NVIDIA Celebrates the History of GeForce with Free Collectible Cards Dedicated to Iconic GPUs

NVIDIA has announced GeForce Trading Cards Series 1, a line of free collectible cards designed to revisit some of the most iconic moments in the history of the GeForce brand and the evolution of PC gaming. The initiative, which will be carried out through dedicated events and promotional campaigns on social media, aims to engage enthusiasts by celebrating products, technical demos, and video games that have marked over three decades of 3D graphics development.

The first series includes 14 different cards, each dedicated to a significant chapter in the evolution of NVIDIA GPUs. The company describes the project as a tribute to the memories of PC gamers, inviting the community to reflect on their first installed graphics card, the game that necessitated a hardware upgrade, or the technical demo that first showcased the potential of a new generation of GPUs.

The historical journey starts with the NV1, released in 1995. This was a solution that integrated 2D and 3D acceleration, audio support, joystick, and VGA into a single chip. Although it represented an important starting point for the company, the NV1 did not achieve commercial success and is now remembered as one of the most unique products in NVIDIA's history, remaining difficult to emulate and document.

Among the cards celebrated is the GeForce 256, introduced in 1999 and considered the first modern GPU due to the integration, in a single chip, of geometric transformation, lighting, and rendering operations, reducing the workload on the CPU.

The collection continues with the GeForce 3, which introduced programmable shaders through the nFiniteFX architecture, offering developers much greater control over real-time graphical effects. Also included are the GeForce 7800 GTX, representative of the GeForce 7 generation with support for Shader Model 3.0, CineFX 4.0, and HDR rendering, and the GeForce GTX 1080, symbolizing the Pascal architecture and a notable increase in performance and efficiency.

The cards are not limited to hardware. NVIDIA has also included some of its most famous technical demos, such as Bubble, Chameleon, and Medusa, used over the years to showcase the new rendering capabilities of GeForce GPUs in real-time. References to the historic program The Way It's Meant To Be Played can also be found through cards dedicated to video games like Unreal Tournament 2004 and Borderlands, along with a card inspired by the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Cyberpunk 2077 Edition, a special edition created to accompany the launch of the title by CD Projekt RED.

Finally, the collection includes a checklist designed for collectors who wish to complete the entire series and chronologically follow the major milestones in the evolution of the GeForce family.

The GeForce Trading Cards Series 1 will be distributed for free through promotional initiatives organized as part of the Summer of RTX program, via NVIDIA's official social media channels and during international gaming events such as Bilibili World 2026, QuakeCon 2026, and Gamescom 2026. Some packages will also be up for grabs through online giveaways, while during the events, they can be obtained by visiting the NVIDIA and partner booths.