Mr Viral
Image: Nvidia
It might be cringeworthy to be an unpaid cheerleader for an electronics company, but as a PC nerd, even I can’t deny the appeal of classic electronics framed and presented like pieces of art. Throw in a bit of autographed scarcity and it becomes irresistible.
That’s the idea behind Nvidia’s newest promotion, wherein CEO Jensen Huang will sign framed versions of the company’s classic graphics cards. So sayeth a pre-CES tweet from the official GeForce promotional account, showing off the first giveaway.
The framed GeForce 256 from 1999 — “the world’s first GPU” — bears Huang’s John Hancock on the backing. Its artistic and intrinsic value is surely debatable, as is that claim of being the first, but owning a piece of PC gaming history signed by one of the richest people on the planet has to count for a whole lot of bragging rights, at the very least.
Nvidia will give away this and four other signed-and-framed cards as part of this promotion, though we don’t know which models those following cards will be. I’d bet dollars to donuts that the 8800 GTX from 2006 will make an appearance as one of them. It might not be as powerful as the upcoming GeForce RTX 50 series, but it still looms large in the memory of PC gamers even two decades later.
If you want to throw your hat in the ring, you can reply to the original tweet with “#GeForceGreats” to enter.
Author: Michael Crider, Staff Writer, PCWorld
Michael is a 10-year veteran of technology journalism, covering everything from Apple to ZTE. On PCWorld he’s the resident keyboard nut, always using a new one for a review and building a new mechanical board or expanding his desktop “battlestation” in his off hours. Michael’s previous bylines include Android Police, Digital Trends, Wired, Lifehacker, and How-To Geek, and he’s covered events like CES and Mobile World Congress live. Michael lives in Pennsylvania where he’s always looking forward to his next kayaking trip.
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