Graphics Cards Comparison per Year

Where very similar cards exist (e.g. they are based on the same chipset), only one will be specified here, since performance between them is typically negligible. For the later years, I also put together a rough comparison chart which gives an impression of similar performance from the main 6 chipset/graphics engine manufacturers from 1995 through to 2001.

1984

Tseng Labs ET1000- an early EGA compatible card.

 

1985

Tseng Labs EVA or EVA/480 (ET2000) - An EGA card with added support for extended 480-line mode. Also got hardware-accelerated windowing, panning and zooming.

1986

Hercules Graphics Card Plus (HGC+)- aimed at competing against IBM EGA and VGA, it supported higher resolution of 720 x 348 in colour mode.
Paradise Color/Mono card- a fairly standard Hercules and CGA card.

 

1987

ATi Small Wonder- Hercules and CGA card with composite output
ATi EGA Wonder- ATi's first EGA card - supports Hercules, CGA and EGA.
ATi EGA Wonder 800- Added support for extended EGA graphics modes, plus 16-colour VGA mode.
ATi VIP- ATi's first proper VGA card - included "Softsense" automatic mode switching.
Genoa SuperEGA HiRes+ (Models 4850A and 4880)- The first ever "Super EGA" graphics chipset, supporting 800 x 600 in 16 colours.
Hercules InColor Card-
Tseng Labs ET3000AX/BX- VGA card with maximum 512 KB video RAM supporting a maximum resolution of 1024 x 768.
Video Seven VEGA VGA- a Cirrus Logic CL-GD410/420 chipset VGA card.

 

1988

ATi EGA Wonder 800+- a fairly standard early VGA card.
ATI VGA Wonder = ATI's first SVGA-compatible card. It uses an onboard EEPROM chip to store its configuration settings, and has monitor auto-sensing.
ATI VGA Wonder 16- ATI's first 16-bit card. Came with a Bus mouse connector and a VGA pass-through connector.

 

1989

Tseng Labs ET4000AX - SVGA chipset cards like Orchid ProDesigner IIs. Fast memory interface (16-bit or 32-bit DRAM memory bus width). With dedicated FIFO buffers and cache, memory throughput is unmatched. ET4000 could also support the new VESA Local Bus standard.

1990

ATI VGA Wonder+ - new chipset claims to offer speeds rivalling VRAM-based cards. Dual page mode memory access, and dynamic CPU/CRT interleaving
ATI VGA Integra - a cost-reduced VGA Wonder + but shared the same new chipset. supports SVGA 72 Hz refresh rates, and comes with 512 KB DRAM as standard.
ATI VGA Basic 16 - uses a cheaper RAMDAC to VGA Integra. Only supports the basic 60 Hz refresh rate VGA modes (same as IBM VGA standard from 1987). Came with 256 KB DRAM, not upgradable.
ATi Graphics Ultra - their first card to host their new 2D accelerator chip, the Mach8. Essentially this card was a clone of IBM's 8514/A but with some added stuff.

 

1991

ATI VGA Charger - memory can be upgraded to 512 KB.
ATI VGA Wonder XL - got the Sierra RAMDAC which adds support for 15-bit colour in 640x480 @ 72 Hz and 800x600 @ 60 Hz.
ATI Mach8 - their first hardware-accelerator chip.

1992

ATI VGA Wonder XL24 - 512 KB and 1MB cards. Support for hi and true colour graphics modes.
ATI Graphics Ultra Pro- their first GUI-accelerator chip.
Diamond SpeedStar 24- a card based on the Tseng Labs ET4000AX.
Diamond SpeedStar 24X - a card based on the Western Digital WD90C31A-LR chip.
Number Nine GXiTC- supports 1280 x 1024 in 64K 60 Hz in Windows 3.11.

1993

Cirrus Logic CL-GD542X-VLB
Diamond SpeedStar Pro- A Cirrus Logic CL-GD5426-based card.

1994

Diamond SpeedStar 64 - a Cirrus Logic CL-GD5434-based Windows accelerator card.
Diamond SpeedStar Pro SE - a Cirrus Logic CL-GD5430-based card.

1995

S3 ViRGE - excellent DOS compatibility, but low performing 3D and buggy drivers
Diamond Stealth3D 2000 - an S3 ViRGE card (read above)
Matrox Millennium - the first "2D Windows accelerator" with 3D engine - no texturing unit so not a gaming card.
ATi WinCharger - a cost-reduced mach64 card
Diamond Stealth SE - S3 Trio32-based PCI card.

1996

S3 ViRGE/VX - minor performance bump from last year's ViRGE - still poor 3D performance and buggy drivers
Matrox Mystique - their first gaming card - 3D engine now has a texturing unit - fast enough, but poor image quality on shadows, smoke, etc, where alpha blending is used (guessed!). This was corrected in later G200. Some driver freeze issues. No support for OpenGL. In 1996 Matrox owned 25% of the 3D market.
ATI 3D Rage - kept everything good about its 2D mach64 architecture and added a 3D engine into a single chip. Sadly, like other first-gen 3D chips with texture mappers, these were terrible. Limited feature set, no DirectX-compatible depth buffering.
3Dfx Voodoo - the first dedicated 3D-only accelerator card.
ATI Mach64 (with Rage II chip) - 3D gaming with a 2 MB card is very limiting. For it's time Rage II was feature-rich, but all members of the Rage II family suffer from perspective problems.
Hercules Dynamite 128 - a 1 MB SVGA card supporting resolutions up to 1600 x 1200. Tseng Labs ET6000 chipset.
Tseng Labs ET6000- 64-bit graphics accelerator with 2 MB or 4MB MDRAM. Integrated RAMDAC into the core, which is clocked at 135 MHz. Memory throughput is 500 MB/sec.

1997

S3 ViRGE DX and GX (2nd gen ViRGE) - poor 3D performance, buggy drivers.
S3 ViRGE GX/2 - core and memory speed increased - still not a great performer.
S3 ViRGE MX - aimed at the "mobile" market, a low-power version of the GX/2
nVidia RIVA 128 - Highly recommended for DOS (no scrolling bugs, mode x works fine and the BIOS is VBE3.0), and in Win98SE can run at 1280x1024). Beware some text fuzziness in DOS. Aimed to compete in 3D arena against Voodoo 1.
Matrox Mystique - lacking in 3D features, this card doesn't perform well and many games won't run.
Matrox Millennium 2 - Basically similar poor performance and featureless as Mystique, and all at a much higher price.
3Dfx Voodoo Rush - a combined 2D/3D card - ran slower than Voodoo due to sharing memory with 2D chip
ATI 3D Charger (with new Rage II+DVD chip) - no real performance gain over cards with Rage II chip, but more memory may help the II+ stretch its leg.

1998