Not only has the graphics card come a long way over the past two decades, but so too has GPU box art. In the early 2000s, we saw an avalanche of box art that seemed like whoever designed them was on quite the drug-infused journey — you could say they were unhinged. Typically, the graphics card inside the box wasn't even displayed on the front cover. This was reserved for elves, wizards, druids, mech droids, demons, game characters, and strange oddities.

GPU makers have all abandoned this practice, which is a shame as it provided something different through box art alone. Now, we're drowning in bland boxes and similar-looking graphics cards. Gazing at my passively cooled PowerColor HD6850 from the tail end of the 2000s, I'll take you back to an age when box art meant everything. Full of specification badges, big text, bold imagery, and outright strange designs, here are some of my favorites from the late 90s and early 00s