Man, that whole 256MB video memory marketing thing really works...

[Conky]

Originally posted by: CTho9305
You have to admit that making a good decision when it comes to vid cards is a major PITA though. The manufacturers use ridiculous and constantly-changing naming schemes, so even if you had a good idea of what the names meant a year ago, you'll be way off. You can't just use the model number as a guide, and you can't just use the letters (and you definitely can't use the RAM amount).

You know they make it as confusing as possible on purpose.

You tell a friend to buy a GeForce and he gets a GeForceMX thinking it's even better than a GeForce. Or you tell someone to get an ATI X800 or X850 and they get a X1300 thinking it's better too.

It's hard enough to figure out what to buy even when you have the videocard "decoder ring". :laugh:

 

[slackerinabox]

You guys have smart friends - mine don't even know what a video card is.. Sigh... I wish my friends got into video ram arguments with me

 

[0roo0roo]

Originally posted by: Beachboy

Originally posted by: CTho9305
You have to admit that making a good decision when it comes to vid cards is a major PITA though. The manufacturers use ridiculous and constantly-changing naming schemes, so even if you had a good idea of what the names meant a year ago, you'll be way off. You can't just use the model number as a guide, and you can't just use the letters (and you definitely can't use the RAM amount).

You know they make it as confusing as possible on purpose.

You tell a friend to buy a GeForce and he gets a GeForceMX thinking it's even better than a GeForce. Or you tell someone to get an ATI X800 or X850 and they get a X1300 thinking it's better too.

It's hard enough to figure out what to buy even when you have the videocard "decoder ring". :laugh:

heh never mind the xt/xtx/gto etc....its confusing for people who read video card reviews

 

[montypythizzle]

SE means special edition doesnt it?
my hyper memories are faster than your gddr3s
my bigabyte of ram on my 9200 are way faster than your x800gto since it is a bigger numberer

 

[CTho9305]

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo

Originally posted by: Beachboy

Originally posted by: CTho9305
You have to admit that making a good decision when it comes to vid cards is a major PITA though. The manufacturers use ridiculous and constantly-changing naming schemes, so even if you had a good idea of what the names meant a year ago, you'll be way off. You can't just use the model number as a guide, and you can't just use the letters (and you definitely can't use the RAM amount).

You know they make it as confusing as possible on purpose.

You tell a friend to buy a GeForce and he gets a GeForceMX thinking it's even better than a GeForce. Or you tell someone to get an ATI X800 or X850 and they get a X1300 thinking it's better too.

It's hard enough to figure out what to buy even when you have the videocard "decoder ring". :laugh:

heh never mind the xt/xtx/gto etc....its confusing for people who read video card reviews

Yeah. I was looking at ATI cards (at least I don't have to research nvidia cards too, since the employee discount means the best bang for the buck is clear) and thought "Pro" was fast because I haven't researched the high-end stuff in a while .

 

[Pepsi90919]

Originally posted by: Philippine Mango

Originally posted by: keeleysam
One of my friends is convinced Comcast made an error and have him a 100mbit internet connection.

Let me guess, cause the network icon at the corner of his screen says 100Mb? :laugh:

great detective work

 

[drinkmorejava]

I just rememberhaving an MX420 GO with 16mb of ram was almost as good as a fx5200 with 128mb. It did suffer from having so little vram that it just couldn't load enough textures, but still rather surprising.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Anyone want to put 1gb of ram on an S3 ViRge and try to sell it?

 

[Inspector Jihad]

Originally posted by: CTho9305
You have to admit that making a good decision when it comes to vid cards is a major PITA though. The manufacturers use ridiculous and constantly-changing naming schemes, so even if you had a good idea of what the names meant a year ago, you'll be way off. You can't just use the model number as a guide, and you can't just use the letters (and you definitely can't use the RAM amount).

true. video card naming is absurd. i'm pretty computer savvy, but I had to read a good amount before I got the naming and whatnot down.

 

[Alprazolam]

Originally posted by: Philippine Mango
I was at frys today and I saw this kid in line holding a video card, I glanced at it and saw it was an X1300Pro. At first I thought that this kid was buying this card as a cheap replacement card for his computer's video card cause the one in there died or something. So I asked the kid how much the card was, says $125 or something, then mentioned that I hope he wasn't gaming on it, to my surprise, he actually had intentions of gaming on it.

I basically told him that the card really wasn't meant for gaming and that he should seriously consider something else. I mentioned the 6600GT and asked him what he had in his computer, turns out he has a 9800pro :smacks forehead: He said he was buying the card because the game he was playing wasn't running very well and he needed 256MB of video memory, I tried to quickly explain to him that an X1300 with 256MB is SLOWER than a 9800pro with 128MB memory.. He then said that he'll instead try it out and if he doesn't like it, he'll take it back, so I gave up on him. (Probably convinced that things will be fine)

Great, this kid goes out and buys a video card soley because of the amount of video ram thinking that hes getting a faster card when hes really getting a slower card..

I can't believe this marketing really works, just slap a bunch of video memory and all of a sudden, all cards with less than that amount are slower.. Wait until you see the surprise on his face when he realizes the game he was playing runs worse than before.. Never liked deceptive marketing, and thats exactly what this value segment is with it's large video memory with slow memory buses and slow graphics chip.

Sigh, had no idea it was that effective...

So yeah..

Mind your own business.

 

[Inspector Jihad]

Originally posted by: Alprazolam

Originally posted by: Philippine Mango
I was at frys today and I saw this kid in line holding a video card, I glanced at it and saw it was an X1300Pro. At first I thought that this kid was buying this card as a cheap replacement card for his computer's video card cause the one in there died or something. So I asked the kid how much the card was, says $125 or something, then mentioned that I hope he wasn't gaming on it, to my surprise, he actually had intentions of gaming on it.

I basically told him that the card really wasn't meant for gaming and that he should seriously consider something else. I mentioned the 6600GT and asked him what he had in his computer, turns out he has a 9800pro :smacks forehead: He said he was buying the card because the game he was playing wasn't running very well and he needed 256MB of video memory, I tried to quickly explain to him that an X1300 with 256MB is SLOWER than a 9800pro with 128MB memory.. He then said that he'll instead try it out and if he doesn't like it, he'll take it back, so I gave up on him. (Probably convinced that things will be fine)

Great, this kid goes out and buys a video card soley because of the amount of video ram thinking that hes getting a faster card when hes really getting a slower card..

I can't believe this marketing really works, just slap a bunch of video memory and all of a sudden, all cards with less than that amount are slower.. Wait until you see the surprise on his face when he realizes the game he was playing runs worse than before.. Never liked deceptive marketing, and thats exactly what this value segment is with it's large video memory with slow memory buses and slow graphics chip.

Sigh, had no idea it was that effective...

So yeah..

Mind your own business.

dont be a douche

 

[fire400]

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
I don't as much mind that the individual product boxes boast their memory sizes, but I was disturbed watching a video playing at BB that basically just said that video memory is the only thing to look for when buying

LOL, good one man...

I was at Sam's Club, and I saw Doom III running on something like integrated graphics or a "low-profile media" daughter card that just hit no more than 10FPS on the menu screen, yes..... 'menu screen.' I was like... dang, lagging on the menu screen for a game is bad enough, rofl~

"who the heck wants to buy that glitchy running computer?"

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Beachboy
You know they make it as confusing as possible on purpose.

You tell a friend to buy a GeForce and he gets a GeForceMX thinking it's even better than a GeForce. Or you tell someone to get an ATI X800 or X850 and they get a X1300 thinking it's better too.

It's hard enough to figure out what to buy even when you have the videocard "decoder ring". :laugh:

Or an "SE" card. I remember when SE meant "Special Edition" which was a good thing.
It still means "Special Edition," just the wrong kind of "special."

 

[Aharami]

ATI's naming convention confuses the hell out of me. I like nVidia's straight forward naming. 6 series > 7 series > 8 series

 

[fire400]

Originally posted by: Aharami
ATI's naming convention confuses the hell out of me. I like nVidia's straight forward naming. 6 series > 7 series > 8 series

Well.. let's see..

=Rage, etc.

=Radeon 7000 series

=Radeon 8000 series,
-or preferably the 8500

=Radeon 9000 series
-9000, 9000pro
-9200, 9250
-9500, 9500pro, 9550
-9600, 9600pro, 9600XT
-9700, 9700pro
-9800, 9800SE, 9800pro, 9800XT

=Radeon X100's
-x300, x600, x700, x800, x850

=Radeon X1000's
-x1300 Pro, XT
-x1600, x1650
-x1800
-x1900
-x1950

p.s. this list ain't truly accurate, maybe 'cuz I'm at the library. but you get the idea.

ATI once had on their website:

"World leader in graphics technology" -but they took it off around 2003, don't know why

 

[secretanchitman]

Originally posted by: fire400

Originally posted by: Aharami
ATI's naming convention confuses the hell out of me. I like nVidia's straight forward naming. 6 series > 7 series > 8 series

Well.. let's see..

=Rage, etc.

=Radeon 7000 series

=Radeon 8000 series,
-or preferably the 8500

=Radeon 9000 series
-9000, 9000pro
-9200, 9250
-9500, 9500pro, 9550
-9600, 9600pro, 9600XT
-9700, 9700pro
-9800, 9800SE, 9800pro, 9800XT

=Radeon X100's
-x300, x600, x700, x800, x850

=Radeon X1000's
-x1300 Pro, XT
-x1600, x1650
-x1800
-x1900
-x1950

p.s. this list ain't truly accurate, maybe 'cuz I'm at the library. but you get the idea.

ATI once had on their website:

"World leader in graphics technology" -but they took it off around 2003, don't know why

ati probably has more model names than nvidia. X550? x1800, x1900, x1950?

although you can counterpoint with 6800, 7800, 7900, 7950...but the 7950 is only one card...

ah, too many damn names.

 

[ryan256]

Originally posted by: theprodigalrebel
There used to be people who thought a Geforce 4 MX440 was better than a Geforce 3 Ti 500. I once told my friend to go pick up a 128MB Radeon 9800. He calls me from the store and asks me a million times, "There's a 256MB FX5300. Are you SURE I shouldn't get this? It's even a little cheaper. Are you SURE? REALLY? POSITIVE? BUT 256MB? Higher resolution textures? NO? SRSLY? REALLY? YOU SWEAR?"

20 minutes on the Net and a couple of benchmarks is ALL it takes to make an informed decision. People need to learn to really use the Net.

I had to do the same thing with my dad. I nearly smacked him when he proudly showed me his FX5200 with 256MB of memory he picked up from Sams for "only $75" for his new P4 3GHz system. My 2 year old 128MB 9800 Pro could run rings around that card. I finally had to explain it to him like this. You can't think of video cards by just the amount of memory they have. You have to think of them as mini computers. A 2.6GHz celeron with 1GB of memory would be far, far slower than a E6700 with 256MB of memory. After bringing my 9800 over and benchmarking them both on his system he understood.