Naming convention change: NVIDIA

[SanDiegoPC]

I may just be thick headed or dumb - but I'm still cornfuzzled about the naming change .... and it's not even new news at all. For years we had GEforce 8xxx series and then the 9500 and such - they were all 4-digit numbers.

Now we have three digit product numbers and I don't get it. I read the sticky above and I get the part about which product offers more performance within a product line. i.e. in an 8xxx card, the 8 is the series and the xxx suffix is the performance level. So in other words, a GT9500 card may not offer any improvement over a GT8800. OK got that.

But now there's the 3-digit coding. What is an upgrade from my Superclocked GTX8800?

I talked to the local PC parts vendor and he suggested a GT250 and said it has DDR5 RAM on board. There's nothing like that on NV website. Closest to it is a GTS-250 but that says it has DDR3 on board.

Sorry for the wordy question but I don't wanna buy the wrong video card. See my sig for my current build. Uses: light gaming, heavy video and photoshop editing. Also industry specific software that relies heavily on openGL and multiple core processors. One of my other computers on this network, an i3 on an Intel board, needs a new video card and I will be using this current card in that computer. I just need to find out which one to use in this i7 computer before making the swap.

Thanks in advance for any advice on a new card (NV preferred) and also explaining the naming convention that I don't get just yet.

 

[tviceman]

The 9x00 series was mostly rebranded 8x00 series chips, and the gtx200 series was the generational upgrade from the 8800 series, but now the 400 series are the current Nvidia cards being manufactured. A GTS250 is only about 10% faster than a 8800GTX. Since you want to stick with nvidia, the gtx460 1 gig is the first logical stepping point to look at for an upgrade from what you currently have. It will be a little more than twice as fast as what you've got now while drawing about the same amount of power while running noticeably quieter and cooler. If you want more power, skip the gtx465 and look at the gtx470's.

 

[HendrixFan]

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/GPU/88

 

[tijag]

I know this isn't the exact same GPU as what you have, here is a comparison to give you a ballpark. If you need to stick with Nvidia due to the video editing and photoshop, I recommend the 460 GTX.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/178?vs=180

 

[Soleron]

A GTX 460, 470 or 480 would make a good upgrade depending on your price range.

Keep in mind AMD is competitive or ahead in price/performance for games in all price brackets at the moment and the upcoming 6000 series should make that ahead in every segment, so don't rule them out unless you have to go Nvidia.

 

[Tempered81]

Get a GTX460 1GB

 

[AtenRa]

Uses: light gaming, heavy video and photoshop editing.

If you using Photoshop, I would recommend a GTX460 1GB or a GTX470. I would wait for a couple of weeks for the AMD 6000 series to be released (perhaps next week) to see if the prices of GTX460/470 will fall.

You can see from the link below where GPUs can accelerate in photoshop and other adobe programs

http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/performance/

http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/production/pdfs/cs5_production_premium_benchmarks.pdf

 

[SanDiegoPC]

Thanks guys & girls. Great advice and great links. Appreciate the info.