Influential games such as Doom and Quake during the 1990s had pushed gamers and enthusiasts to frequently upgrade to the latest CPUs and graphics cards (3dfx, ATI, and Nvidia) for their desktops (usually a tower case) in order to run these applications, though this has slowed since the late 2000s as the growing popularity of Intel integrated graphics forced game developers to scale back. Creative Technology's Sound Blaster series were a de facto standard for sound cards in desktop PCs during the 1990s until the early 2000s, when they were reduced to a niche product, as OEM desktop PCs came with sound boards integrated directly onto the motherboard.
influential games such as doom and quake during the 1990s had pushed gamers and enthusiasts to frequently upgrade to the latest cpus and graphics cards (3dfx ati and nvidia) for their desktops (usually a tower case) in order to run these applications though this has slowed since the late 2000s as the growing popularity of intel integrated graphics forced game developers to scale back creative technology's sound blaster series were a de facto standard for sound cards in desktop pcs during the 1990s until the early 2000s when they were reduced to a niche product as oem desktop pcs came with sound boards integrated directly onto the motherboard