Why is video card naming so screwed up?

[Greenman]

Last Saturday I took a break from doing my taxes and played a round or two of BF2, video card burned out while playing.
I figured I'd try nvidia this time around and ran down to Fry's to see what they had. I was faced with the most bewildering array of numbers and letters I've ever seen. I couldn't figure it out, I couldn't determine from the numbers on the box, or the price, which card was the better value, or even what to expect performance wise.
So I admit it now for all the world to hear, nvidia beat me, they just plain outsmarted me. I ended up buying a 3870 because I at least had a rough idea of what to expect, not because I felt it was in any way better than what nvidia was offering in the same price range.

 

[Keysplayr]

3870 will do you fine. But I don't understand why you didn't ask here first. I mean, you've been here since 2005. ??

Or, I could just be pulling a stupid, because you couldn't post due to having a burned out video card without a spare.

Anyways, how is the 3870 treating you?

 

[Lithan]

Why is CPU naming so screwed up? Nobody knows.

 

[Greenman]

I could have asked here, and should have, but I was in a hurry (had to finish my taxes) and figured it couldn't be all that tough to decide, was I ever wrong. I would have received at least 5 reasonably accurate answers here far quicker than it took me to read 5 boxes in the store, and the info from here would have contained real information, not marketing speak.

The 3870 is about what I expected, faster than the 1950 it replaced, and I can run BF2 with AA turned up a lot higher. The HSF on it is ten times better than the little tonka toy fan on my 1950.
My last three video cards have been ATI, and all of them burned out, that's why I thought I'd go with nvidia this round. There were even a couple nvidia fan's in the store trying to give me advice, and when they started telling me that some 8800 cards are faster than some 9800 cards I knew I was sunk. So I ended up sticking with the devil I know, and probably paying to much for it as well. On the plus side, I did get my taxes done.

It just seems like there should be a simplified numbering system, I should be able to grab any two video cards and be able to tell which is faster by reading the box.

 

[tuteja1986]

err i have owned many ATI and Nvidia video cards and none of them have burned out. You must have really bad luck or a really bad power supply or your case has really bad air flow control.

I currently own a 3870 and its really reliable and stable card.

 

[Bateluer]

That is one thing that the AMD purchase of ATI did very well, clean up their naming scheme. ATI's used to be just as cluttered and confusing as Nvidia's. Thanks to AMD, you have a fairly simple numbering scheme.

What ever else you may think of AMD/ATI, you know that when you look at ATI cards, you know the 3850 is superior to the 3650, you know the 3850 is weaker than the 3870, etc.

 

[Greenman]

Originally posted by: tuteja1986
err i have owned many ATI and Nvidia video cards and none of them have burned out. You must have really bad luck or a really bad power supply or your case has really bad air flow control.

I currently own a 3870 and its really reliable and stable card.

I have a good power supply, and plenty of air flow.
I got a few artifacts while playing a game a couple weeks back, noticed the card getting pretty warm. So I pulled the heat sink, cleaned it up and reinstalled with Arctic Silver. That seemed to solve the problem until Saturday afternoon when it blew up. It was pretty hot in my office when it happened, so I assume it just overheated.

I hope I have good luck with the 3870, as I said before, it has a nice heat pipe cooler on it, so with a bit of luck it will last me a couple years.
In ATI's defense, I still have an old 9800Pro running in my kids rig, it's been chugging along for years without a hiccup. The last time I cleaned out the case you couldn't even see the fan on the thing through all the dirt and dog hair, it's a wonder it didn't catch fire.

 

[theprodigalrebel]

FWIW, this is how it more or less goes:

3870 512 -> 8800GT 512 (~15% increase)
8800GT 512 -> 8800GTS 512 (~15% increase)
8800GTS 512 -> 9800GTX (roughly the same, single-digit percentage points, marketing deception of the year, should have been called an 8900GT or something)

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: tuteja1986
err i have owned many ATI and Nvidia video cards and none of them have burned out. You must have really bad luck or a really bad power supply or your case has really bad air flow control.

I currently own a 3870 and its really reliable and stable card.

I never had a card burn out on me either, but it does happen.

OP, have you had the same computer for the last four ATI cards (including the 3870) ?

3 cards burning out is actually quite a high ratio for one person.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: Bateluer
That is one thing that the AMD purchase of ATI did very well, clean up their naming scheme. ATI's used to be just as cluttered and confusing as Nvidia's. Thanks to AMD, you have a fairly simple numbering scheme.

What ever else you may think of AMD/ATI, you know that when you look at ATI cards, you know the 3850 is superior to the 3650, you know the 3850 is weaker than the 3870, etc.

Ok, I can understand the average guy/gal going into best buy and seeing the following cards on the shelf and being confused:

8800GTS 320
8800GTS 640

8800GT 512
8800GTS 512

Out of these two pairs, it's pretty easy to see which card is better for each pair.

Then there is the question of which is better, the 8800GTS 640, or the 8800GTS 512.

So now we are down to two choices. All one has to do is ask, or go online to check a review.
Anyone can use google. But that is really it.

8500GT >
8600GT >
8600GTS >
8800GTS 320 >
8800GTS 640 >
8800GT512 >
8800GTS512 >
9800GTX >
9800GX2

Now, ask which is faster. A HD2900XT or a HD3870 or a 3850? Answer should be fairly simple and the HD3870 and HD 3850 should mop the floor with a 2900XT, but it doesn't.
But their numbers are higher?

The only thing Nvidia should have done was to call the 8800GT a 8900GT, and a 8800GTS a 8900GTS. Two cards.

 

[Greenman]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003

Originally posted by: tuteja1986
err i have owned many ATI and Nvidia video cards and none of them have burned out. You must have really bad luck or a really bad power supply or your case has really bad air flow control.

I currently own a 3870 and its really reliable and stable card.

I never had a card burn out on me either, but it does happen.

OP, have you had the same computer for the last four ATI cards (including the 3870) ?

3 cards burning out is actually quite a high ratio for one person.

The same case for sure, an Antec P160, at least two different power supplies, and the same motherboard. The PSU I have now is a 450 watt Antec.
The first card to die was an X800 AGP, the second was an X1950 Pci-e that started artifacting within a week, the third was the warranty replacement X1950. I don't recall how long ago I got the second 1950, at least a year, perhaps longer.

 

[jaqie]

Marketing. As in "Look out, don't step in the marketing!".

 

[v8envy]

FWIW, many X1800/X1900s died heat related deaths once warmer temperatures rolled around, mostly at around a year.

As keys pointed out, product numbers are confusing all over. Is a HD2600Pro faster than a X1650Pro? X1950Pro? How about X1650XT? How does an HD3450 stack up against an X800 or 9800? Is it worth $300 to get 512 megabytes on an 9800 level Nvidia product when I have card with a 9800 jiggyhertz CPU with 256 meg from ATI already? This 8600GT is 2/3 the price of an 8800GT, seems like a good deal for such a small model number bump. And so on.

The whole point of product marketing is to confuse the user into spending more money than they should or at least into buying a higher profit margin product. Had you asked the NV fans for a recommendation rather than a relative merit discussion across the entire product family you'd probably have wound up with a better bang for buck card.

 

[thilanliyan]

Originally posted by: v8envy
As keys pointed out, product numbers are confusing all over. Is a HD2600Pro faster than a X1650Pro? X1950Pro? How about X1650XT? How does an HD3450 stack up against an X800 or 9800? Is it worth $300 to get 512 megabytes on an 9800 level Nvidia product when I have card with a 9800 jiggyhertz CPU with 256 meg from ATI already? This 8600GT is 2/3 the price of an 8800GT, seems like a good deal for such a small model number bump. And so on.

I think the OP was at the store and was looking at the actual cards. As it stands all those 8800s and 9800s are actually in the store so it can be confusing. Meanwhile most of those ATI cards you mentioned probably aren't even being sold anymore (except usually at online stores) so most of the time you would see just the 3XXX series.

I agree that even ATIs naming scheme is confusing IF you take a look at all the cards in like the last 3-5years...however, the naming scheme on nVidia's cards from just the last 1-1.5 years is very similar.

 

[v8envy]

Originally posted by: thilan29


I think the OP was at the store and was looking at the actual cards. As it stands all those 8800s and 9800s are actually in the store so it can be confusing. Meanwhile most of those ATI cards you mentioned probably aren't even being sold anymore (except usually at online stores) so most of the time you would see just the 3XXX series.

Been to Best Buy or Circuit City's hardware section? They've got a veritable hardware museum thing going on. Maybe with a few clearance sales it's improved, but last I checked they've got X1550s sitting on the shelves right next to 2600Pros next to HD3870s. That's 3 generations of parts just for ATI! And with a sale on HD3870s in progress, all 3 of those cards are at the same ballpark price ($180-200). NV was nicely represented with 7600, 8600 as well as 8800 in G80 and G92 flavors.

The problem is too many SKUs released in the past 3 or 4 years from both camps. The less popular hardware (X1550 for $180 and 8600GT for $250) doesn't move quite so quickly, so you get cards from 3 years ago still marked at MSRP sitting next to brand new ones. Thusly creating confusion.

The whole 9800GTX being slower than an 8800 Ultra thing is already resolved by discontinuing the Ultra. Also, the 320/640 mb 8800 GTS cards should be gone from the shelves eventually.

 

[krnmastersgt]

That would be a bit confusing/scary for an average consumer wouldn't it? Assuming that the higher the number the better the card, then having someone with experience or knowledge of the cards telling them that 8800 is roughly the same as 9800, but at a much lower price. Most people go with higher price = better product once they're in a store, I'm considering working at Fry's part time and if I do hopefully in the video card section I'd love to undo all the things marketing people are paid to do.

 

[tcsenter]

Model numbers are grouped (and priced) within the same GPU core/generation and have no hierarchical significance between generations except for being newer. e.g.

NV30 ~ NV38 = GeForce FX 5 Series (5200<5500<5600<5700<5900)

NV40 ~ NV44 = GeForce 6 Series (6200<6600<6800)

G70 ~ G73 = GeForce 7 Series (7200<7300<7600<7800<7900)

GeForce 8 Series mucked this up a bit with G92 but this is an exception. For ATI, Radeon HD 2xxx model numbers have no relevance to HD 3xxx - different generations - neither of which are relevant to 1xxx, so on and so forth.

You can usually make reliable comparisons by sticking to similar board configurations within the same generation; e.g. 128-bit v. 128-bit memory, not 64-bit vs. 128-bit memory. There are some oddball exceptions here and there, but for the most part that is how it works.

What is the alternative, sticking a DX10.1/SM4.0 part in between some older DX9.0/SM2.0 models that may not even be produced anymore, based strictly on gaming performance? And which games or benchmarks do you use to make that decision? What if the new part isn't a strong gaming part but is vastly superior in video decoding and display support? There is more to a GPU than frames rates (that vary wildly from application to application).

Its muddled, yes, but you will be miles ahead by remembering that 7xxx is only intended to be relevant within 7xxx. It will take much more effort than looking at the box to find out how 7xxx compares to 8xxx.