The first in the series of "GeForce" 3D graphics chipsets from NVIDIA. Released August 31st, 1999, it was the successor to the popular TNT2 and was the chip that finally toppled 3DFX's throne for good. Groundbreaking in many ways, it was the first chip that qualified as a GPU or Graphics Processing Unit, meaning it bore the majority of the processing workload, freeing up CPU resources for other tasks. NVIDIA also introduced Hardware Transform & Lighting (or Hardware T&L) with the beginning of the GeForce line. The chip was able to easily surpass its immediate competitors, such as the Matrox G400 or Voodoo3, save the ATI Rage Fury.
Code name: NV-10
Graphics Core: 256-bit
Memory Interface: 128-bit
Polygons per second: 15 million
Pixels per second: 480 million
Optionally, buyers were also able to choose DDR SDRAM instead of the standard SDRAM with their GeForce cards. This practically doubled the memory throughput and highly enhanced the performance of the card.