Nvidia marketed which 1999 graphics processor as the world’s first GPU?

Nvidia marketed the GeForce 256 as the world’s first GPU in 1999.

Released in October 1999, the GeForce 256 was Nvidia’s first product to use the GeForce brand. Nvidia promoted it as a graphics processing unit because it integrated hardware transformation and lighting calculations that had previously been handled largely by a computer’s central processor.

The chip was designed for 3D graphics and supported features such as hardware transform and lighting, a major step for consumer computer graphics at the time. Its launch helped establish “GPU” as a widely used term for specialized processors that rapidly perform graphics calculations.

The GeForce 256 should not be confused with Nvidia’s later Tesla product line, which targeted scientific and general-purpose computing, or with the company’s modern GeForce RTX cards, which add technologies such as real-time ray tracing. Nvidia’s growth in gaming, professional visualization, and artificial intelligence later made it one of the world’s most valuable companies.