nVidia playing silly buggers with names again [Archive]

divine

04-03-2009, 16:49

What's that you see appeared at various shop fronts?

The GTS250? That sounds good, I might upgrade from my 9800, should be pretty nice. Oh wait, what's that? It's the same card? tut tut.

As if it wasn't bad enough that they're now effectively selling the 8800 under a third name, they're seemingly refusing to send review samples to places that dare mention this fact.

http://www.bit-tech.net/blog/2009/03/03/where-is-bit-tech-s-geforce-gts-250-review/

Makes fairly interesting reading.

Briggykins

04-03-2009, 16:53

As a member of the PC Gaming Alliance, surely nVidia must have realised (or been told) that all this messing about with names just turns people off PCs and eventually will hit their profits. I love PC gaming and buy everything on the PC if I can, but this kind of stuff just annoys me and it must confuse the hell out of the average consumer (it certainly confuses me). What was wrong with the GeForce 1, 2 etc progression?

(Can't say ATI are blamesless either tho, looking at their naming convention (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon#Radeon_Card_Brands))

Garp

04-03-2009, 19:21

I came across this the other day and started seeing red. I'd seen a pretty decent priced Gateway system but didn't recognise the GPU in it a "GT120" After a fair bit of digging around I discovered that's a 9500GT.
So we are seeing 9x00 series boards branded as both 1xx and 2xx? Whatever happened to the idea of the first number defining the generation of hardware in it?

iCraig

04-03-2009, 19:28

I used to be able to logically tell the tiered performance of the cards. A 9800 would beat a 9600 for example. But now, I have to consult Toms Hardware to actually see, in real world terms, what cards are better than others. Buying PC hardware is already a minefield for the average consumer, now you really do need to do your homework more than ever, to avoid getting ripped off.

divine

04-03-2009, 19:29

Most of the 9 series is just a rebrand.

In fact, I think the only cards in it that aren't are the 9600GT and 9500 down.

The 9600GSO is a rebranded 8800GS (that over doubled in price with its rebrand) and the 9800s are all 8800s.

Now seemingly they are rebranding some again.

What is worst, is that the 'new' cards always seem to be more expensive, rather than cheaper. So not only might some people be duped into a pointless upgrade, they might even be paying over the odds to do so.

I think at the moment, nVidia just can't keep pace with ATi's developments. Their new 40nm process isn't getting good yields I don't think and they've only managed the stupidly high end GTX series as any sort of new tech at all.

Garp

04-03-2009, 19:36

I wonder.. would my 8800GTS SLI nicely with one of the rebranded ones or would it be seen as too different a chip?

divine

04-03-2009, 19:45

I wondered a similar thing with my 8800GS and a 9600GSO but I was told not, as the BIOS is different. Would also depend on what GTS you had, as the 320/640 ones were rubbish compared to the 512 ones but were also entirely incompatible from an SLI POV.

To be fair, I wouldn't bother with SLI anyway, it's usually more cost effective and less hassle to just buy a faster single card as then you don't have to worry about ensuring nVidia provide support for specific games etc.

Zirax

04-03-2009, 19:57

Those are my thoughts with Nvidia SLI as well. IIRC ATI SLI is meant to work better (non matched cards) and scales more. This was a while back so things could have changed.

It really is getting silly with the Nvidia cards and their renaming. It pains me to think of people shelling out for the safe gfx card as me (8800GTS) and paying more almost 1.5 years after I brought it. It is still holding up well though, haven't really found anything that I couldn't play at a decent res and detail yet. With the trend for console ports at the moment I can't see this changing either.

I always went through reviews though, mainly to check who was ahead in ATI vs Nvidia war and get the winning card.

edit:- Just had a quick look on Wikipedia. The G82 core 8800's came out November 2006, the G90's were Nov 2007.

divine

04-03-2009, 20:13

The core that keeps getting reused is the G92, which is now present in:
(clock speeds are core / shader / memory)

8800GS
550 1375 1600

8800GT
600 1500 1800

8800GTS-512
650 1625 1940

9600GSO
550 1375 1600

9800GT
600 1500 1800

9800GTX
675 1688 2200

9800GTX+
738 1836 2200

GTS240
600 1500 1800

GTS250
738 1836 2200

A Place of Light

04-03-2009, 20:28

I recently bought an 8800.
You just never know when it's the right time to buy, lol.

Garp

04-03-2009, 20:55

I recently bought an 8800.
You just never know when it's the right time to buy, lol.

If you look at `devine's list you'll notice you've bought the same chipset as in the most of their graphics cards, and I'll bet you paid less for it than one of those rebrands.

Mark

04-03-2009, 21:02

Sounds a bit like the Intel P4 rebrand, only much worse. Shocking.

So, we've now had from nVidia:

Faulty thermal design on laptop chips.
Withdrawing support for older chips without good reason (the newer drivers still worked with a fairly trivial hack).
Spurious rebrands, just as an excuse to bump up the price and confuse everyone.
So, who wants to buy nVidia hardware now? :dunno:

A Place of Light

04-03-2009, 21:06

If you look at `devine's list you'll notice you've bought the same chipset as in the most of their graphics cards, and I'll bet you paid less for it than one of those rebrands.

I knew it was almost exactly the same card as the 9800GT, so as I don't game much these days it seemed like a good bet. Bought it second hand on the bay of E for £70 or so.

Streeteh

04-03-2009, 21:52

So, who wants to buy nVidia hardware now? :dunno:

You forgot to add the fact that they've pissed off both Microsoft and Sony with the way they behaved when manufacturing GPUs for their consoles. Combine that with the items you listed and they've alienated both the PC market and the majority of console manufacturers.

So, with that said, i would wager nobody wants to buy from them.

divine

04-03-2009, 21:56

So, with that said, i would wager nobody wants to buy from them.

Apple seem happy to buy stuff from them. Apple were happy enough with PowerPC though until recently so... ;)

Garp

04-03-2009, 21:57

Mark

04-03-2009, 22:00

Indeed. I got a 7300GS for my Linux box when I rebuilt it 18 months ago for three reasons - 'just working' drivers, passivly cooled, and none of that 'virtual' RAM nonsense.

mok`

05-03-2009, 00:14

Unfortunately I need to stick with nVidia for Linux support and CUDA (for my BOINCing).

Thing is, I bought 2 8800GT's for around oooh, £50 each from the OC of UK about 9 months ago, now similarly-specced cards are selling for about £80 new and about £60-£70 second-hand. First time ever Ive had hardware (particularly gfx cards) actually increase in value over time!

Mark

05-03-2009, 01:12

Unfortunately I need to stick with nVidia for Linux support and CUDA (for my BOINCing).
MilkyWay@home has an ATI client in development (http://milkyway.cs.rpi.edu/milkyway/forum_thread.php?id=589) if you're into such things (credit to br83taylor on OcUK for pointing this out).

Garp

05-03-2009, 05:46

I'm hoping OpenCL will continue to gain prominence and maybe make it's appearance in various forms like the @home projects.

Flibster

05-03-2009, 11:39

I do, for one reason only these days. Their Linux drivers "just work".
I've had so many frustrations with ATI drivers under linux that it's never been something I've particularly wanted to subject myself to again.

I've always found it to be the reverse for windows. ATI work, nVidia - have to change drivers to play different games...

Only got 1 nVidia card now - thats in my laptop. I'd prefer ATI as that accelerates video correctly, but I didn't have an option for ATI.