The Golden Era of 3D Acceleration  -  1994 / 2003 

This site is dedicated to showcasing my graphics card collection, and to provide a place
to keep this part of early 3D history alive.

 

The goal of my collection is to collect all high end graphics cards of each specific chip
manufacturer from 1994 to 2003, whether they are retail, reference, preproduction or prototypes, focused on the PC, but not excluding professional workstation boards or Mac accelerators. At present it now includes variations on some of these cards as well.

I feel this is history that needs to be preserved, and many do not realise how
important it is to keep these cards. In this day and age of throwing stuff away
when it's obsolete, it's important that cards like these get preserved. 

Why 1994 to 2003? 1994 was of course the year that the first small steps were made
towards dedicated 3D acceleration for the PC. I feel that 2003 was the end of the
classic/golden era, with a number of 3D engines like Valve's Source engine at E3 2003 and Crytek's CryENGINE in early 2004 (2003 hardware) delivering graphics like never seen before. After 2003, it seemed a modern era began.

I hope that when you browse this site, you will remember those golden times and how
excited these cards made you when they first came out.

To quickly start browsing the collection year by year, please click here, and then select the relevant year. Alternatively simply hover over the 'The Collection' link, then select 'Golden Era' from the drop down menu.

Enjoy! 

ps. Please have a look at the cards to collect page, if you have any of the cards that
I’m still looking for, and want to pass them on to me, or sell them, please drop me a line
via the Contact page, and they will go to a good home. 

If you would like to contribute to the running cost of the site, or support any future
purchases, please visit the Contact page as well.