The 5 Worst GPUs of All Time: From Early 3D Struggles to Massive Heat Issues and Inability to Compete

Intel740 was one of the first GPUs to use AGP interface but had low VRAM, poor 3D performance, and rumors spread quickly of its issues.
S3 ViRGE was marketed as the "world's first 3D graphics accelerator" but was actually slower at 3D rendering than CPU software rendering.
Nvidia GeForceFX 5800 Ultra was meant to be a big leap for DirectX 9 gaming but struggled with DX9 titles and had extremely loud cooling fans.
3dfx Voodoo Rush used a dual-chip configuration but had massive size, heat issues, compatibility problems, and worse performance than prior models.
3dfx later produced the Voodoo 5 6000 with its own power adapter, leading to an eventual decline after failing to compete with Nvidia and ATI.

digitaltrends.com

Relevant topic timeline:

8/18/2023

New Intel GPU drivers help address one of Arc’s biggest remaining weak points

Main topic: Intel's significant improvements to its Arc GPU drivers for DirectX 11 games since the launch. Key points: 1. Intel's Arc dedicated graphics cards had rough driver performance at launch. 2. Intel has made substantial improvements to its DirectX 11 drivers, resulting in an average 19% performance increase in games. 3. While Arc performed well in modern APIs like DirectX 12 and Vulkan, it struggled in older APIs like DirectX 9 and 11 compared to competitor cards.

8/31/2023

Intel Habana Gaudi Beats Nvidia's H100 in Visual-Language AI Models: Hugging Face

Intel's Gaudi 2 silicon has outperformed Nvidia's A100 80GB by 2.5x and H100 by 1.4x in a benchmark for the Vision-Language AI model BridgeTower, with the results attributed to a hardware-accelerated data-loading system.

9/6/2023

Nvidia Achieves 1000x AI Performance Gains in 10 Years Through Precision Optimization and Efficiency Breakthroughs

Nvidia's chief scientist, Bill Dally, explained how the company improved the performance of its GPUs on AI tasks by a thousandfold over the past decade, primarily through better number representation, efficient use of complex instructions, advancements in manufacturing technology, and the implementation of sparsity techniques.

9/9/2023

Nvidia Rides AI Gold Rush to Trillion-Dollar Valuation, But Future Uncertain When Frenzy Recedes

Nvidia's success in the AI industry can be attributed to their graphical processing units (GPUs), which have become crucial tools for AI development, as they possess the ability to perform parallel processing and complex mathematical operations at a rapid pace. However, the long-term market for AI remains uncertain, and Nvidia's dominance may not be guaranteed indefinitely.

10/2/2023

Nvidia's RTX 3060 Becomes Most Popular GPU on Steam, Beating Out GTX 1650

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 has claimed the top spot in the Steam Hardware Survey, surpassing all other graphics cards with a 6.10% share, indicating its popularity among Steam users.

10/19/2023

AMD Unveils Fastest Mobile GPU Yet with New Radeon RX 7900M, Aims to Beat Nvidia's RTX 4080 Laptop GPU

AMD has unveiled the Radeon RX 7900M mobile GPU, its fastest gaming chip to date, with high FPS 1440p gaming and FSR 3 upscaling tech for improved performance, challenging NVIDIA's RTX 4080 mobile chip.

10/19/2023

AMD Unveils Radeon RX 7900M Mobile GPU to Rival Nvidia's RTX 4080 in New Alienware Laptop

AMD has released its new mobile GPU, the Radeon RX 7900M, which targets the performance of Nvidia's RTX 4080 and offers 7% faster gaming performance on average, including ray tracing benchmarks.

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Posted 9/30/2023, 6:30:11 PM

The 5 Worst GPUs of All Time: From Early 3D Struggles to Massive Heat Issues and Inability to Compete

Intel740 was one of the first GPUs to use AGP interface but had low VRAM, poor 3D performance, and rumors spread quickly of its issues.
S3 ViRGE was marketed as the "world's first 3D graphics accelerator" but was actually slower at 3D rendering than CPU software rendering.
Nvidia GeForceFX 5800 Ultra was meant to be a big leap for DirectX 9 gaming but struggled with DX9 titles and had extremely loud cooling fans.
3dfx Voodoo Rush used a dual-chip configuration but had massive size, heat issues, compatibility problems, and worse performance than prior models.
3dfx later produced the Voodoo 5 6000 with its own power adapter, leading to an eventual decline after failing to compete with Nvidia and ATI.

digitaltrends.com

Relevant topic timeline:

8/18/2023

New Intel GPU drivers help address one of Arc’s biggest remaining weak points

8/31/2023

Intel Habana Gaudi Beats Nvidia's H100 in Visual-Language AI Models: Hugging Face

9/6/2023

Nvidia Achieves 1000x AI Performance Gains in 10 Years Through Precision Optimization and Efficiency Breakthroughs

9/9/2023

Nvidia Rides AI Gold Rush to Trillion-Dollar Valuation, But Future Uncertain When Frenzy Recedes

10/2/2023

Nvidia's RTX 3060 Becomes Most Popular GPU on Steam, Beating Out GTX 1650

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 has claimed the top spot in the Steam Hardware Survey, surpassing all other graphics cards with a 6.10% share, indicating its popularity among Steam users.

10/19/2023

AMD Unveils Fastest Mobile GPU Yet with New Radeon RX 7900M, Aims to Beat Nvidia's RTX 4080 Laptop GPU

10/19/2023

AMD Unveils Radeon RX 7900M Mobile GPU to Rival Nvidia's RTX 4080 in New Alienware Laptop

AMD has released its new mobile GPU, the Radeon RX 7900M, which targets the performance of Nvidia's RTX 4080 and offers 7% faster gaming performance on average, including ray tracing benchmarks.