25 years ago, NVIDIA introduced the GeForce 256, the world's first GPU, and today, the company reigns supreme as the GPU leader.
NVIDIA's GPU Journey Started With the GeForce 256 & Today Marks Its 25th Anniversary
Back in 1999, the PC gaming market didn't have a dedicated solution to power the growing needs of gamers. Before the GPU became a household name, add-in solutions were referred to as 3D game and video accelerators which included the likes of the Riva TNT or the 3dfx Voodoo3. With the launch of the GeForce 256, the entire industry changed forever.
Twenty-five years after the release of the GeForce 256, the world of 3D graphics has seen an incredible evolution: PC gaming has become increasingly complex and accessible to every enthusiast. But none of this, perhaps, would have happened without the initial innovations of that product launched in the autumn of 1999, a product which I luckily managed to have in my hands. 25 years in which NVIDIA has been able to continue a tradition that began with the first GPU in the GeForce family, the GeForce 256.
via NVIDIA
To celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the GeForce 256 GPU, NVIDIA is showcasing retro-themed PCs inspired by the 1999-2000 era featuring an RTX 4080 SUPER, Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU. These PCs will be offered as a part of competitions hosted by NVIDIA on various social channels including TikTok, Facebook, X & Instagram.
The GeForce 256 was also the first fully functional and dedicated GPU to feature T&L (hardware transform and lighting) for the first time. It offers a substantial uplift in performance for games using the OpenGL renderer such as Quake III, etc. The GeForce 256 was able to process at least 10 million polygons per second. This took off the load from the CPU, allowing developers to integrate more polygons into their games without stressing the CPU.
Popular shooters such as Quake III Arena and UT (Unreal Tournament) and the performance that the NVIDIA GeForce 256 offered in these titles became the reason for its heightened success, with sales of over a million units within the first few months of its launch. It was a pivotal moment for the green team which gave NVIDIA its early recognition in the industry.
Since then, NVIDIA has had its ups and downs but at the moment, NVIDIA is without a doubt the leader in GPUs. The company has seen a massive transformation from being looked upon as a hardware provider to a software enabler and more recently, as a server provider. The GeForce brand has seen a major transition from GeForce GT, GTS, GTX, and the current RTX branding. The next frontier for the company is AI accelerated computing and we have already seen a massive influx of AI technologies from the company, offered on both consumer and enterprise-grade solutions.
With AI being the next major step for GPUs, the road ahead looks very exciting and NVIDIA is propelling the way to the future, all of which began with the world's first GPU, the GeForce 256.
NVIDIA GeForce Then & Now
| Name | GeForce 256 | GeForce RTX 4090 |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | Celsius | Ada Lovelace |
| Process Node | TSMC 220nm | TSMC 4N |
| Transistors | 17 Million | 76.3 Billion |
| GPU Cores | 4 Pixel Shaders | 16384 CUDA |
| GPU Clock | 120 MHz | 2520 MHz |
| Memory Bus | 128-bit | 384-bit |
| Memory Type | SDR/DDR | GDDR6X |
| Memory Capacity | 32 MB | 24 GB |
| Memory Bandwidth | 4.8 GB/s | 1001 GB/s |
| TDP | 50W | 450W |
| Interface | AGP 4x | PCIe x16 |
| Price | $199 | $1599 |
| Launch | December 1999 | October 2022 |
About the author: A Software Engineer by training and a PC enthusiast by passion, Hassan Mujtaba serves as Wccftech's Senior Editor for hardware section. With years of experience in the industry, he specializes in deep-dive technical analysis of next-generation CPU and GPU architectures, motherboards, and cooling solutions. His work involves not only breaking news on upcoming technologies but also extensive hands-on reviews and benchmarking.
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