Video card brand in your first PC?

What brand of video card was in your first PC (no onboard)

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NeghVar

NeghVar

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I remember trying to play the original doom on a 16-bit ISA Trident graphics card with 512KB memory.
I then upgraded to a PCI Matrox Millenium with 4MB memory. Made a huge impact in the performance and the wallet (at the time)
 
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My first PC that I had complete ownership of had a NVIDIA GeForce2 MX200. My dad's first addin card was a Creative Labs of some sort in 1996 that he bought for Need for Speed. Can't remember what it was.
 
The first addin PCI graphics cards I bought were DIamond Monster VooDoo 2 cards. I replaced them with Diamond Viper V550 TNT card and then a Viper V770 Ultra TNT2 Ultra board. My VooDoo 2 cards had an epic 12MB of vram!
 
Trio V64+ for me then replaced with a Virge that held on until I got a Riva128....now I feel old.
 
Hellstoaster said:
The first addin PCI graphics cards I bought were DIamond Monster VooDoo 2 cards. I replaced them with Diamond Viper V550 TNT card and then a Viper V770 Ultra TNT2 Ultra board. My VooDoo 2 cards had an epic 12MB of vram!
Click to expand...

Me too!
Diamond Monster 3D II 12MB -> TNT2 Ultra (Diamond as well) -> 3dFX Voodoo3 3000 AGP (because Glide) ->

Then I flipped back & forth between Radeon & Geforce for the past decade.
 
ATI Rage Pro AKA Rage 128 Pro.

Paired with an AMD K6-2 500mhz harvested out of my original Compaq shitbox.
 
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J Macker said:
Me too!
Diamond Monster 3D II 12MB -> TNT2 Ultra (Diamond as well) -> 3dFX Voodoo3 3000 AGP (because Glide) ->

Then I flipped back & forth between Radeon & Geforce for the past decade.
Click to expand...

Nice. :D

After the TNT 2 I went from Diamond to Hercules for the GeForce 2 and 3 GPU's. I had a VisionTek Xtasy GeForce 4 before switching makers to Leadtek for the 5900 and 6800. Finally BFG for the 7900, 8800, and 9800, EVGA for the 580 and 770, and PNY for the 970 and 1080. I had a few Radeon's as well that were all made by ATi. The 9700, 9800, X800XT, and X1800XT. A few of those were AIW cards because they rocked. I kinda miss the AIW series. :)
 
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For throwback's sake:
1st computer was an AST we got at Price Club. It had no HW acceleration.
2nd computer was an HP Pavilion we got at Circuit City. It had an ATI Rage Pro.
- Bought a Hercules Prophet Geforce 2 MX from J&R Computer World (NYC). This was my first time ever going into the B-I-O-S and disabling onboard video!
- Picked up a Voodoo 2 some time later at Circuit City...
- Picked up another Voodoo 2 from my cousin... for SLI half life at 1024x768!!!
 
The first PC I had was an 80386sx 25Mhz.

It came with a Trident ISA SVGA card with I think 1MB of vram.

The second card I had was a Diamond Stealth Trio 64 2MB Vesa Local Bus card... as in this post:
Diamond Multimedia Stealth 64 2000 w/S3 Trio64

The blitting speed was so much faster than the crappy trident card. 2d was sooooo much faster.

My next video card upgrade was a Voodoo Rush (Voodoo 1 and 2d on the same board). I returned it like 2 days later and got a Voodoo Banshee (Voodoo 2 with 2d onboard). Pretty sure this was when I was on a 80486 DX2-66 machine.. or maybe it was a K6-2 machine. Been to long to actually remember al lthat exactly.

Then later on I went to a Voodoo 3-3500, and then to a Voodoo 5-5500, which I still have.
 
Assuming we're talking first discrete video card, it'd be my Matrox Mystique around '98. Just before I discovered Voodoo and 3dfx :)
 
I don't remember the first brand of video card, but it was in the MS-DOS days.
No Windows, no internet. Simple video games with VGA graphics.

I do remember it was one of the first VGA cards.
It was either that or a monochrome video card & monitor.

.
 
It was a Commodore 64 so not really sure what it had in it. ;)

My first actual discrete card was a MSI.
 
The first PC my dad bought was the IBM PC. The first video card upgrade he bought for it was the ATI VGA Wonder in 1986. Seeing VGA color for the first time was glorious.
The first PC I bought for myself was a 486 66MHz and I got it with the Matrox Millenium in 1993.
 
Commodore 64 also. I'm thinking the first card I bought was a Matrox back in '96 or so. Too many happy sticks...hard to remember.;)
 
I had an asus radeon something, I cant remember the exact model, but I put it in my Dell PC POS heatbox. Its only fan was for the CPU and it fed it out back in a nozzle. Ended up burning up my 250 bucks card. Man I was pissed. I didnt even think of RMAing it because I was too pissed off. Ended up actually building my own first computer after that. Still have the computer!
 
ATi. ATi RageIIc was the card. Absolutely horrible product. It was a graphics deaccelerator and drivers were junk. If something actually worked it ran like crap.

Then RivaTNT2 Pro saved my PC and I couldn't believe how fast it was. Everything worked fine too.
 
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My first discrete GPU purchase was the above, a Canopus Pure3D. That was in my mother's PC when I was a teen.

My first self-owned PC, a GateWay, came with a GeForce 4 MX 440. I replaced it with a Radeon 9800 Pro. It got it from Circuit City, so can't remember if it was ATI or Sapphire branded.

The first time that I built a PC myself, I used a GeForce 7800GT. It was an XFX, so it died, and they didn't feel like honoring the warranty. Replaced with an EVGA 7800GT.
 
First PC with a stand-alone graphics card was a 1989 Packard Bell 8088 XT 4.77 MHz standard / 8 MHz "turbo mode" with a Paradise EGA 480 and 14" EGA monitor...my parents bought it as a family computer in 1989 when we got back from Munich (Dad was stationed there for the Army).

That graphics card was recycled into my first homebuilt computer: Am386SX-33, which was eventually upgraded to a Cirrus Logic 1MB VLB SVGA and a 15" non-interlaced 1280x1024 monitor with the better .28 dot pitch. Ran that setup until a full overhaul involving a Cyrix 6x86 PR120+ and a Trident 9440 4MB came about in Dec 1996.

After that, it was a flurry of 3D accelerators including Rendition, 3Dfx, ATI, and nVidia.
 
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Voodoo Banshee, though I did replace it fairly quickly with a pair of used Voodoo2 cards in SLI.
 
So the first PC I called my own (and not a family PC) was a Geforce 2. But the first GPU I ever purchased with my own hard-earned lawn-mowing money was a Radeon 9600.
 
I think it was a Cirrus Logic, not that it mattered. Long before any form of 3D.

Back then it didn't really matter who made your graphics card, unless you was doing professional work.
 
This badboy.. Inno3D GeForce 6600 GT 128MB

Unchangeable 100% fan mode. Sounded like an aircraft taking off.. constantly :D
 
I still have mine that I cast a vote for, low end PCI Trident 3D and a Cirrus Logic card (but I did also have a Matrox Millennium and G200 at around the same time).
 
I have no idea what brand my first PC had. It was an EGA. That's all I know. My second PC had a Trident 8900 1MB. With that 1MB I was king, everyone else I knew had only 512K max at the time. I could run neopaint in 640x480 true color with it.
 
What was current for an impoverished student in 1988? Hercules? ATI VGA Wonder?
 
Couldn't say for the very first PCs I owned, probably on board because it was a Walmart special. Didn't build my own until the 6870 came out. It's still in use but waiting for stock of RX480 to come to fruition.
 
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All you old timers in here sure make me feel young again. It's a nice change of pace from the intern I have who just turned 20 :eek:.
 
The family's first computer was a 386. I don't believe it had a dedicated graphics card.

My first computer was a Pentium 60 MHZ, which had a Cirrus Logic SVGA card. ISA slot, 1 MB VRAM IIRC.

My first 3D accelerated PC was a P2 450 MHZ with an NVidia Riva TNT 16 MB card. Loved that thing, and it lasted for years at a time when gaming PC's were badly obsolete after just 1 year.
 
My first PC didn't have one...486, The PIII had a TNT2 16MB Card by Diamond. The first card I actually bought (no more hand-me downs) was a Geforce 2.
 
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