personally my first gpu with passive cooling was a Diamond Fire GL1000 and my first gpu with active cooling was a TNT2 ultra... but of course there were probably many others before that... I've seen ISA graphics cards with heatsinks before.

I have an old EIZO spectragraphics ISA card from 1992 that has a heatsink, definitely not mainstream though ^^

I have a ATi Mach 32 with a heatsink on, allegedly from 1992. But I think there might be even older cards with passive cooling. As per Active cooling maybe a 3dfx Banshee?

First active-cooled card I can think of is this i740:
http://www.vgamuseum.info/media/k2/items/cach … b31afdfe_XL.jpg

Or possibly certain Banshee models, like the Diamond Monster Fusion.

First passively cooled cards with heatsinks I can think of are Permedia 2, STB Velocity 128 (most Riva 128s did not have heatsinks), i740 or some SIS 6326 cards.

Asus claims their Riva TNT card was "The first graphics card with fan enhanced heatsink".

Can't vouch for that though.

aaronkatrini wrote on 2020-05-09, 13:51:

I have a ATi Mach 32 with a heatsink on, allegedly from 1992.

Sounds like aftermarket. Do you have any picture?

I think i740 from 1998 must have been late in the game with heatsink. In fact I remember typical i740's came bare as I was BGA chip.

I remember some 3Dfx Voodoo I series cards already had passive heatsink on the TMU or even on both chips.

Doornkaat wrote on 2020-05-09, 20:11:

Asus claims their Riva TNT card was "The first graphics card with fan enhanced heatsink".

Can't vouch for that though.

The Asus story about first active cooling on their TNT sounds plausible.

I remember retrofitting a 486 fan on my Creative Riva TNT around that time and I must have been inspired by something...

The Hercules Dynamite VL with ET4000-W32 has passive cooling. I think it’s from 1993.

Not mine 😀. A picture please. I couldn't find any with heatsink on.. That's a 0.6W chip. Back then not even CPUs had heatsinks...

You are right, it was the CARDEX with ET4000/W32 😉

https://m.imgur.com/a/7y8qiBg

Photos of my Mach32. It was discussed here:
Help me identify this OEM Pci Video Card :)

Some models of the Riva 128ZX have a funny-looking undersized heatsink.

My first active-cooled GPU was a Diamond OEM Banshee.

aaronkatrini wrote on 2020-05-09, 21:27:

https://m.imgur.com/a/7y8qiBg

Photos of my Mach32. It was discussed here:
Help me identify this OEM Pci Video Card :)

That's cool. Nice find. I wonder if it is aftermarket or factory mount and what was the purpose as the Mach32 chip hardly produces any heat.

I have a ATI Graphics Ultra Pro VLB with custom applied heatsinks on Mach32 chip and on Spectra DAC and especially the Mach32 gets very hot, with heatsink.

If your VLB Mach32 runs hot than I presume the heatsink was put there by the factory.
About my Mach32, I haven't found much info online or at least another picture of a Olivetti Mach32. By the scarse info I've found, it says it comes from a Olivetti M4 machine. There were a few videos on YT about that computer, but none of them had a dedicated Video Card. And the riser on those had only ISA and VLB, no PCI. Unfortunately my card has a "special" 15pin VGA port with one pin blocked, and cannot test the card. Probably when this pandemic is over, I can go to a flea market and grab a cheap Vga cable to remove that one pin and test the card.. We will see if it runs hot (I doubt it will) 😀

boxpressed wrote on 2020-05-09, 21:33:

Some models of the Riva 128ZX have a funny-looking undersized heatsink.

My first active-cooled GPU was a Diamond OEM Banshee.

I've got a Diamond Riva 128 PCI that has no heatsink while I've seen others having one, maybe different revision but sure it'd need one. That chip runs very hot in 3D heavy games. From my experience I'd say also the as you said the Riva 128ZX AGP had some models with heatsinks, wasn't there also a Voodoo1 with heatsink?
First active ones I always thought to the Riva TNT2.

PC-Engineer wrote on 2020-05-09, 21:25:

You are right, it was the CARDEX with ET4000/W32 😉

I have had a cardex card in my 33Mhz 486 retro pc now years and it doesn't have heatsink even if it probably has the same chip. I wonder how many different vlb cards cardex has made that look totally different even when having the same chip.

Looks like Canopus Pure3D II (a Voodoo 2 card) had a factory installed fan even before the Asus AGP-V3400.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/voodoo,85-3.html

update: found a listing online of an identical Mach32 from Olivetti, it also has the heatsink there, so that means it was like that from the factory... 😀

I think some OEMs that did rather cramped builds (like Olivetti) probably used heatsinks even on chips that usually were fine without them in a normal ventilated AT/ATX case.

386SX wrote on 2020-05-10, 16:30:

wasn't there also a Voodoo1 with heatsink?

There are several. I have three V1 with heatsinks myself: two Colormaster Voodoomania (black pcb) and an A-Trend Helios 3D (green pcb). Still - even though this may seem like splitting hairs - those aren't VGA graphics cards but 3d accelerator cards. Even though they're video related.

mpe wrote on 2020-05-10, 16:52:

Looks like Canopus Pure3D II (a Voodoo 2 card) had a factory installed fan even before the Asus AGP-V3400.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/voodoo,85-3.html

The V2 is also a 3D accelerator, not a graphics card.
It is actively cooled but it doesn't have a "fan enhanced heatsink".
ASUS are technically still right. 😁