Graphics card model numbering
Graphics cards, nVidia in particular, have a sucky model numbering system.
On the desktop, you have (current 8xxx series) 8800 which comes in Ultra, GTX, and GTS. The 8600′s (and I think the 8500′s too) get GTS and GT.
And in the laptop arena, you have GT and GS for the cards.
Thats five different suffixes for your graphics card to supposively tell you what is the best performance.
Its too bad the 7xxx series had GTX, GT, GS (oh, and I suppose GX2), so throwing in those two extra suffixes certainly helps confuse customers.
It also doesn’t help that usually the difference in a series (ie, 8800) is based on ram amounts and core clock speeds. You overclock the lower rated model, and you effectivly have the higher rated model. Except when you get to the 8600GT and GS. The GS has half the amount of Stream Processors (or the same amount as the 8400 series) as the GT, as well as different clock rates – hardly seems like it fits into the 8600 category at all!
My Proposal: “xyzz”
- x = generation
This is already in place, and although this does lead to confusion, there isn’t much you can do about it. Each generation needs to be clearly defined.
ie, 8yzz is the Geforce 8 series - y = series
Again, this is already in place, but is nessicary. There should, however, been some tougher rules regarding where the realistic performance is.
For example, ATI/AMD’s x1600 got a revision, the x1700. Was it worthy of the generation gap? Hardly, the performance was increased, but the main difference was that it was produced using strained silicon. Each series should be defined by being at least 20% greater performance. - zz = performance within series
Get rid of this Ultra, GTX, GTS, GT, GS crap.
Usually sometime after each series is launched, revisions come along which offer minor performance increases. To cope with that, cap zz at 50 for the first generation. So your 8800GTX (Not Ultra, as it was released afterwards) would become the 8850, GTS would be 8830, GT would be 8820, GS would be 8810, and the Ultra would be the 8860 or 8870 – or something along those lines.
Much easier to follow.
Hey, stealing my complaints and turning it into good ideas…
Idea Thief! :P
Bah, I dont’ see you posting about it, I thought of it first I say!