Chef

But then again the early adopters could be subsidizing the cards for the rest of us, and the massive price drops on older models is just a consequence of that.

Scuba Steve

Crysis would probably be SPLEEN60 or something, but that's beside the point.

man in gauze is king ramses II, silly.

The letters are only meaningful to those who have researched the cards ahead of time.

a 8800GS becomes the 8801
the 8800GT becomes the 8804
the 8800GTS becomes the 8805
the 8800GTX becomes the 8809

string_theory

I think that although the analogy is far from perfect, it's a decent way of looking at it.

Grive

shufflemoomin

They do realize that they will lose profits for a long time if they simplify the route. There is nothing to avoid it.

Just make one flagship entree, one flagship mid, and one flagship elite.

Once the mass consumers can easily pick apart the difference of the three-tiered levels, then your mission is accomplished. Just expect to lose money during the mass market phase.

Fyren

Don't fuck with the PC! Please?! Please?!

Strangelove

There are chart comparisons on the back of the boxes but that won't help with cards not on it's list.
Watch someones eyes cross when you tell them that unless you need dx10 then a high end 7 series will kill a low end 8 series or that the 512mb 8800gts is faster than the 640mb 8800gts lol.

Maybe they should stop jumping around and playing the gt,gts,gtx game. just keep to number in a series. 8100,8200,8300 ect. It may not seem as cool but works better.

I'm lucky if a video card last me 2 years.. That why my 7950 GX2 is in a box and a 9800 GX2 is taking up a bunch of space in my case..

Dr.H

Godzilla-Sushi

the next time I ask someone what operating system their using and they respond "do what now?", I'll freak.

kathartik

Fert

With my friends who don't know anything about buying computer hardware, I liken building a computer to buying a car: do you wander into a car dealership knowing next to nothing about what you want? Do you go to a car salesman and say, "I want something fast"? If you do, prepare to get bilked.

If you're going to spend a decent amount of money on something, you should take the time to do some research first. If you don't, you deserve what you get. Those guys at Best Buy will "give you something fast" alright, and it might not even be the best or the fastest card available, but rather something they're trying to get rid of.

Yeah, you can go to some place like Dell and buy a "gaming computer" and probably get something decent (but not great), because Dell has a rep to uphold, so they wont completely screw you (in theory). But if you want the best bang for your buck, and if you want to be sure you're getting exactly what you want, then you NEED to research first, just as you would research cars and car manufacturers before making a purchase.

A little time now can save you a lot of heartache (or fist shaking) later.

Madoc

I do suck at knowing which is the best graphics card, I'd assume a 7900 is worse than an 8800 but if you get the best 7900 that'd beat a weaker 8400 wouldn't it? Stuff like that is what confuses me, when they release a few versions of there cards and I don't knw which is the best or how much weaker they are than the others. Because half the time they use different things to describe the stats (some mention stats others don't) it can be hard to see which is better online sometimes too.

Llost

DorkimusPrime

Blah8

I really don't see the point of changing names to garner better sales. If people don't know the differences, then they're probably just looking at the price.

boopadoo

I think I've heard some pretty good things about the 8600s and the 9600s.

Maltose

Quicksilver4648

Sandbox_Emperor

berribrand

So, my proposal:
Target- Gaming, design... clearly stated
Chip family- The higher, the better (9, 8), or the year of the family release
Chip sublayer- Again, higher, better (400, 600, 800)
A simple quality indicator- High, Medium, Low (H, M, L, if they love being cryptic that much)
And the RAM.

AND NO MORE GTXXWZ2 SHIT, PLEASE.

So:
GeForce 8800GTX 768= nVidia Play '073 High 768MiB
GeForce 8600GT 256= nVidia Crap '071 Medium 256MiB

Uff, too complex. It'd be better if they just released less crappy cards that only serve to mess the naming scheme.

EloraHRanma

Meh. I buy a "pretty decent" (about 3/4 up the totem?) card every several years and it works well enough for games that aren't unplayably DRM'ed.

fuchikoma

Change the naming system stupid. Either that, or make next-gen entry-level cards match last-gen high end (7600GT should match 6800GT, 8600GT should match 7800GT but with DX10, 9600 should match 8800GTS, etc). Otherwise, next-gen cards aren't really stepping the mid-range up, are they? No wonder there hasn't been a comparitively decent-performing _600 card in successive generations since the 6600GT.

CZroe

I had a 6800 Ultra and (stupidly) purchased a PNY card that broke down in two years. When it had to be replaced... I had to be very careful since many of the cards in the 7xxx range were in fact FAR inferior to my old card. A more sensible way of telling them apart by the name is needed.

I don't have the slightest clue what's up with ATI either. Many of their HD blah blah blah cards were inferior to my old 6800 Ultra also.

Zunnoab

1. Will it play the games I want?
2. How much?
3. Why shouldn't I just get a console?

That third question is probably the toughest to answer for them.

Quilt

Look no further! Just get a console:p

In all honesty though, Nvidia trying to dumb down their naming scheme doesn't help the consumer too much. I mean, the gpu isn't the only component in a computer.

The motherboard, the cpu, pc casings, ram, etc. all share confusing naming schemes. In order to help the average consumer, the whole industry needs a standardized naming system where the consumer wouldn't get confused.

Xurreal

cybereality

1) it to work

2) to get what is shown on the box

With many modern games, if you have an "average computer," you'll get neither.

HAGE

Solid_hedgehog

zibby

Moonshadow101

TwilightKing

Wookiee1

From what it looks like to me nVidia is trying to expand their market to the average consumer to increase profitiability but really the people who buy this stuff are well educated and experienced with computers. You can't really expand appeal a whole lot with products like that.

fenderfuel08

BigDanG

Ajh

"Well I got a 9800GTX"
"Yah but a 8700XFXGTXCX is just as good!"
"well my 9900CTXGX beats all of yours!"
"My 9800GS is only as good as a 6800GTX!"

See what I mean? It pisses me off. Maybe that's why people don't like to keep spending money on upgrading their computers and resort to consoles. At least everything RUNS and you only pay $50 for a new game.

SubKamran

Wolfers

Today's high-performance cards are far from energy-efficient. A lot of work was put in making the cards more powerful, to the expense of everything. Now that we have the power, can we have the efficiency?

I may be wrong, but there seems to be a general consensus in the press that great improvements are possible - and necessary - in those fields (heat, energy consumption, size). Get crackin', Nvidia.

Antiterra

tetracycloide

TheGreySpectre

Perhaps also assigning a value to the cards in the same way how the average consumer is sold a PC on GHz and cores... except a value that actually means something. :p

Jekht

They are talking about gamers, or future gamers that want to upgrade their video card to play games on their PC's. It's obvious that the naming schemes on these products are confusing. The specs can be confusing. I am not saying that they will be successful in streamlining the purchase and install of GPU's. I am saying that this is what Nvidia is wanting to try.

homernoy

See, I have seen hundereds of posts on various forums where such people will state, often with some hostility, that Card such-and-such is "utter crap". Where as what they really mean is that the card didnt cost $99999999, and doesnt play Crysis on Very High at 100fps.

for the average user, a regular, even mainstream or entry level card will suit them fine, they arent bothered about maxing out games, but rather just playing them. And yes, whoever mentioned the metaphor about the cars was right. A lot of people think just becuase new series of graphics cards are released, that they HAVE to get it and all other cards are rendered obsolete.

I welcome a new noob-friendly approach however, but like I said, the problem is more about other peoples (fanboys, lets face it) attitudes to PC hardware. Think about it, if you were a noob to PC gaming and you bought a fairly decent graphics card, but then everyone online was like "omg that card is TERRIBLE you suck that card wont play ANYTHING seriously upgrade t3h l335 haxx", its gonna put them off big time.

Myself, I dont own a fantastic ultra high spec graphics card, although my processor and memory etc are pretty good. However, for the time being I can play all the games I want to perfectly well, and at the end of the day, thats all real gamers want.

TezChi

You have to use one of the benefits of the consoles (known hardware platform), and leverage that into the PC world. If this doesn't happen, just forget about it. PC gaming will forever stay with enthusiasts.

dbc

That's the name of the top selling graphics card on newegg right now. This is what the average consumer sees:

ADIF B983NFI/SIO93MM30O E023K9R2NT-0 LAHKDIFK IDFI29829N 324902-MQMF02 1-19ENI 3092NMGMMKSLOID 9N3I JEKD KKDKI - Retail
199.99

All they see is the price, and wonder it $200 is a good or bad buy. Is two hundred a high-end price, a low-end price, or a mid-level price? They don't know. They also don't if this particular card is under priced or overpriced. And Best Buy, Circuit City, and such aren't going to help the consumer make the right decision, they're going to help the consumer make the most profitable decision for the store.

NVIDIA needs to work with EVGA and others to start producing easy-to-understand names and product titles for new gamers or risk marginalizing all but the enthusiast niche.

Lixie

:|

:(

Works for me.

Krondonian

Tiber

I agree with this. Putting High end,mid range or low end would be good and the year and month is pretty crucial too. Or put PLATINUM, GOLD, SILVER so this way it doesnt look like the bottom end card is complete crap. Then when the newer cards come out they can put BRONZE, WOOD, PLASTIC to show how old they are :)

ichiban1081

PC games, to be played as they are ment to be played, require conastaintly upgrading your GPU and often your CPU and RAM to stay ahead of the game. I'd peg it at at least $200 a year in upgrades if you want to be sure.

A console, on the other hand, you pay $250-499 for, and it's going to play everything as the developer designed it for it's entire lifespan.

As for the main topic? Yes, its a very, VERY confusing market, for a few reasons:

1. Series names are confusing. Your average person has no idea whats different between a 8800gt, gts, and gtx. Toss in the 8600 and 8200 series, and assicated letters, and your looking at a mess.

2. Even if they do now the difference, the individual card makers don't always list their cards spec's on the box. So you might know you need a 8800gt, but how do you know if you need evga, bfg, XFX, etc's version?

mrantimatter

karateka

Casual and PC do not go together at all. One day maybe, but they are not user friendly in any way shape or form. You can't purchase a pc and expect it to run on your system. You need to know far too much to even begin to say the word casual. i just don't know about this "new" Idea. I have seen other pc Hardware/Software companies try to do this before. It has only failed as you can see today by the poor pc game sales, and the confusion over pc gaming. From working in a games shop most people think that is they have "XP" it will work on their pc...

GOD

madbassman39

Eville1

Eville1

MSUSteve

..And I don't play games for social status. That's almost the antithesis of game playing if society is to be believed :p.

Eville1

It sounds like you don't even buy PC parts so why are you saying you need to upgrade constantly when you obviously don't PC game. And please tell me what all the "OMG SUPER GFX!" games are.

Clarke

Plus the graphics cards companies have been preying on the moderately educated buyer for years with dodgy low-end cards stuffed with 1GB of RAM to make them sound fantastic when even 256MB of RAM would be too much for such an underpowered card.

I think nVidia would be far better off spending their cash on making an equivalent "Intel Inside" campaign for their graphics cards. They already have the TWIMTBP scheme, which seems to be working well with its deliberate shafting of certain titles when they run better on ATI hardware (*cough* Assasin's Creed Direct X 10.1 support *cough*). They should focus on making sure consumers know to ask for nVidia hardware in their systems when they're in their local PC World.

It's got to be a pretty tough outlook for nVidia: AMD has ATI and next year Intel will have their own graphics solution (Larrabee), leaving nVidia making cards for companies who have a direct stake in the graphics market. They could well find themselves getting the cold shoulder and x86 licences are extremely hard to come by, so making their own CPU isn't on the cards either.

photoboy

So far, out of doing quite a bit of comparisons online, you're down to having price as a measure of performance - and you then might have to compare across brands and shops, and maybe bonuses and secondary specs change a card's price.

It's simply a matter of making it easier for the consumer to know exactly which card is right for them.

@Eville1: But you might consider the improvements in function and social status that usually come with a newer vehicle. You don't *need* a brand-new card every couple years if you invested in a decent one (if you got the $50 one, well...), but it does help quite a bit.

Grive

daschupa

Demaar

I'm with you, the latest and greatest card is always around 500 bucks, then the one you should buy is always about 300 or so (depending on brand blah blah blah. BFG lifetime warranty ftw in my opinion). With a new card every 6 months, thats atleast 6 products a year... ATLEAST. Please stop! Just make a hardware revision to that years line and keep the same names, most of the dmaned time its the same freakin card anyways just over clocked more.

Derigor

sander_dutch

Radeon 9800pro, no problem Radeon IX8750NT pro all in wonder 512 crossfire

ahh my fabled 9800pro, my favorite and last ATI card unless ATI really does something impressive.

WTF!?! Roman numerals now?? Yea...... I went back to nvidia after that. Course I remember when nvidia said "shit lets name our cards to match ati's so people can compare em and think oh shit this has a bigger number its better!"

Derigor

I meant to say that they should come up with 1 range of product per year, tops with perhaps 3 categories.

Something along the line of

'NVIDIA 10 Casual'
'NVIDIA 10 ADVANCED'
'NVIDIA 10 PRO'

Can't go wrong and that's simple enough. more than say, Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX.

interstate78

my bad. I really don't give a flying fuck anymore. As long as it plays the games and there's no compatibility issues I'm alright.

interstate78

Eville1

My usual way of knowing how good a card is is by how much it costs, haha! a 250-300$ present time card will always run anything maxed out or almost.

It's true that they need to simplify their line of products but I'm guessing the only way they can do this is by actually making LESS cards.

Maybe 1 line per year, with 3 categories: casual, advanced and expert.

I could definitely see a card called

NVIDIA 10: casual.

You can't go wrong with something that simple.

Nvidia Geforce 8600 ST ? not so much.

interstate78

homernoy

Rebochan

Heyyou27

Scorpi

I have to get back up to speed every 2 years when I upgrade my card.

Say hello to the:
- NVIDIA IRunCrysisAtMedium GT
- NVIDIA IRunCrysisAtHigh GTX
- NVIDIA YoullBePlayingSolitaire XT

Woodwater

GOD

It took me three purchases to finally get what I wanted. I ended up getting the top of the line card, but not before trying and (luckily) returning two slower/cheaper cards. I thought I had read up on the subject, but I guess when playing real world games, you had better be safe than sorry.

Maybe the kiosk idea isn't bad. Have three. One high end GPU, one middle of the road, and one low end. Try Vista Aero, games etc.. for yourself, and actually see what you get for your money.

homernoy

Anyway... Thank god they are doing this with the whole 8800GTS 512mb thing... and then the renaming of the 8800gts 512mb to the 9800gtx good god they botched the naming system real good.

DaFox

In reality it is pretty confusing:
8800GT, 8800GTS, 8800GTX, 8800Ultra, and all the 512-1024 etc.. I really think dumbing it down still may not help. The people who needs it dumbed down most likely should buy apple computers. PC computers are mainly for the enthusiasts who grasp the concept of computer hardware. If not just shell out for the top of the line alienware/dell/etc.

But anyways kudos to nvidia for trying to target middle america.

Seventh

Otherwise users would still need to do the research to find out basic things like if your power supply has enough juice to run the card.

greyhoundbus

More consumer-friendliness is always appreciated, though I have no problems with the current system.

ShirtGuyDom

I think they will have a better time in about a year when they have to redo their entire naming scheme, ie 10800GTX is kinda long. I look forward to this and am very interested in where they go with it.

BTW, get an 8800gt, still one of the best values around. 9600gt is less powerful even though it is a "9 series," thus showing an example of confusion.

Chewbenator

JustJake

KirbySS

xbulletholes

Seriously, remember when there were only two options. the Geforce 2 or the Geforce 2 Ultra.

Please return to that time.

Wtf happened. Why do I need to know that my card is a 8800gt, when you (nvidia) just calls it an 8 series.

Just make a Lite, a normal, and an ultra. I dont need a normal a gt, a gts, a gtx. Please go back to our old original nominclature. Also you might want to stop producing so many different cards in the same series when there is little to no difference between them like oyu friggin used to.

Everyone knows they should just buy a (or a couple) of 8800gt's anyways. Make that model the standard. Make the GTX the Ultra for insano people and drop all the rest... what was the budget one? the MX? yea call it what it is, Lite.

I see a wall with about 50 different versions of an 8 series card, it get's overwhelming. When I know wtf card is which and the 65 year old indian salesman at Fry's hands me a 8600gts when I ask for an 8800gt, things are getting out of hand.

Derigor

Good to hear though, since my brother just got The Orange Box as a gift, and I don't really have all the time to help him with his own gaming PC.

Truvill

Look at it this way. A car manufacturer comes out with a new model, but do you really need to trade in your old car for a new one?

My friend has a card from 2002 and can still run some of the latest games. Sure it's not the best but is good for a 6 year old card. And last time I looked consoles run on that same life cycle.

Clarke

At least that way you know you're not buying something from 2005.

The_Foo

sargemat

cdammers

This can only be good for consumers.

NerD!!!

Xerxes3rd

Only if they integrate more than just graphics cards into a solution. While I wouldn't mind seeing a pc revival I think the biggest issue is the constant stream of upgrades you have to spend your money on. I don't believe that will ever go away either.

Eville1

Lokno

will

dsmx

kingclip

DigitalHero