The BEST Box Art for Graphics Cards

Рет қаралды 76,770

Күн бұрын

Graphics cards age, yet their box designs are forever. Let's look at the graphics on the cardboard containing the graphics cards.
0:00 - Box art
1:10 - Women
2:18 - 90's
2:59 - Weird
3:52 - Timeless VS dated
4:36 - Conclusion
6:07 - Exciting newer designs!

Пікірлер: 405

@No-mq5lw 10 ай бұрын

Fun fact: Nvidia (at least) has to okay the box art of every partner model before they hit shelves. This is why boxes started to become boring.

@Mordecrox 10 ай бұрын

Oh, so they got bored of getting their renders rejected repeatedly so they just stopped sending assets for approval? Malicious compliance, me likey

@michael2636 10 ай бұрын

Nvidia shitting in the punch bowl yet again

@SlingerMarshall 10 ай бұрын

well that facts not very fun at all

@LAndrewsChannel 10 ай бұрын

I think they do this to verify that it respects their strict box graphics guideline, like the position of the Graphics card name, their logo and associated colors.

@No-mq5lw 10 ай бұрын

@@LAndrewsChannel Yes. Found some leaked slides on some of that right after commenting.

@MrTryagen 10 ай бұрын

I feel you are the only youtuber I know that could make an actually entertaining video about graphics card box art. Had a few good laughs. Thank you for doing your thing, Philip

@phosphatepod 10 ай бұрын

@@2kliksphilip i wonder if there's any chance you could post the original grand unified toilet script? i need to know what a more serious version of that would have been

@TheJumboPenguin 10 ай бұрын

I feel like Ashens could do a talk on them like his talks on video game box art and terrible old games you probably never heard of at Norwich Games Festival

@dmdjt 10 ай бұрын

@@2kliksphilip The Grand Unified Toilet video was once meant to be even more serious? Can't imagine!

@SeedRamples 7 ай бұрын

Let me show you something great. The KZfaqr Ahoy made a video on box art named Big Boxes. He is one of, if not, the best KZfaqr(s) on the platform.

@noiz5578 10 ай бұрын

Odd how i remember motherboards having crazy designs on the boxes, not graphics cards. Next video motherboard art? They were the coolest!

@beavatatlan 10 ай бұрын

Asus z790 PG Sonic is peak motherboard! And that's a current gen board...

@protocetid 9 ай бұрын

Current day PC cases suffer from a plain and understyled appearance when you subtract the RGB lighting. Similar to how we give the art on these boxes credit for being inventive in spite of not aging well, I reckon the same could be said for the computer cases that these old GPUs would've been housed in. He should cover them and motherboard boxes too, the motherboards themselves used to come in a rainbow of colors.

@viodvue2227 10 ай бұрын

Yes the boxes! Love these and was sad when they disappeared. They always looked so strange. I want them back!

@protocetid 9 ай бұрын

IDK why AMD dropped Ruby

@deenman23 10 ай бұрын

it is kinda weird how they changed the design philosophy of the boxes,and its not just for graphics cards,this direction change affected other products also,sleek and simple design

@zwerne42 10 ай бұрын

The phylosophy: "black box cheap! stonks!"

@njdotson 10 ай бұрын

I never had a graphics card like this but I wish it was still like this because it looks really interesting when you see it. Like, I want to play the early 2000's cgi mermaid girl game!!!

@bepisman7273 10 ай бұрын

I think its a tech demo

@Rem_NL 10 ай бұрын

Asus and Asrock still have some of this for current hardware. Asus with their GUNDAM themed items. And Asrock with a Sonic the hedgehog motherboard. But the asian market has more to offer in this regard.

@whoisthis01 10 ай бұрын

The tech demos are still available to download and run. They might be locked to the manufacturer's cards though.

@Rainquack 10 ай бұрын

You can plop Nvidia's demo page into Wayback, cause they removed Nalu from there in ~2019, alongside a bunch of other classic demos (Luna, Dusk, Dawn, New Dawn) cause... attractive girls are bad these days, or something. Tinbury's still there.

@VADemon 10 ай бұрын

Like, I want to play with the mermaid girl

@GameplayandTalk 10 ай бұрын

Ahhh, those Voodoo cards had awesome box art. They still hold up, in my opinion. Kinda gloomy, kinda edgy, kinda creepy, and kinda mysterious all at the same time.

@Kugaine 10 ай бұрын

What a weird time. When I was a wee lad trying to play Guild Wars I had no idea which graphics card was good. I picked purely based on box art. I remember picking the Radeon X800 Pro specifically because it had a cool metal minotaur on it. The voodoo boxes used to freak me out.

@TilW 10 ай бұрын

To be fair, Nvidias new FE boxes do have a very interesting design, it's just the structure and not the print.

@ALPHABYTE64 10 ай бұрын

@dogsschrodinger2694 10 ай бұрын

Oh yeah, the 40 series “please don’t touch it because everything in it will end up on the floor” design.

@superring5297 8 ай бұрын

@@ALPHABYTE641☆《¤☆《]

@Wime8 10 ай бұрын

I mean the pink radeon cute pet box goes hard af, but the 4090 box is like a statement in itself. A "you know what this is" kind of deal.

@yeagmatic 10 ай бұрын

No thats really just a statement for people think paying for a brand logo makes them look cool. Like people who buy apple or gucci products, except more geeky

@kinsmart7294 9 ай бұрын

What statement? I will be outdated in less than 6 months?

@Wime8 9 ай бұрын

@@kinsmart7294 Not really, rather "I'm pushing the limits of GPUs". Besides, it's already been 10 months since release so kind of an invalid argument.

@DioBrando-qr6ye 8 ай бұрын

They're just mimicking the style of luxury brands, which I guess is par for the course with the price of modern GPUs. Anyways, FE cards are ugly, both the box and the cards themselves, I would never buy one.

@yossarian00 8 ай бұрын

what a dumb cope. everything is bland and lifeless now. its not cute.

@Greaust 10 ай бұрын

I've never seen a perfect video. I never thought a perfect video could ever exist, but here you are, proving me wrong.

@error-4518 10 ай бұрын

I remember my big brother making me watch the whole tech demo thing by saying that it was just the intro to the game. I think I watched it multiple times just thinking that the game crashed or something when the demo ended.

@CountlessPWNZ 9 ай бұрын

what a douche, lol

@frugbug 10 ай бұрын

I was just watching the old 2kliks video on GPU tech demos and thinking how much more effort was put into marketing back then. Wild

@cozymistbreeze 10 ай бұрын

I love when you make videos like these, something about the history of computer hardware will be endlessly enjoyable to me :D

@JokkuJokku 9 ай бұрын

This is going to one of those videos I will come back to again and again. These "random" topic videos live rent free in my head. I'm glad you make em!

@crazybeatrice4555 10 ай бұрын

I've always called this the apple effect, once apple made it big with the minimalist style everyone wanted to do it.

@jakedill1304 10 ай бұрын

Cracks me up too how things shift around.. I remember when the all-in-one IMAcs were first a thing, everybody thought Apple was not long for this world.. and it was just kind of the joke of the computing world.. fortunately for them they still had a burgeoning cult in the production industry, you knew that it was a cult because they had stuck with them during the mid to late 90s era when they weren't even close to trying to provide support for that.. and you knew it was it was a pin on the federal map when they got rid of final cut 7 and ditched it for the rest release of final cut x, final cut iMovie edition.. and they stayed.. and they learn to love it just like a good cult.. Like it actually blows my mind how lucky Apple got that they didn't lose their entire foothold in that industry in the pre resurgence days.. but I guess to a certain degree there really wasn't a lot of equivalencies.. and once you've been using software that's in a certain ecosystem it's like why would I switch to that something else or make things weird.. Microsoft just wasn't pushing that end or angle on things with Windows and any of the contemporaries like sun or something were in the process of dying and dying hard.. like I said lucky.. And it's funny too because the the little eye fruit computer I can't remember if that was the actual name or if that was just a joke, cuz they're all you know fruity colored and transparent and whatnot.. but that was exactly the audience that they needed in order to get something like the iPod to sell, especially with all the addendums of the iPod by comparison to the existing digital media consumption market.. which was perfect because those were the ones that would pay for things like that.. unlike the.. initial digital music consumption aficionados let's just say.. where it was kind of a.. kind of a reoccurring theme if not foundation LOL. And it's interesting to see which bridges that apple would let burn, and which ones they wouldn't or would try to go put out in the early 2000s.. clearly the gaming one was burned with prejudice.. and then reforested and then flooded.. and they were able to make some shifts and show up their hardware and that's when you got those tower computers really coming into their own if only that partnership in 3D graphics hadn't been with the most prolific fire bug of them all.. showing that Bridges can burn both ways. As childish as Nvidia is and how they interact and deal with the outside world.. there is a certain amount of gusto at moxie that Jensen is like.. oh oh Mr jobs is that a pocket of whiskey you're reaching for.. well allow me, and then reaches for a white phosphorus grenade and a can of denatured alcohol.. And they're fine LOL.. like who knows how how much they could have done or what they could have been if they hadn't been one of the most toxic companies they ever work in a somewhat collaborative and interlinked industry.. but.. the fact that they actually pull it off... It's it's kind of amazing actually... Definitely a showcase as to the technical competence, and possibly an interesting case study when they've run out of bridges and the customer base takes the focus of the ire... Which sure.. right up until something else shows up that can replace it. With prejudice LOL.. and and every day that bar gets lowered as the fire creeps up the beach and into the forest..

@kentreed2011 9 ай бұрын

I honestly don't know why Apple is even the standard, they are a meaningless company that don't do anything innovative at all anymore.

@mihaelkYeah 9 ай бұрын

@@kentreed2011 They add the word "pro" to a $12 Chinese manufactured gadget and sell it to you for $999. And their consumers need to prove to the world that they're -rich- not poor, so they not only buy it but they shill Apple as a whole and put Apple stickers on their cars, some of them even style their internet identity after Apple. It is a meaningful company at showing how herd mentality works.

@crazybeatrice4555 7 ай бұрын

@@kentreed2011 while I have my own personal distaste for apple, to pretend that they do nothing is problematic as well. Apples vertical integration from chip to client software allows them to do some interesting things.

@jaretanderson 10 ай бұрын

This is my favorite video that ive seen in while. As someone who missed this era of hardware, this was a great time capsule and celebration of wacky marketing

@cs_mns 10 ай бұрын

what a lovely throwback! i was always having as many of these boxes up as i had room for, loved the box art and cooler/shroud designs

@mekagunner5786 10 ай бұрын

i didn't know i needed this video! great job as always bro

@AronHallan 10 ай бұрын

This is why i get a huge nostalgia punch in the gut from the late 90's early 2000's wondering if the product matched the hype on the box.

@MJ-uk6lu 10 ай бұрын

90s was just a huge LSD fest

@taylorshin 5 ай бұрын

Not sure westerners had, but in Asia, Japanese vendors released GPUs with cylindrical shaped boxes and they opened like a food can. Of course, they are long gone... Now...

@AronHallan 5 ай бұрын

@@taylorshin Box art was whack and captivating. i've only seen the typical rectangular boxes in Europe.

@WangleLine 10 ай бұрын

I remember the green medusa so vividly. We had that graphics card box in our shelves for so many years when I was a child

@ImaplanetJupiteeeerr 10 ай бұрын

Awesome video as always, such a blast to watch these ❤️

@TheStolken 10 ай бұрын

I miss this era. We need to bring it back forever.

@KaaptnIglo 10 ай бұрын

such a cool topic (and video!). I do remember getting excited over those over-the-top box arts, though I am not sure what I saw in them back then :O Anyway, thanks for bringing back good memories

@plat1n_ 10 ай бұрын

Great video philip, really liked this one

@0xdeadbeef444 10 ай бұрын

I really needed someone to make a video about them. Thanks!

@OrangPinggiranOeaeo 10 ай бұрын

Just be happy they still come in a physical box. Imagine if they were digital download-only.

@remyronko 10 ай бұрын

Accidental prediction haha When the era of cloud gaming comes, we'll be subscribing to better GPUs 😭😭

@ShonkV 10 ай бұрын

box art now is so rare that if they take efforts to design one , then they call it limited edition theme.

@Splarkszter 10 ай бұрын

As always, a video i never knew i needed. Thank you phillip.

@bluebaby30 10 ай бұрын

this is very nostalgic, I remember when the ads for video cards was full of these designs

@mememe37 10 ай бұрын

I loved looking at these in the stores when I was a kid lol, thanks for reminding me of that!

@f99140 10 ай бұрын

Nice video, really interesting idea!

@GregoryCunningham 9 ай бұрын

What an incredible idea for a video. Thank you for giving me such an incredible nostalgia dopamine hit. God bless the algorithm for recommending your channel.

@sgas 10 ай бұрын

YES, THANK YOU FOR MAKING A VIDEO ON THIS

@shortcat 10 ай бұрын

I've been hoping you'll include the iconic Palit frog. Great to see it's getting the praise it deserves! 🐸

@cheaterman49 10 ай бұрын

3:55 lol the delivery was insane hahaha, as a Frenchman all I can do is laugh and be impressed!

@uss_liberty_incident 10 ай бұрын

Thanks for making this video. I sorely miss the flashy packaging of older GPUs.

@ChAzR89 9 ай бұрын

Seeing those boxes as a kid or even teenager always made me absolutely excited. Even tho I rarely bought a new GPU, it was always nice going into a tech store just admiring those boxes xD

@theadhdunicyclist 10 ай бұрын

4:28 I actually owned that exact MSI 1050ti and I completely disagree with your take on the box art. I think it aged wonderfully and looks super cool up on my shelf to this day. (you are my favorite youtuber, thank you for making these random and amazing videos)

@Jomenaa 10 ай бұрын

I remember buying my first GPU ever which was HD3850 256MB and if memory serves me well, it had Ruby on it. I kind of felt nostalgic when you mentioned her!

@WELC0MET0N0VEMBERWWWWWWWWWWWW 7 ай бұрын

I have completely lost my memory about these graphic cards have wild designs on them. This video has brought me mild memories of nostalgia.

@PixelPipes 9 ай бұрын

My favorite I think is the lowend DX10/11 VisionTek cards that just had a picture of a dude sitting in an office chair at his desk. There's no question who they were aiming for, at least.

@Roshanimani 10 ай бұрын

Finally, some good content on KZfaq.

@spectrobit5554 10 ай бұрын

I think this is one of those videos I'll keep returning to over the years, like your brother's "Top 10 GPU Tech-demos".

@mrebbesen 10 ай бұрын

This was surprisingly not just interesting, but extremely hilarious

@onceuponatimeonearth 9 ай бұрын

reminds me of the magazine ads that advertised soundcards and gpu's. they were often a big prerendered CGI image like the boxart with a wall of text next to it.

@kilobytecache6192 8 ай бұрын

Didn't expect to laugh so much at this. Well Done! I couldn't agree more, and it's not just for graphics cards as well, I have a really cool raid card box from the early 2000s with some wicked colors on my shelf! Long Live Box Art!

@okto_0 10 ай бұрын

Great Video!

@BrianwithHeart 10 ай бұрын

i've been waiting for this video 😂i remember commenting about the box art on another video a long time ago

@Aeduo 9 ай бұрын

Some of those were weirdly out of time for how relatively recent they are but how 90s the art looks. I appreciate the ones that do just look like a bunch of assets and graphics and fonts and photos of the product quickly composited together. Something more charming to seeing those artifacts of the work and people behind it rather than the weirdly overly perfect stuff that just kinda "exists" with no sort of evidence it's been touched by anybody.

@zeroy 10 ай бұрын

I have a few Radeon 3d girls boxes still 😂 but the Mystic I certainly remember, very cool still today!

@wadewilson6628 10 ай бұрын

I remember and miss those days.

@pouyash5785 10 ай бұрын

This is a great video

@Anon.G 10 ай бұрын

Nice video Philip

@SupremeTokoloshe 10 ай бұрын

This is a video i dreamed for

@WRussellPortfolio 9 ай бұрын

I used to have that Matrox Mystique card with the jester on the box!

@MrElpizo 10 ай бұрын

I imagine that in future, when some sort of electric cardboard becomes commonplace, GPUs would draw the boxart in real time, from inside the package.

@jakedill1304 10 ай бұрын

Right but you know what would actually end up happening would be a just a monumental array of randomly pulsating RGB that you had to get a subscription for that would have some sort of software that would basically be able to do every single pattern except for a useful one, and somehow in just trying to accomplish basic box tasks, would get in the way of that.. and then addressing that in the software would somehow compete on a regular day by day basis as the dumbest thing you had ever seen with the bar lowering every single time. And that's before all the seizures...

@rixille 9 ай бұрын

Sounds expensive and i'd rather the vast majority of money goes into the card itself.

@Aelfraed26 10 ай бұрын

XFX cards were terrible but they had the best box art by far. The Alpha Dog for their Nvidia cards and the art of their ATI 5000 and 6000 series was incredible.

@Vexcenot 10 ай бұрын

just run all the old box arts through an anime filter and you've got yourself new modern art to test that test of time

@GugureSux 10 ай бұрын

PNY's Nvidia Geforce FX 5600 Verto, with its purple android box art was my first hurrah into 3D accelerated PC gaming, and yes, the box art absolutely sold it for me as well. It also powered my video games from Doom 3 and Half-Life 2, to the STALKER and Crysis. And it was not only box art; the best GPUs had custom art on their COOLER COVER.

@Catzzye 10 ай бұрын

I can’t believe they couldn’t come up with more serious looking alien.. I really loved this vid

@dave7474 10 ай бұрын

This is a really unique and interesting video, I say they should've 100% put the crazy hair on the front of the card, it'd show how much hair it could render at a glance!

@Povilaz 10 ай бұрын

Very interesting!

@travosk8668 10 ай бұрын

Man i really like the green goo lady. Peak 2000s vibes right there

@Ferdam 10 ай бұрын

Funny because I used to HATE graphics cards with weird characters or any other sort of graphic on box cover. I'd totally get the boring black box one instead of any of those lol

@bahshas 10 ай бұрын

no season 🧂why boy detected !!! try being 🐲4👹5👺1🗾5N (A A A S I A N N N) put some salt on dat chckenn 🐔🐣🐤🐥 whyy boyyah

@mechanicalmonk2020 10 ай бұрын

This is true for most people

@Ferdam 10 ай бұрын

@@mechanicalmonk2020 really? I recall back then most of my friends and people on forums would absolutely hate cards without a graphic design printed on it or the box. So I've always had the impression I was the exception for hating it lol

@stanb1455 10 ай бұрын

what the fuck @@bahshas

@SolarMoth 10 ай бұрын

i have nostalgia for an era i wasnt apart of.... thats why i love retro stuff

@x4v 10 ай бұрын

They say history repeats itself... lets hope my 7090ti has a weird goblin on it. That would truly make it wotth the 15,000$ it will probably cost

@NewRSM1994 9 ай бұрын

Oh yeah! The older brother of my friend had one of those with a wizard on it that came with a free copy of Empire Earth, wich he gifted to me since he wasnt into RTS. Good Stuff.

@Azra_Fox 6 ай бұрын

I wish i had the opportunity to be this wacky with modern box art. As a graphic design student, its always so neat to see the degradation of complex creativity in favor of simplicity as the cards themselves have only got more insane.

@noenken 9 ай бұрын

Voodoo 5 5500 AGP box art was incredible.

@m00tes 10 ай бұрын

I like the new design, its smooth, minimalistic and professional.

@randomstranger9001 10 ай бұрын

I remember that silly frog design from Palit 😭 I had one of the GeForce 8 series cards back in 2007 :D Honestly, I agree that the cards themselves have become "art" now, especially the reference series look elegant! I wouldn't mind having one in my collection, hunting for the 10 series card for second PC rn.

@alternamasaki429 10 ай бұрын

i loved the rx580 cutepet edition so much, i fit the shroud on a custom cooler for my 3090

@AvroBellow 9 ай бұрын

The spikey goalie mask first used by ATi on the Radeon 9600 and then by XFX on their HD 4870 and HD 4870x2 cards has always been my favourite box art. The Protoss Archons on the BFG Tech cards are second.

@HiyuMarten 8 ай бұрын

We still got that fabulous AMD raytracing demo, that looked like animated early 2000s box art.

@rixille 9 ай бұрын

I remember having a MSI 6600 GT and even the heatsink cover had art on it. I'm not really nostalgic for it, but it was cool.

@kyoobqa 10 ай бұрын

You are the only KZfaqr

@simpson6700 10 ай бұрын

3:33 this thing reminds me of the most recent golum design

@miloshp7399 9 ай бұрын

Aw yes, era of box art with rendered babes and monsters was cool.

@casedistorted 10 ай бұрын

4:52 was that a pen is? I love colorful graphics cards but they’re always more expensive now, and I can barely afford current gpu’s as it is! I love how the 4090 black box is so black you can see the fingerprints on it.

@erinw6120 10 ай бұрын

Excellent retrospective, but can't believe you missed the XFX "Alpha Dog" mascot. It actually spawned a lawsuit from EVGA. Seems one of the box art people at XFX snuck in a little easter egg on the 8600GT where they put the EVGA logo reflected in the fangs of the mascot, implying XFX was going to eat EVGA. EVGA's CEO wasn't happy, and sued. They removed the easter egg from later runs of the box art.

@KaiSoDaM 10 ай бұрын

Please do more of those haha I also miss old 3d mascot on gpus boxes

@LucasBadur 10 ай бұрын

This video made me remember my Zotac 9600GT. Just found the box art on Google, it was a golden metal man with glowing eyes. So it did, in part, have LIGHTING!

@yom35 10 ай бұрын

Good vidoe

@KaaptnIglo 10 ай бұрын

you got me googling graphic card box :O I recommend the gigabyte 730 GT and its magnificent owl!

@buff9267 10 ай бұрын

4:20 cmon that f22 looks cool

@kem0n0.kokomo 10 ай бұрын

That's what I was thinkin!! lol

@vektor451 10 ай бұрын

Honestly, they should put some sort of like wireframe topology or schematics of some sort on those boring black dull boxes, it would still look "clean and minimalistic" but still cool as hell.

@OVERKILL_PINBALL 10 ай бұрын

You could cover Sound Card box art also. It may vary a bit more :)

@Stojce_ 10 ай бұрын

finally someone made a video about box art on pc hardware

@TraeBaldwin 10 ай бұрын

Really cool video

@-........ 10 ай бұрын

no butt pfp?

@jmunhoz 7 ай бұрын

the editing is really funny

@casedistorted 10 ай бұрын

Ahhh this is peak nostalgia for PC gaming at that time. I remember the 90’s and early 2000’s with fondness, as I graduated HS in 2004, so Doom 3 and HL2 came out at the best time. I always think of my dad when I see this box art, he introduced me to Quake 2 and Q3 Arena gaming. Rip to my pa, he passed last year almost exactly, Aug 28th, 2022.

@alosuhi 10 ай бұрын

Today is the anniversary of his passing... I am so sorry for your loss, your dad sounds like one most dream of having. May he rest in peace.

@casedistorted 10 ай бұрын

Thank you

@chesement4131 9 ай бұрын

this is excelent 2kliks content, goes toe to toe with the classics

@firedragonosis 10 ай бұрын

3:09 and 3:30 remind me of that one cover of A Wizard of Earthsea with a grey alien standing on a topless guy's shoulders

@jhon-cg4rg 10 ай бұрын

I remember how cool was the msi 10 series box gpus from the gaming x line

@chanzeyu1 9 ай бұрын

The Yeston boxes look really nice, so does their graphics cards.

@elliehugg 10 ай бұрын

6:08 omg this one is so cute! :3

@WayStedYou 10 ай бұрын

Yeston cute pet

@MrDarkNao 8 ай бұрын

I remember Hercules 3D Prophet 9700 Pro (2003) Spooky as hell

@mergenocide 10 ай бұрын

Man I loved the GTX280 Ugly Goblin Edition, truly ahead of its time.

@nullcircuit 10 ай бұрын

the old ATI xtasy cards had delightfully unapologetic late 90s/metalheart design that tantalized me as a kid. I was also dumb though. Thought the card was broken because it wouldn't play 3dfx games, long before I understood the differences between rendering APIs and their compatibility across cards, went back to my voodoo 3 and didnt upgrade until the FX 5200 lol.