COLORFUL Launches the First GPU History Museum

[AleksandarK]

Colorful Technology Company Limited, a professional manufacturer of graphics cards, motherboards, all-in-one gaming and multimedia solutions, and high-performance storage, announces the launch of the GPU History Museum in partnership with NVIDIA. COLORFUL has recently relocated to Shenzhen New Generation Industrial Park. With that, COLORFUL is proud to announce the launch of the first GPU History Museum in China. The museum will showcase the beginnings of the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), to the development and evolution of graphics cards up to the present generation.



Travel Back in Time Where It Started
The GPU History Museum takes you back to the early 1980s where it all started then to the introduction of the "Voodoo" add-in card that provided hardware acceleration of 3D graphics in the mid-1990s. Marvel upon the technological development and iterations that paved the path to birth of the NVIDIA and the GPU industry we know today.

Birth of NVIDIA and GeForce
NVIDIA launched its first product in 1995 based on the NV1 graphics chip. In 1999-2000, NVIDIA introduced the first-ever "GeForce" graphics chip - the GeForce 256. It was also known as the world's first GPU. Some of NVIDIA's earlier GPUs are displayed at the museum.

The Rare GPUs
The GPU History Museum boosts a large collection of rare products such as the Rage Fury MAXX, one of the most memorable products of ATI which is also known as the "Dawn Goddess". The Rage Fury MAXX is ATI's first dual-chip graphics card having two Rage 128 Pro chips and uses SLI technology to double the performance of the graphics card.

The GPU History Museum also houses graphics adapters developed by IBM, 3Dlabs, Intel, S3, Trident, 3Dfx, and others.

China's E-Sports Wall of History and Victory
The GPU History Museum also pays homage to the development of China's e-sports. COLORFUL's high-end sub-brand, iGame, was established in 2008 to promote and development of e-sports in China. The brand established partnerships with numerous professional e-sports teams and athletes over the years. iGame is committed to providing high-performance graphics cards to top e-sports professionals to help them achieve victories.

The Ultimate Immersive Gaming Experience
The GPU History Museum also offers the ultimate immersive gaming experience with the help of the most advanced GPUs today. The museum boasts an advanced racing simulator with multiple 8K displays in an immersive panoramic view along with intuitive vibration feedback for the ultimate racing simulation.

Aside from an advanced racing simulator, the museum also has an advanced VR cockpit for goers to enjoy total virtual immersion with VR games.

COLORFUL: Now and Then
"Shihe Information" was established in Shenzhen in 1995. The launch of COLORFUL Voodoo 2 graphics card in 1999 marked the birth of COLORFUL as a brand. For the next two decades, COLORFUL ventured into other product lines including motherboards, storage, HIFI, all-in-one computers, laptops, and more. Today, COLORFUL is one of the leading brands for graphics cards and IT hardware in China and beyond.

The GPU History Museum will feature COLORFUL and iGame graphics cards produced over the years. A centerpiece in the museum is a dismantled KUDAN flagship model which consists of nearly 200 parts featuring cutting-edge technology.

The GPU History Museum Opening
The GPU History Museum is dedicated to the industry, showing some of its most significant products. The GPU History Museum will also be available for visitor registration soon.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Legacy-ZA]

Let me fix the title for you, it should read:

"COLORFUL Launches The First GPU Memorial Museum."

You are welcome.

 

[Xzibit]

The newer exhibits are under construction with a sign "Coming Soon when supply is available"

 

[Tomgang]

Hmm wunder if they have a rtx 3080 ti I can buy from that museum

But cool intuitive. Hope some one in my country would do a museum of old hardware. There are museums, but no one is entirely dedicated to computer technology and hardware.

 

[looniam]

when the lights are off and the last person has gone home . . . the gpus start mining . .

 

[Tomgang]

when the lights are off and the last person has gone home . . . the gpus start mining . .

You might be right on that. All throw some cards to old for it. This needs to be investigated more.

 

[Camm]

"In 1999-2000, NVIDIA introduced the first-ever "GeForce" graphics chip - the GeForce 256. It was also known as the world's first GPU."

Wut

 

[R-T-B]

"In 1999-2000, NVIDIA introduced the first-ever "GeForce" graphics chip - the GeForce 256. It was also known as the world's first GPU."

Wut

Yeah, no... lol.

Great start museum, lying to your clients about facts.

 

[Jism]

Yeah, no... lol.

Great start museum, lying to your clients about facts.

The GPU originally came from the 70's. It was Nvidia that marketed their first Geforce as a "GPU" but only T&L and such things where done by the chip and no longer the CPU.

ATI cards could do the same; their marketing department was'nt just so insane to acclaim every aspect the chip could do at that point.

But back then it was all about as much as possible megahertz, megabyte's and what more.

 

[dyonoctis]

Yeah, no... lol.

Great start museum, lying to your clients about facts.

Iirc the geforce was the first graphic accelerator that was openly marketed as a GPU, but it's not the first 3D accelerator... Nvidia apparently choosed to make that distinction because it was the first GPU that could do everything with a single chip, instead of apparently having different chips doing different things

"· The first integrated geometry transform engine

· The first integrated dynamic lighting engine

· The first four-pixel rendering pipeline"

NVIDIA LAUNCHES THE WORLD'S FIRST GRAPHICS PROCESSING UNIT: GEFORCE 256

GeForce 256 Features an Integrated Transform Engine, Integrated Lighting Engine and a 256-bit Rendering Engine on a Single Chip PALM SPRINGS, CA - AUGUST 31, 1999 - In an event that ushers in a new e...

pressreleases.responsesource.com

 

[AusWolf]

Awesome! I'd love to visit one day.

"In 1999-2000, NVIDIA introduced the first-ever "GeForce" graphics chip - the GeForce 256. It was also known as the world's first GPU."

Wut

That's right. Technically, it's not the first GPU, but the first GPU that was actually called a GPU, as the term hadn't existed before.

 

[The red spirit]

That's right. Technically, it's not the first GPU, but the first GPU that was actually called a GPU, as the term hadn't existed before.

They were called VPUs in the past. A short for Visual Processing Unit. It was just marketing for nVidia and their lame attempt to differentiate in the market, when accelerators wouldn't always accelerate all 3D features. I would imagine that some poor chap went to store to buy ATi only to discover "GPU" on the box and then salesman upselling more expensive nVidia card based on marketing and not on facts.

Fun fact: GeForce isn't just a meaningless name, it actually meant Geometric Force and if I remember well, it was called like that, because they reached one gigatexel on their card. Same with TNT, it meant TwiNTexel. Radeon also has some origins:

 

[Camm]

That's right. Technically, it's not the first GPU, but the first GPU that was actually called a GPU, as the term hadn't existed before.

The term GPU was used in the 70's to describe a programmable processing unit independently working from the CPU and responsible for graphics manipulation and output. But even then, Sony with the PS1 launch referred to the GPU, as well, as a GPU (official spec sheets list it as "32-bit Sony GPU".

This is revisionist rubbish, please don't feed the narrative.

 

[AusWolf]

The term GPU was used in the 70's to describe a programmable processing unit independently working from the CPU and responsible for graphics manipulation and output. But even then, Sony with the PS1 launch referred to the GPU, as well, as a GPU (official spec sheets list it as "32-bit Sony GPU".

Thanks for the info. Let me correct myself: The term was popularized by Nvidia in 1999, who marketed the GeForce 256 as "the world's first GPU" - quoted from the Wikipedia page you linked.

This is revisionist rubbish, please don't feed the narrative.

Just because I wasn't familiar with what the term was used for in the '70s, it doesn't mean I'm feeding any sort of "revisionist rubbish narrative".