Nvidia needs to simplify GeForce range
8 May 2008 | 06:39 BST
Admits people just don't get it
IN A STARTLING bout of self-awareness, Nvidia has conceded that its range of products is too complicated for most customers to understand.
"It's a challenge that we're looking at right now," said Roy 'The Boy' Taylor, VP of Content Business Development at Graphzilla, talking to GI.biz. "There is a need to simplify it for consumers, there's no question... we think that the people who understand and know GeForce today, they're OK with it - they understand it. But if we're going to widen our appeal, there's no doubt that we have to solve that problem."
It rather goes without saying that hardware geeks are absolutely fine with the bewildering array of products. Most gamers can even grasp model numbers, even in the wider market - it's fairly easy to see that 8800 is better than 8600 which is better than 8400.
Nvidia originally conceived its current naming scheme to launch alongside the 5800 and envisaged it being like a BMW moniker - 3 series, 5 series and such.
The complications come when you add in the various meaningless prefixes - GS, GT, GTX, GE; the half numbers (the 8650); and the fact that a 7800 can be more powerful than an 8400 (which makes no sense). BMW keeps things meaningful with engine capacity numbers to differentiate models - these prefixes mean nothing in the real world.
Given that Nvidia so desperately wants to become a big boy chip firm like Intel, expect the revamp of the naming scheme to produce an utterly incomprehensible numerology that can only be understood by scholars of ancient mathematics. Soon. µ
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