Nvidia needs to simplify GeForce range
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
Comments
New naming scheme
They should go for a new naming scheme that really makes it easy for everyone to understand.8400 = C.R.A.P
8600 = G.O.O.D.Value
8880GT = V.G.O.O.D
9800 GX2 = U.R.N.O.W.P.O.O.R
Prefixes
GT, GS, etc. are suffixes not prefixes. Prefix would be GT8800.It Would Be Better
If nVidia did something like this on the actual box for the adverage consumer put the full series name and then card number.Geforce Series 7 - 7600
GeForce Series 8 - 8600
From that they could say well Series 8 is better than Series 7. Unless that adverage consumer thinks it's a TV show hmmmm Series 8 better than 7 but series 4 was the bomb..... You know where I'm going with this.
Well...
... you sort of shoot yourself in the foot there a bit with the BMW example. :) You state that they used a BMW style system for the model numbers, and yet state that a 7800 being faster than an 8400 makes no sense.With a BMW it would, either because we a: know anyway or can b: ask someone, but not because BMWs model numbers are simple and denote engine capacity as you state. For example, a *35i isn't a 3500cc engine, but is a 3000cc engine with turbocharging, for example. Pretty much exactly the same as having the **50 range of cards I guess?
So just as we know that with regards BMWs, most people know that with NVs cards... but for those that don't, it would be as simple as some basic education on how it works.
I do agree though that with the letters on the end of card names things are frolicking around in the silly pond a little too much... but then... 318i... 318is... 530td... 530tds...
My God! Nvidia IS BMW!
Nicely figured out, in an accidental kind of way :)
A challenge?
Oh, come on! It's not that complicated... Maybe, if they just decided on a naming scheme and ******* STUCK to it, things would be simpler.I mean, it used to be like this with the — otherwise meaningless — prefixes :
GS < GT < GTS < GTX < Ultra
Sure, it's neither simple nor obvious, but it's understandable. Now, with the 8800 series, we've got this :
GS < GTS 320 < GTS 640 < GT < < GTX < GTS 512 < Ultra
Except, as you increase the resolution and the anti-aliasing, you get :
8800 GTS 512 < 9800 GTX < 8800 GTX < 8800 Ultra
Of course noone understands anything, IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE!
BMWs
Why is the fact that a 7800 can be more powerful than an 8400 nonsensical? Did you know a BMW 540 is more powerful than a 730?You can't create a model numbering system that satisfies both nerds and dummies at the same time, so I'd suggest Nvidia carry on as they are.
The only numbering scheme which makes perfect sense to all consumers (including the majority of BMW owners) is the price tag.
Cheers.
They don't even know it themselves
lol, I went to Nv's emeai marketing meeting of death last year and most of the people don't even understand naming conventions themselves.luckily, I don't work there anymore.
lol
Hehe, good one Chris :)about the naming schemes, i have no problems with the current one...so that makes me a kinda of a geek :P
Poor grammer
I'd say if it comes after the word, then it's a suffix. So GS et al should either come before the number, or be called suffixes.Follow by example
DAAMIT has got it right with it's range nice and simple done away with the 5 million suffixes.Video Cards
Nvidia and ATI/AMD have both gone the way of street fighter 2.Next one of them'll have something
with "Super Turbo Championship Edition 5
New Fighters Deluxe 3 Incorporated LTD" after it or some crap.
Also, why do they even sell the low-end models?
They support all this new eye candy,
but they're not even fast enough to run any of it.
A fool and his money are soon parted
If the buyer isn't researching his video card purchase, then he's probably not in any position to tell the difference. So let the people who care read the reviews and analyze the benchmarks, and for everyone else: who cares?mixed bag.
I think that whilst some people here have made a reasonable point that things like a new 335i are infact a 3 litre with a turbo on it are true, what they are missing is one major thing.a 330i performs like you would expect, and a 335i also performs as you would expect.
You start selling a 8450gs and nobody knows what you selling. Its performance jsut isnt as predicatable as an engine capacity, so copying bmw's naming convention just won't work.
i thought gs for ages was AGP cards!!
you also have to remember that bmw have stuck to their naming convention rigidly.
where you have nvidia producing the same "car" with multiple names, some are cut down versions (x5>x3), and the 8800gt, then its a 9600gt, but no thats a different chip, and then they make a dual engine card, but slower clocks, it all gets stupidly confusing.
bmw have a subset of names, e30 (the best sorry), e36, e46, e90 and what not, that even 90% of their customer know about.
so you have about 5>6 generations of 325i, and everybody knows the difference.
cars are easier to relate to for the majority of people. Mind you the eu have done a good job of cocking things up wiuth psi now being quoted by some for engine output, and hp by others, then we 0>62 and 0>60!!!
Both geeks and noobs CAN be satisfied...
...The naming scheme just needs to be "turned around", i.e. put the "series" on the end and "power" in front.The 8800, 8600 and 8400 would then become 8080, 6080 and 4080 (I'm allowing for half-numbers like 8580 here...), while the next series would be 8090, 6090 and 4090.
Of course this system wouldn't satisfy the marketing department as they would fear that an improvement of only "10 unit" (from 8080 to 8090) wouldn't seem obvious enough on a product shelf.
ATI
I can understand the NVidia ones fine. Its the ATI cards that I have real trouble understanding :( At least from what I can see, NVida has some sort of logic behind its numbering.more letters than numbers
I'm thinking the naming schieme could simplified by having the names focus on the series and type (target market).Kind of like the older codes leaked out that nVidia used before, 9600GT was said to be known as D9M while the upcoming 9900GTX is said to be D9E. So why not just call 9900GTX a "GeForce D9E"?
Just teach people that E is for enthusiast, P for performance, M for mainstream, and V for value. keep it simple and to the point.
Like someone else mentioned, if you're not willing to take the time to research this, you're in no position to purchase them. But, it's their money and their perogative. All we can hope is that they learn.
cuda get an answer to this
What I want to know is, will they be releasing any dedicated physics cards, and if not then how comparable is the sw version of the physics card going to be, when incorporated onto the graphics cards, with what would otherwise have been a hw physics card?It looks like given the specs of the todays graphics cards they won't have too much trouble incorporating the equiv. of the (existing) hw physics cards onto them - but I want to know exactly what the plans are. Might we be seeing say, a dual card with one two-GPU graphics, and the second card as a physics card? Just curious. In a good way, not in a 'tell me so I can ruin it before it happens' kind of way.