Naming scheme

[lavaheadache]

Funny how back in the good ole days a Geforce 4 ti 4200 was almost as fast as a TI 4400, which was almost as fast as a TI 4600, and even funnier that my Ti 4200 could clock higher than a 4600 making it a much better buy, even so the geforce 4 Ti 4200 64 meg card was a little faster than the 128 due to faster clock frequencies. . Back then they didnt make Crippled( see 8800GTS vs 8800GTX) cards but merely just lower clocked. Well, I guess not entirely true cause there was a voodoo 4500 that came out after the voodoo 5 5500, and they made voodoo 2 8 meg cards and 12 meg cards. Anyways, I think we as consumers used to get a better deal on video cards back in the day.

 

[nitromullet]

The entire line up has gotten larger to accommodate more market segments. Back in the GeForce4 days you had the Ti cards and the MX cards, but now have four different 8800s alone (Ultra, GTX, GTS640. GTS320). This makes sense though if you consider the fact that the price of the highest end cards has risen leaving more segments between the highest and lowest priced cards.

If you think about it though in terms of price/performance, the second or third card from the top has always been the best way to go. This was true for the GeForce 4 series and it is still true today. You can get the bulk of the performance of a $600+ 8800 Ultra out of a $350 8800GTS 640MB, especially if you OC it a bit. The ATI line up doesn't quite follow the same rule as closely from what I can tell. Last year for instance, the price difference between the X1900XT and the X1900XTX was often very small and the next card down was the X1800XT. ATI has had its gems though, the X800XL was a sweet card for the money compared to the X850XT, and the 9500Pro had some pretty strong followers.