Quote Originally Posted by Caravel
That could have been anything from a Voodoo2, Rage128, Riva128, RivaTNT, Voodoo3 1000 etc. Older 2D graphics cards commonly had less than 1MB of RAM.

The GPU is the processor that sits on the board, a separate entity to the memory modules. The board itself is commonly known as a "graphics card". You are correct that large amounts of cheap RAM were commonly used on low end cards to provide more of an incentive to buy. Unfortunately lots of cheap ram on a board with half it's pipelines neutered and low core/memory clock does not equal performance.
I forgot to add "for me". I mean I had it the wrong way! :P