
No GeForce MX makes it clear to me that whoever made it has no idea about what people were actually using.
clupean@reddit
In which region of the World did you live? I was living between Spain and France and we've had very different experiences. My dad bought me in Spain a 15" Hyundai LCD monitor in 2001 for 450€. It wasn't cheap but we're nowhere near super rich level of wealth, even when taking into account inflation.
I remember monitor prices decreasing really fast and I'm sure by 2003 LCD monitors outsold CRT monitors. Schools, commerce, and pretty much every place replaced all the CRTs.
By 2008, CRTs only existed on eBay, which is why it's surprising to see you say "Virtually everyone was running a CRT monitor in 2008".
Sosowski@reddit
Well, my salary was 300€ back then, and it was pretty much what most of the people were making, so I can't imagine forking out 150 for a monitor.
clupean@reddit
Wow. I checked the average salary in Poland in 2026 and it's ~2000€. We often hear about misuse and waste of EU money in countries like Hungary so it's nice to know that in Poland things went well!
Sosowski@reddit
Yeah, it's hard to believe now, but things skyrocketed! Back then the country was still in shambles after years of socialist regime.
That 2000 euro is gross average, so a bit over stated, the median would be around 1200 euro net right now. Still, 4x what it was!
antaran@reddit
LCD/TFT monitors were already standard in 2008, CRTs on their way out. Vendors were already shutting down CRT plants in 2008. You are speaking more of the early 2000s.
Fluffy_Panda_97@reddit
In the US maybe but not the rest of the world.
CRT were better than early LCD for gaming.
Sosowski@reddit
Standard for rich people maybe.
Zarmazarma@reddit
Absolutely not... There were tons of cheap LCDs in 2008. You're definitely misremembering.
Sosowski@reddit
You must have not lived in Poland in 2008. What was cheap for you wasn't cheap for the rest of the world.
Dvsv01@reddit
I'm from Brazil i bought my first lcd monitor (a LG 1952) back in 2006 and i remember that they were already popular here in 2008.
I remember they were rare slow and expensive af back in 2002 or something..
Zarmazarma@reddit
And things that were expensive for you in 2008 Poland were not necessarily expensive for the rest of the world. LCD TVs outsold CRT tvs by Q4 2007 according to the Wikipedia.
Sosowski@reddit
Yeah if by this you mean Western Europe and North America (and Japan maybe).
freakdahouse@reddit
What? No lol I still have my Samsung 2032 LCD monitor and has a TV tuner, hdmi,1680x1050. Was 300 euros in 2008 or so.
Sosowski@reddit
300 euros is not cheapm today and was not cheap in 2008.
freakdahouse@reddit
Well, it was a monitor and TV combo. I used for my Xbox 360 and my PC on my university days, and it still works! There were of course cheaper lcd monitors.
nisaaru@reddit
The first 20inch 1600x1200 LCD I got cost less than the dead 21inch CRT it replaced in the early 2000 before Dell started with their LCD line. Sure, expensive by most today's LCD prices but not that much vs. quality monitor prices from the 80s-90s and in line with computer prices in general.
P.S. That old LCD is still working.
42LSx@reddit
No Geforce MX card was actually worth using tho.
Sosowski@reddit
MSRP was $99
42LSx@reddit
The launch price of the GF3 was ~$499, certainly not $99, otherwise nobody would have bought Radeon 8500s etc.
Sosowski@reddit
Geforce 3 had no MX version.
42LSx@reddit
No, it didn't, I never said it did. I'm saying LCDs weren't as expensive as some other stuff from the same time.
Sosowski@reddit
Yeah, maybe in Germany. Here in Poland mosty of the computer stuff we had back then were hand-me-downs bought from.... you guessed it, Germany. So everything was a generation behind.
42LSx@reddit
Yeah, that's why I asked. Different markets, different income levels, different availability etc.
Gippy_@reddit
The GeForce 4 MX could max out or run at high settings the following games: Counterstrike, Unreal Tournament, Quake 3 Arena, and Max Payne. For most people that was enough. It even still ran Battlefield 1942 and Warcraft III decently. (but not maxed) and that was a 2002 game. The GeForce 4 MX 440 was the card that internet cafes used because it was only $100 and went down to as low as $50, and everyone only just cared about the games listed above.
It only started losing its stature once World of Warcraft came out, because then every internet cafe needed to have a GPU that could handle that game.
42LSx@reddit
It is true that the 2002 MX440 played many games at release and was a much better product than the older Geforce 2 MX, but it couldn't even properly run Doom³ from 2 years later and the ATi 9000 series from the same year as the Geforce was just much better, including DX 8.1 for example.
inyue@reddit
I was a poor brazilian kid, my parents financed a cheap a pc from Casas Bahia and it had lcd and it was before 2008 LOL
Where are you from? North Korea?
Olde94@reddit
>Virtually everyone was running a CRT monitor in 2008, unless you were super rich.
They were? I remember running an 18" 1440x900 LCD? it wasn't super fancy, but by then all our monitors were LCD.
Sosowski@reddit
Yeah 2010 was when LCD displays started becoming afforadable!
Olde94@reddit
Hmm sounds like my parents were on the forefront (still) then. I just had a feeling back then that they had gotten more complacent with mid tier hardware (they built their own stuff in the 80’s and 90’s)
Nuck_Chorris_Stache@reddit
I think I had a relatively cheap but good value 21" LCD that had a resolution of 1680x1050
If you were rich you'd have a 24" LCD with a resolution of 1920x1200
Olde94@reddit
I remember people talking about how expensive MAC were (and it was) but when they launched the retina mac in 2012 NOTHING in windows world were even remotely near for many years until we hit that wierd point where you could get 3200x1800 on somewhat affordable laptops that never had the gpu to pull those monitors
Gippy_@reddit
Ah yes, the GeForce 4 MX days, where Nvidia began their descent into misleading names. Also helped slimy computer shops a lot because they advertised "GeForce 4" and then when you bought the PC you got a GeForce 4 MX 440 which was significantly slower than the GeForce 3 Ti 500.
Sosowski@reddit
Yeah but in the end these were the "affordable" gpus that everyone was running.
It's the same with Geforce 256 that lauinched at the same time as the crippled 64-bit Riva TNT2 and everyone was running the Riva, because it was cheap and got the job done.
Gippy_@reddit
I used a Riva TNT2! It could almost max out Unreal Tournament and Max Payne, and that was good enough! (It's too bad the original Max Payne engine, Max-FX, was only used on Max Payne and 3DMark01. It was buttery smooth.)
Nuck_Chorris_Stache@reddit
I used to have a TNT2 for some years.
I also tried running C&C Generals on it once, with a Pentium 3 at about 1GHz, and... it technically ran, at a frame rate that could be measured in seconds per frame.
Sosowski@reddit
Yeah these cards were great for the price, that's why they were the most popular of their respective generations!
ElementII5@reddit
Fury and Fury X definitely need to be on there. AMD invented HBM and it was the first card to implement it.
Fluffy_Panda_97@reddit
AMD also invented GDDR3 and nvidia waa the first to use it.
loozerr@reddit
I'd argue that 4 Ti, 6600 GT and 9800 Pro mattered.
emotionengine@reddit
Not mentioning the R9 290 / 290X is a pretty big oversight.
Fluffy_Panda_97@reddit
Thanks to GCN that we have Vulkan and DX12 today.
glitchvid@reddit
No Fiji either, which pioneered HBM memory usage.
MajorTankz@reddit
No GTX 460 mention is surprising. It was insane value for the time. SLI 460's were better and cheaper than a 480.
InflammableAccount@reddit
Hey OP, on the subject of pricing going to hell recently. I have collected and graphed the die sizes compared to price of NV flagship GPUs going back a ways, and it is eye opening when looked at this way.
What you call part of the Golden Era, and HD Era, truly was the best time for gaming as the cost to the consumer was at it's lowest.
gioseba@reddit
Small correction and maybe not a full launch GPU but the Radeon 7870 XT was the first 28nm GPU. Essentially a stripped down 79xx series launched early. (I'm biased because I had 2 of these)
HealsOnWheals@reddit
GeForce mx440 baby. Thing was a beast at the time.
SqueezyCheez85@reddit
First card I bought was a Diamond Viper something. First card I bought when I really knew what I was doing was a ATI 9800 Pro. I freaking loved that thing. It was a beast.
Swoly_Deadlift@reddit
The 3090 wasn’t a terrible deal. It was a halo card, and the 3080 was an incredible value at $700. The issue we have today is that the 80 cards have a $1000 MSRP and are significantly slower than the 90 cards which have MSRPs even higher than the 3090.
Alt532169@reddit
The 30xx series was during covid when there were scalpers buying everything to sell at stupidly high prices.
beigemore@reddit
I am weird and have a list of most of my PC's that I've built over the years since the 90s...
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1n3_N2t-5craOfHSszlczoRQC9bdh809I/edit?gid=95224093#gid=95224093
I had Diamond Stealth 64 PCI card that could do 3d acceleration in some DOS games like Whiplash and Battle Arena Toshinden. The games ran slightly faster and triangle counts were a little higher, but it really didn't make a noticeable difference unless you were specifically looking for improvements.
3dfx changed all of that. Voodoo 1 capped out at 640x480 and texture smoothing looked a little strange (going from raw pixelated textures to smoother ones with arguably less detail like in Quake 2 was a change), but there was no denying the huge quality improvement from the solid and consistent frame rate increase.
Regarding OP's notes: - GPUs stayed between $250-$600 for literally 20 years They could be had for less, but pretty true.
the 8800 GT at $249 in 2007 might be the best deal in GPU history 8800 GT was a BEAST at this price point. The alternative was 8800 GTS was $350+ at launch, and while crazy good, it was still considered too pricey by most. $250 was the price people were looking to pay for an upper midrange card. It's only a $100 difference, but that matter a lot more back then than it does now. 8800 GT laptops were also an insanely good value at the time. You could get basically a high end gaming laptop with 17" screen for under $1000 because of it. Gateway was killing it with these laptops.
then the 3090 showed up at $1,499 and it was over The Titan series before this were wtf priced, but the 3000 series launched at such a bad time right when Covid hit hard. If it had launched just a couple moths earlier then prices and scarcity would not have morphed the industry into the monstrosity that it is now.
RTX 5090 is $1,999 and the connector melted again within 10 days I haven't had a 4090 or 5090 melt on me. The level of performance in these two cards is bonkers and it is weird they have become so "mainstream". Outside of performance, the biggest thing improvement over the 3000 series for me was how much cooler the 4000 series runs. I could feel the heat from my 3080ti like 2 feet outside my case and it was almost too hot to touch -- 4090 has always been completely chill.
djlemma@reddit
No Edge3d? My first graphics card gets forgotten.
Which is no surprise, it was a pretty weird and unpopular card, but it did have NVidia's first GPU!
beigemore@reddit
GLQuake was popular but I don't think 3dfx really took off until Quake 2 was released.
TwilightOmen@reddit
My first GPU was an S3 (not virge), can't remember the model, with a 3DFX voodoo 2 3D card beside it;P
Anyway, I have a feeling the radeon 3650 had something important, but I can't quite remember what it was...
hannopal@reddit
Nice list, definetely needs Riva 128 (first actually successful Nvidia card, probably the company would not exists without it). Also O.g Radeon DDR, which made ATi serious competitor for Nvidia in the high end (earlier they focused a lot on in the low end and OEM market).
Dvsv01@reddit
My first gpu was a Geforce 2 Mx (yep i'm old) anyway the only thigh i would change was remove most kepler gpus (they aged like pure garbage) and include the 750 Ti that was imho the best true low end budget gpu ever (when low end meant sub u$150 gpu), and from what i see the price creep started with rtx 2000 turing/rdna1 ime a rtx2060 was priced more like a gtx1070 than a 1060..
DCS30@reddit
no love for the voodoo 3? that card blew my teenage mind
ResponsibleTruck4717@reddit
Nice idea, here is my 2 cents.
I would go by important generations instead of listing cards.
If I remember correctly In the early 2000 we had fierce competition between Ati and Nvidia.
We saw few revolutionary gpu, dual gpu core cards, the attempt of sli / crossfire, cuda.
For example the rtx 20x0 the card that introduced AI (DLSS) for gamers.
Olde94@reddit
Yeah i would go the same way. GTX 770 wasn't an important card in any way shape of form forinstance. It was essentially a 680 so no generational improvement, just a price cut. 690 could be listed as "last dual GPU" though.
While not selling a ton AMD had a lot of cards that should be here. The fury launched as the first GPU with an AIO cooler as the standard cooling design AND as the first GPU with HBM memory.
The first GTX titan could also be relevant as the first (expensive) GPU with unlocked FP64 calculations at consumer/prosumer pricing (999$) far undercutting the cost of professional Quadro/Tesla cards.
RTX 2060 is also listed, but i think that one is controversial. It wasn't much better than a 1660 but had the AI / RT cores, BUT had so little that it hardly mattered.
>For example the rtx 20x0 the card that introduced AI (DLSS) for gamers.
The article does list DLSS, But you could say "600 series was the first nvidia series to introduce dynamic boost clock"
SomeoneTrading@reddit
Wouldn’t that be the 295X2? Also I distinctly remember some dual GTX760 thing from Asus.
Send_heartfelt_PMs@reddit
There's a bunch of dual GPU cards, though many are/were workstation or "pro" cards
Noreng@reddit
GTX Titan Z, Radeon Pro Duo (Fiji), Radeon Pro Duo (Polaris), Intel Arc B60 48GB.
PJ796@reddit
Also the 7nm Vega dual GPU that was Apple exclusive
Olde94@reddit
Hmm that’s right, amd had some later…
I never heard about the 760x2 but it seems to be a custom asus thing.
Some vendors have from time to time done Wierd stuff to differentiate
Plank_With_A_Nail_In@reddit
RTX 2060 Supers with 8Gb VRAM got bought a lot by the home rendering crowd as did the 3060 12Gb. Start of GPU's being bought by consumers for non gaming tasks?
Thinking about it crypto should be on here somewhere. Title is "Every GPU that mattered" not specifically for gaming.
Olde94@reddit
I mean the home render crowd has been going on for years, but “first CUDA GPU” should be a milestone, cause that was a HUGE deal, atleast in retro specs. Similarly vulcan could be mentioned
Ok_Fix3639@reddit
Ati technically beat nvidia to market with unified shaders with the Xbox 360 gpu.
chandleya@reddit
Important ones for me: Nvidia riva 128 Vx 8MB Voodoo 3 16MB GeForce 3 Ti 500 64MB GeForce 6600 GeForce 9800 GTX ATI 3870 ATI 580 Geforce 980 GeForce 1080 Ti GeForce 3070 Ti GeForce 5060
AmoniPTV@reddit
You ommited the Gefore 4 Series completely. I was looking for the MX 440 and the Ti 4200 because they were my childhood card but it's not there
Mastbubbles@reddit (OP)
oof yeah you're right, jumped straight from gf3 to fx 5800 which is a big gap. it 4200 especially is a glaring miss, that was THE budget enthusiast card of its era, basically what the gtx 1060 was a decade later
mx 440 i kinda had a debate with myself on bc it was more of an OEM/prebuilt staple than a card people actively chose, but volume-wise it was massive so fair point
ill add the ti 4200 for sure, prob the mx 440 too. ty for the catch, the gf4 omission is legit on me
zopiac@reddit
I got the 1070 instead of the 1060 but managed to run both the Ti 4200 and 8800 GT (well 9800 GT actually, and for just 130USD). I miiight be biased, but I feel as though my 750 Ti and 3060 Ti are about as legendary for the time and price as well.
Thanks for the site, and thanks again for looking into everyone's issues with it, heh!
sixincomefigure@reddit
The MX 440 was absolutely a card people chose, I and most of my friends bought one because we couldn't afford a TI 4200. It deserves to be there on volume alone. TNT2 M64 was probably its "shitty but wildly successful" predecessor.
delph0r@reddit
Epic work! I really enjoyed that. Thanks
Mastbubbles@reddit (OP)
Thanks
Ramongsh@reddit
Fun website and great work!
Mastbubbles@reddit (OP)
Thanks
Zarmazarma@reddit
You should probably add prices accounting for inflation. $600 in 2005 is just over $1000 today. $500 in 2001 is $895.
Mastbubbles@reddit (OP)
They're added on the interactive version, as I cannot edit the image
Olde94@reddit
This should be in chronological order, right?
HD 7970 was released before GTX 680. The GHZ variant was released after, but the base model was not
last_great_auk@reddit
Excellent list, really enjoyed that trip down memory lane.
upbeatchief@reddit
The 4gb gtx 770 was so so good at the time. Still hold a special place in my heart
Alucard400@reddit
I got one from Microcenter when it was a price mistake (priced like 2GB). I later got a 2nd to run in SLI. pretty amazing at the time.
Consistent-Leave7320@reddit
My first was 1650 and my now second is 5070
innovator12@reddit
Quite nice. A couple of plots which might be interesting:
Remarkable-Virus3073@reddit
That’s amazing. I really like that you added the defining game as well. Really helps with context, because by looking at numbers it sometimes hard to grasp the relative power between cards. Thanks a lot
EyeQue62@reddit
I was loathe to join the PeeCee crowd back in 1999. I had an Amiga 1200 which was put into a Power Tower because I'd bought a PPC accelerator card and BVision graphics card. Man, that was a Frankenstein's monster, but I loved it.
My first PC build had a VooDoo 3. I despised Windows 95 and 98 but actually thought Windows 2000 was awesome.
Gippy_@reddit
Wait, desktop users can't click and drag the timeline? We have to individually click on all of the red and green dots on that tiny timeline bar? Come on.
Mastbubbles@reddit (OP)
Fixed it, now you can drag
Gippy_@reddit
Much better, thanks!
TDYDave2@reddit
Adjusting for inflation, $249 in 2007 would be round $392 now.
itanite@reddit
fucking UI sucks if you're not on a smartphone
itanite@reddit
Yeah actually this is really, really bad UI design OP. Half the red tiny ass buttons aren't even clickable, you have ZERO provisions for desktop users, (you can't drag left or right) and the only way to navigate is with a bunch of tiny dots that half of them aren't clickable?
Did you even test drive this page on anything other than your iPad before publishing?
I appreciate the information and it's a trip down memory lane, but this is really, REALLY bad UI design and you need to fix it.
blahyawnblah@reddit
Clicking my scroll wheel sideways worked fine
Mastbubbles@reddit (OP)
Fixed everything, thanks a lot for the commemts
ToughDefinition2591@reddit
No horizontal scrolling on desktop made me abandon the read instantly. Also, a lot of important information missing. What a few have listed already.
PM_ME_YOUR_HAGGIS_@reddit
Early on it’s cars that set standards for performance and value. Later cards it’s setting the standard for monopolistic and shitty behaviour lol.