What's the deal with ATI and nVidia's model numbers?

[Ilmater]

OK, so when nVidia changed the 4400 and 4600 to 4800SE and 4800, respectively, I was a little ticked. If I didn't know better, I'd guess the SE was faster than the 4800 non-SE (I'd assume that SE stood for "second edition," not "slower edition"). I complained about this in here, but of course, nothing happened.

Now ATI's got new cards out and they're FAR worse IMO. 9200 Pro is beat by the 9000 Pro?! 9600 Pro is beat by the 9500 Pro?! 9800 Pro BARELY edges out the 9700 Pro?! This is ridiculous. Anybody who doesn't think that the average Joe user won't know the difference is kidding themselves (sorry for the double-negative). They look for the highest number and buy whatever is attached to it.

Stupid ATI.

 

[Schadenfroh]

8500 starts here
8500le lower clocked 8500
9000 remade, but slower version of 8500
9100 is a 8500
9200 is a 9000 with 8x agp (i think) , 9100/8500 should beat it
9500 np is a pro with 4 pipelines and lower clock speeds
9500 is a 9700 with a 128 bit memory bus and lower clock speeds
9600 is a .13 micron chip that can be overclocked well, but by default the 9500 beats it.
9700np is a 9700 with lower clockspeeds
9700 pro
9800 pro overclocked 9700 pro with a few tweaks
9900 pro (supposidly is a 256mb 9800 with ddr2, but those are rumors)

there, the most easy to follow naming system ever made

9800>9700>9500>9600>9100=8500>9200>9000>7500

 

[rbV5]

Yea the 9800 barely edging the 9700 is much worse than the 5200 dominating the 4600

Where have you been? Its all marketing, research before you buy.

 

[Ilmater]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
8500 starts here
8500le lower clocked 8500
9000 remade, but slower version of 8500
9100 is a 8500
9200 is a 9000 with 8x agp (i think) , 9100/8500 should beat it
9500 np is a pro with 4 pipelines and lower clock speeds
9500 is a 9700 with a 128 bit memory bus and lower clock speeds
9600 is a .13 micron chip that can be overclocked well, but by default the 9500 beats it.
9700np is a 9700 with lower clockspeeds
9700 pro
9800 pro overclocked 9700 pro with a few tweaks
9900 pro (supposidly is a 256mb 9800 with ddr2, but those are rumors)

there, the most easy to follow naming system ever made

9800>9700>9500>9600>9100=8500>9200>9000>7500

You know, you're right. What in the world was my problem?

Originally posted by: rbV5
Yea the 9800 barely edging the 9700 is much worse than the 5200 dominating the 4600

Where have you been? Its all marketing, research before you buy.

Ooooh, that's right. I forgot about those. The whole 5x00 series from nVidia is such a joke, I forgot about it. I wouldn't even consider buying anything in that series. I was actually at Best Buy the other day and saw the 5200 for $99, and I thought it might be a deal (not that I would have bought it, I was just parusing). Then I went home and checked reviews. The 4200 handily beats it.

In nVidia's defense, though, I will say that at least they named the cards differently. The GeForceFX and the Geforce4 are clearly based on different platforms as the name implies. If it was GeForce3 vs. GeForce4, I'd be more upset.

Fair enough, I changed the topic.

Stupid nVidia. Stupid ATI.

 

[GTaudiophile]

I agree. I fault both companies for their naming schemes.

 

[mjolnir2k]

I completely agree...

Who the hell has the time to try and sort out what card falls into what performance slot.

What's wrong with clarity? Just name the cards as they should fall in line without the confusion.

ATI could have saved us a lot of mental stress by just naming the cards in order of performance, but that would defeat their slick willy marketing efforts. Using markings like "LE" is misleading as most people recognize that as "Limited Edition"

Here's how it SHOULD have been numbered. The TOP end card to the LOWEST end card. They would have MORE than enough slots to fill in all of their product range and the consumer would be able to recognize that a 9100 will be better than a 8500.

8500 series:
8500 pro
8500

9000 Series:
9800 pro
9800
9700 pro
9700
9600 pro
9600
9500 pro
9500
9200 pro
9200
9100 pro
9100

But such is the world of sleazy marketing....

 

[bluemax]

"If you can't convince them with facts... dazzle 'em with BS!"

 

[pukemon]

I agreed with what everyone else said here. To be fair though, ATI for the most part got the numbers right except for throwing in a few LE's and not keeping a family numbers consistent. Take a look at all the different cards available at newegg. Choice is good.. but bleah. Nvidia, really messed up with the MX's and threw in a few SE's for some reason. They did at least get the "Ti" designations right though. All GF4Ti's are faster than GF3Ti's which are faster than GF2Ti's... i suppose it could be worse though...

 

[Ilmater]

Originally posted by: pukemon
I agreed with what everyone else said here. To be fair though, ATI for the most part got the numbers right except for throwing in a few LE's and not keeping a family numbers consistent. Take a look at all the different cards available at newegg. Choice is good.. but bleah. Nvidia, really messed up with the MX's and threw in a few SE's for some reason. They did at least get the "Ti" designations right though. All GF4Ti's are faster than GF3Ti's which are faster than GF2Ti's... i suppose it could be worse though...

I thought the MX's were OK. For instance, the GF4 MX440 was better than the GF4 MX420, just like the GF2 400 was faster than the GF2 200.

I think nVidia has some issues here, but ATI is the big winner for misleading numbers.

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

The real problem is that these cards came out at different times and have a different target in the market. Add to that the fact that both nVidia and ATI want to promote that "newer is faster" and you've got a mess.

chronologically this is what happened on the ATI side:

Product: Target Market Segment
Manufacturing and Marketing Issues

8500: Extreme High-End
Expensive to produce, but it doesn't matter since it commands premium price

8500LE: mid-range
8500s that can't quite clock up to full 8500 standards are redged as LE's and sold cheaper (still expensive to produce)

9000/ 9000 Pro: Low-end / lowish mid-range
8500 series is discontinued. The part is cheaper and easier, to manufacture but the performance is slower than the 8500's. This card is supposed to replace the 7500 in the low-end segment in the (9X00 time-frame, since it is based on the 8500's core it naturally gets compared to the 8500/8500LE. Unforseen: demand for the 8500 remains strong while the demand for the 9000/9000 Pro isn't so hot.

9700/9700Pro: Extreme high-end
Flagship product, killer performance but killer manufacturing price too. Functional 9700 cores that can't quite clock up to Pro clockspeeds are sold as plain 9700s to OEMs much in the same way the 8500/8500LE system worked.

9500/9500Pro: mid-range/ highish mid-range
After the 9700 Pro is released, there is a void in ATI's mid-range market segment. The solution, take failed 9700 Pros cut the defective pipelines and memory bandwidth and place them in that segment. However, these cores are still expensive to produce and make precious little profit in the market segment they are placed.

9100: Lowish mid-end
A reaction to the 8500's continued success, ATI rereleases it with a new number for marketing purposes and to reflect that the performance is higher than the 9000's performance. This revival is short lived and is basically just there to get rid of remaining 8500s.

9800Pro: Extreme high-end
Tweaked 9700 Pro: ATI has gotten better at producing 9700s so they can release a higher clocked version. Cores that can't quite make it to 9800 speeds are likely being used to produce 9700/9700Pros now.

9600: Mid-range
13µ component meant to replace the 9500/9500 Pro. Much cheaper to manufacture for ATI, though it is slower than the 9500 Po a stock speeds. Mainly makes the mid-range profitable again for ATI, who are discontinuing the 9500/9500 Pro, since they are so expensive to manufacture.

9200/9200Pro: Low end
9000 Pro with AGP8X added. The 9200 Pro is also clocked up a bit. Still defeated by the 8500/9100, but these products should no longer be on the market so that shouldn't make a difference to the unaware.



And there you have it, a quick recap of why and how ATI ended up with a messed up numbering scheme. Take one part marketing, and one part manufacturing optimization, add a dash of nVidia competition. Stir until you have a modeling scheme that makes no sense and VOILA the Radeon numbering scheme. 🙂

I'm sure someone could do the same for nVidia if they wanted to.

 

[thorin]

Originally posted by: Ilmater
OK, so when nVidia changed the 4400 and 4600 to 4800SE and 4800, respectively, I was a little ticked. If I didn't know better, I'd guess the SE was faster than the 4800 non-SE (I'd assume that SE stood for "second edition," not "slower edition"). I complained about this in here, but of course, nothing happened.

Now ATI's got new cards out and they're FAR worse IMO. 9200 Pro is beat by the 9000 Pro?! 9600 Pro is beat by the 9500 Pro?! 9800 Pro BARELY edges out the 9700 Pro?! This is ridiculous. Anybody who doesn't think that the average Joe user won't know the difference is kidding themselves (sorry for the double-negative). They look for the highest number and buy whatever is attached to it.

Stupid ATI.

Ok now I really like nVidia but they're no better with the 5200 "ultra" performing at about 70% the speed (or even less) of a 4200 in almost all tests.

Thorin

 

[Solema]

Before the FX crap that has come about, my whole issue was Nvidia naming a re-tuned GeForce2 as a GeForce4 (the MX series). I think the joke that is the Nvidia marketing department got their start. At least with the GeForce2 MX you knew were it stood in the scheme of things, *slighty* better than GeForce, but much worse than GeForce2. Hell, I wonder how many people spend $100 on a GeForce4 MX not realizing that they could have spent less on a GeForce3 that is much faster and more technologically up-to-date. Heck, they could have bought a GeForce2 Pro for less and gotten nearly the same speed. What a crock.

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

It ameks me wo nder what the marketing department at ATI and Nvidia do, I bet they just sign whatever comes infront of them straight from the engineers and let it go. I mean, there is no visible reason to market a 9100 card with the 9100 model number when it is the same as an 8500. Bah!