Nvidia's first GPU: GeForce 256

On October 11, 1999, Nvidia released its GeForce 256, its first product that it described as a GPU.

I’m sure 3dfx fans would argue that 3dfx made GPUs, and it seems a little arbitrary to say the GeForce was a GPU and the TNT2 wasn’t. It was more powerful than the TNT2 and offered more features, but what feature did the GeForce have that made it a GPU and the TNT2 not a GPU? The transform and lighting engine, maybe?

The concept of offloading work from the CPU onto a graphics coprocessor was nothing new. Commodore did it with the Amiga way back in 1985. And 3dfx was doing it on PCs as early as 1996 .

But Nvidia didn’t use the term until October 1999. It continues to use it today, though, and it also uses the GeForce brand.