Not only that but a lot of the "defining games" are just games that appeared at about the same time but can be handled by much older GPUs without issues. For me graphics haven't made a real difference since Unreal Engine 4 anyway. It's all about the content these days, not the skin.

does anyone have pointers to similar articles that talk about GPU history?

One example is "No graphics API" by Sebastian Aaltonen shared here 3 months ago, which is a great tour de force of graphics stack innovations through contrasting the history of OpenGL/Vulkan and WebGPU/Metal development: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46293062 Because it requires an in-depth understanding of the shader pipeline, the article touches on significant graphics cards of the era. I'd love to see more about that!

like the PS3? seems like everything is using PC architecture now. it does have RDNA.