What was the very first video card you ever bought?

We're working up to it, let's just get it out of the way ...

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It was some POS Jaton with 2 MB of RAM.
Maybe 3D Virge.
ISA to boot.
 
A Radeon Mac Edition 32MB for an Apple G3 to play Star Trek Voyager Elite Force (a Quake 3 based game) back in 2000. Aaah memories.
 
The first GPU I paid with my own money and used: 570, but I didn't pick the part.

The first GPU I actually went "oo, I want that" was 970, two of them in fact.
 
Intergraph Intense 3D Voodoo

Overclocked the shit out of that sucker for some sweet dorm Quake action.
 
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My first PC came with an S3 of some sort. It was a total POS and knowing Packard Bell it was probably a refurb job.
The first one I actually purchased (as part of a mom & pop build) was a Diamond Stealth Pro.
I think the first one I actually purchased separately and installed myself was a Matrox Mystique.
 
Voodoo Rush card. I remember because it came with this cool Moto GP game and Turok. I put it in a Pentium 1 133MHZ system(the family computer) This was what started me down a horrible path into custom computers, O/Cing and gaming :) Man I remember playing the UT Demo on that machine and it ran just fine due to glide!
 
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1MB Tseng Labs ET4000 with the Sierra HiColor DAC.

Awesome card at the time and I still have fond memories of the 100x40 text mode! I didn't actually pay for this myself though, since it was my family's first `PC' (a 40MHz AMD 386) -- previously I'd had an Amiga, Ataris or Commodore systems.

The first video card that I paid for with my own $$ was an ATI Mach64 Graphics Pro Turbo 2MB PCI. Also an amazing card at the time, paired with an Intel 486 DX2-66 and a 15" Sony Trinitron. Definitely the most expensive PC that I've ever bought! I actually ended up getting a loan from a local credit union with one of my parent's cars as collateral to pay for it! Looking back it was not such a good idea, but it was an awesome system for the time. =)
 
Geforce 2 32mb AGP. That was 16 years ago or so.
The irony being most of the games we play used DX9 10 years, kinda depressing how DX10 and 11, were pointless. 12 doubt we'll see anything blow our minds. VR currently looks like N64 games whenever I see pictures. Only thing pushing graphics right now is higher resolutions on monitors.
 
My first gaming card was a XFX ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB Card.

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Then I bought:
ATI Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition 2GB (currently in my wife's machine) [also this is my favorite video card, ever. Bring back the 6 miniDP on high end SKUs.]
AMD Radeon HD 6870 1GB (I won this and is in my brother's machine now)
MSI AMD Radeon HD 7970 Lightning Edition 3GB (Currently in use)
MSI AMD Radeon HD 7970 Power Edition 3GB (Used for trying xfire, sold to best friend)

I was using some random low end to mid range nVidia card at some point (remember playing UT2004 on super low on this thing) and an ATI X300 for output.I didn't buy those though, they were in my computer already before I built my own. My next card is pending on what's coming out. The GTX 1080 looks awesome, but due to some bills, it gives me the chance to see what AMD's coming out with. Plus I'm looking to buy a Freesync 4K monitor(s) anyway.
 
1MB S3 Trident ------> 4mb ATI Rage Pro-----> 16mb Voodoo Banshee ----> 32mb Diamond Monster TNT2 ------> Geforce 2 mx 400 ------> Ati Radeon 9000 -----> Ati Radeon 9600 -----> Ati Radeon 9500 flashed to 9700 -------> Ati radeon x800 pro vivo flashed to x800xt -----> Ati Radeon x1800xl -----> 8800gt -----> 8800 gt sli -----> gtx 260 ----> 5870 ----->gtx 460 sli ----->gtx 680 ------> r9 290 flashed to 290x -----> r9 290 crossfire (in the bitcoin mining craze) --------> gtx 980
 
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SpongeBob said:
Geforce 2 32mb AGP. That was 16 years ago or so.
The irony being most of the games we play used DX9 10 years, kinda depressing how DX10 and 11, were pointless. 12 doubt we'll see anything blow our minds. VR currently looks like N64 games whenever I see pictures. Only thing pushing graphics right now is higher resolutions on monitors.
Click to expand...
Must not see sims much. Project CARS w/ VR looks/plays incredible.
 
Creative Labs Voodoo Banshee was the first 3d video card I got. Since than I've probably gotten over 83 video cards.
 
I love the artwork on the old boxes. They should bring that back on todays packaging. What a good time the 90s was for pc gaming. Some pretty good memories *sniff*
 
First i ever got (was a gift from my mom) was a 6800GT 256MB EVGA, first i bought on my own with my money was a 512MB HD3870 reference with Sapphire branding.
 
First PC was a C128.

First IBM compatible PC was an 8088 XT 8MHz with an ISA Paradise EGA adapter in it.

First video adaptor I purchased as a stand-alone upgrade was a SVGA VLB Cirrus Logic 1MB that went into my Am386SX-40, which also had 1MB of RAM running DOS 6.22

Second video adaptor was a Trident 9440 4MB that went into my Cyrix 6x86-90 with 48MB RAM rocking Win95 (3.5" FDD install media).

First 3D GPU was a Voodoo2 12MB, followed by a second for SLI in a K6-2 350 MHz.

Then came a TnT2 32MB that I ran the V2 SLI with, but eventually ditched the V2s since the TnT2 was superior in every way by itself.

GeForce2 Pro 64MB was next.

Then:
GeForce4 Ti 4200 AGP 8X
GeForce 5700 Ultra
GeForce 6600GT SLI
GeForce 7800GT SLI
GeForce 8800GT
GeForce GTX 275
GeForce GTX 570
GeForce 780 SLI
GeForce 980 Ti

...Will probably wait for either 1080Ti or, more than likely, a single upper-mid GPU Volta model (1170?) that will provide at least the performance of 980Ti SLI.
 
The first one I had was a fanless Powercolor Radeon HD5750. Guess I'm too young for this thread :D
 
Rendition Verite V1000- Canopus branded. Bought it for one game- Indy Car Racing II by Papyrus.
 
Mine was a Quantum3D Voodoo Banshee purchased at the end of 1998. It came with NFL Blitz and I probably played it at the time as much as I did Quake, HL, and Unreal.
 
This was my first dedicated video card for my IBM Aptiva K62 system:

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I eventually sold that rig to a buddy and ordered a customer Compaq Presario 5900 with a Slot A AMD Athon and got this video card for it:

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Then after building my first desktop prior to the Recon 2000 LAN party at the Dulles Expo Center in VA I got this video card:

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Purchased for myself? A Radeon 9700 pro. Great card for my counter strike habit and even Wow.
 
ATi Xpert @ Play 8MB (Rage Pro), and no there is no 128 in there. I bought it because it performed similar to a Voodoo 1 but was massively cheaper (and it did 2D as well). Now that comes with a caveat, the drivers were terrible. OpenGL support literally only worked in Quake and Quake 2, nothing else. In Direct3D it refused to render transparent textures, or fog (it rendered them opaque, which made some games significantly more difficult). Sometimes it also had strange rendering glitches. But overall, it was the first 3D card I ever bought and it was pretty cheap. The was basically the only 3D card I ever had major issues with, the following ones were mostly ok, with the exception of minor Crossfire issues.

Rage Pro->TNT2->Geforce 2 Pro->Radeon 9500 Pro->Radeon 850 XT->Geforce 8800 GTS->Geforce 460->Geforce 460 x2->Radeon 7950 x2->Radeon 280x x2->Geforce 750 TI (Sold those Radeons during a "mining" boom for more than I paid for them).

Who's to say what's next, but I'm definitely in the market. I was planning on buying a GTX 1080, but I'm having an attack of the crippling cheapness in my right hand so I may end up with a Radeon 480 or Geforce 1070 or even a used card from eBay.
 
Well if we are going from the begining....

Diamond Steath + Monster 3D 8MB (And I still have them BOTH!!!!!) > Monster 3D II, VooDoo 2000, VooDoo 4000, GeForce 2 MX, Radeon 8500, Radeon 9700 Pro, after that it was such a blur of cards.
 
Something by Cirrus Logic - I want to say to say it was the Laguna3d, but I don't quite remember. It was the only think I could afford in Grade 9.

I then upgraded to a Matrox G200, and later a Voodoo 2.

Strangely, the 290s in my rig are the longest I have ever owned a video card without upgrading (despite actually being a grownup with money now).
 
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