There were probably always references, but the original references might've been aimed at japanese anime and stuff.
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This is my sweet little ChunLi:
[
AMD Athlon 64 X2 @ 2800MHz] - [
ASUS nVidia Geforce 8800GTS 320MB] - [
2Gb 667MHz DDR2] - [
Total of 750GB HD]
3DMarks 2006: "I'll update later" points ; 3DMarks 2001: "same"