How ATI's new numbering works
It makes sense, Intel take note
THE NEW NAMING scheme for ATI cards is about to see the light of day, and frighteningly enough, this one makes sense. What were those product planners thinking?
Theo told you about the names Monday, but how those names come about is interesting. Take the 3870 for example, or to use the full marketspeak, ATI Radeon HD 3870. The first number, 3, denotes the Generation. Why this is different from the 2x00 line I don't know, but from now on, this should advance generationally, whatever that means.
The second number, in this case x8xx, connotes Family, and the last two digits, xx70 is the Variant. 70 is equivalent to XT, 50 is the new name for Pro, and 13 is the card from that company you never heard of with the Englishish manual and no web site. Don't buy the 3813.
When the next gen variants of the 2400 and 2600 come out, expect to see a 3x50 and 3x70, and likely with a few other variants as well.
Last up, there is a card named ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 on the slides that we have seen, with a release date of 'winter'. The non-X2 line has a price listed as $150-250, while the X2 is in the same price point as the 2900XT, or about $400. I guess that would make the X2 two higher end 3870s on a PCB, but that is not specified.
I suppose all of these questions and more will be answered on the 15th. µ
Comments
Amazing
I wish some other video card companies would have done this a long time ago, I can easily understand a 8600 is faster than a 8500 part but I still have no idea if GT or GTS is faster if they are both 8800 parts.Letters become numbers
I personally don't like it. I like to browse a website and rapidly see a big capital letter PRO, XT or XTX it would only be difficult to understand if you don't have too much common sense. I don't like numbers because I have now to look in between numbers instead of looking at fancy letters to the right of the whole thing. I think it may be more easy to understand what's the higher end product, but makes it a little bit difficult(slower) to read.Mexican Gang Plank Falls into Worm Hole!
I am twice as informed & still on same trolly, its 3X70 that takes closer study by "the" Ultie.TS ULTIE IS 3970.Hey_ What Happened to Plain Old 3900?This could be PowerBoost: DOUBLE D' Score. Some BUY it Pure. X2 Got to be Answer. Howabout guessing game at MINUS 101F. COOKING & COOLING By ULTIE_TOM. Somewhow theres unstated Victory at CENTER of this. Perfecting 8/1/6/32, thrusedly to 80 massive intertwined braids,Approaching T minus 6 Months, Scores in Hand, Place Your BETs, its ULTIE TIME.
Signed:PHYSICIAN THOMAS STEWART VON DRASHEK M.D.
scronyms
For that matter what does GT and GTS stand for?Agreed about the S
When I see an "S," I assume a weaker or slower part. Ls and Ss have a nasty taste, and we can probably blame Intel's SX line of the days of yore for that (for those of us who were around when they introduced 3- and 486SX chips). Resorting to a numerical system definitely makes sense, as you say... however, the X2 is going to be irritating *unless* it signifies a single-card X-Fire, SLI, or whatever you want to call your multi-GPU solution.what about PRICE ???
Well its a well appreciated effort, but, the simplest scheme I can think of is the PRICE - the pricier the card, the more performance you'll get, just go with your budget and ask for the newest cards on the market for that price point.8800 GT naming scheme..
The 8800 GT naming is quite ingenious in my book. It's there to tell you by name.. it is a mid ranged part.. it is supposed to be below the GTS and GTX.. BUT! It is as fast as their GTS/GTX.. giving the educated consumer an incredible sense of value. As such, they will sell these cards faster than whitney houston can snort crack.Honestly tho, it's wise of them not to release this as a 9 series since the high end 9 series parts aren't ready yet. Like intel, they normally release the high end part of a new series first before the rest.. I'm guessing for bragging rights. Why break tradition right?
still useless
ATI is still hiding real clock speeds on their products.Numbering
I wrote an article about IT/hardware product numbering a few years back but the problem is, you cannot reliably know if an 8500 is faster than an 8600, as the 3870 is substantially slower than the 2900.gt and gts
currently for the 8800 series... GT is better than all 3 and almost ultra as well.. but wait until the "new" 8800 GTS releases with more shader processes and 256bit instead of 320bit and it gets more confusing but this should beat the GT.anyone who bought an 8800 ultra should be crying.
Nvidia naming
Jim regarding Nvidia..slower -> faster
GS -> GT -> GTS -> GTX -> Ultra
This be from the same generations.. but then.. differences between 8 and lets call it 8 1/2 gen. can add some confusion to the mix.. with the new GT card being sometimes slightly faster than the old GTS card.. its a bit regretful that they just didnt go with 8900 instead of 8800 for these new cards. But then the old GTS will most likley be discontinued when the new version have launched.
For some reason ive always felt Nvidia product lines way easier to follow than the ATi naming.. usually the pricetag is a tell tale sign of a faster card too.
No worries...
QUOTE:"gt and gts
currently for the 8800 series... GT is better than all 3 and almost ultra as well.. but wait until the "new" 8800 GTS releases with more shader processes and 256bit instead of 320bit and it gets more confusing but this should beat the GT.
anyone who bought an 8800 ultra should be crying."
/END QUOTE
First of all, the GT sits in between the GTS640 and the GTX - I don't know how you came up with that theory... :\
When nearly all benchmarks are showing that same result.
Crying...? Why?
They will still be able to play games in extremely high detail/resolution... Sure they're gonna drop a little and the new revision is coming out... but that means if they didn't have there Ultra they would've been missing out on playing games in high detail for however long they've HAD there Ultra for now.... and unless they have the money to throw away on upgrading to the latest and greatest I don't think it bothers them at all hey... I know plenty of people like that, to me it's throwing away money even buying an Ultra when so much of the time you can get a GTX to reach it's speeds. That's just why I don't agree with your comment.
All for it!
I'm all for it.. Actualy, I'm sick and tired of looking for info about 8600 GT to see ones about 8600 GTS or 8800 GT poping up, or anything in between..I'm actualy all for simplicity. Hey, I'd even make it simpler, just name them 1001 for first generation lowest card, than 1002 for next etc.. and adding numbers as they bring out new faster parts. Than as completely new architecture goes out start with 2001.. That would make 2400 PRO a 2001, than XT 2002, than 2600 PRO 2003, XT 2004, 2005 for XT with GDDR4 (don't you hate those same-name-different-specs parts?!?) etc..
And in particular what I hate most are parts like 8800GTS and "new" 8800GTS. How the hell should a buyer know?! Will they write it on a box saying "This is not old slower-than-8800GT; this is new and improved fater-than-8800GT-GTS-model!!" Nope. Was same with x1650PRO if I remember correctly, and renaming new parts to old names and stuff..
So for them, and their marketing, maybe it's good. For people that are all into it and have a choice to enter store, take an employee to take them to their warehouse to hand-pick the product, either by weekly production dates or something else, it doesn't matter much. But for a average Joe it's a low-down tricks and nothing else.
While at it, I'd forbid them to make those 8600 GT's with 1.2ns GDDR3, and 8600 GT with 1.4ns GDDR3 witha same name. Nvidia/ATI(AMD) makes specs. So make 10 models, give them 1005 for 8600 GT 1.4ns, 1006 for 1.3ns, 1007 for 1.2ns.. If you're unsure of the number of variants put 5 numbers space between. You're hardly going to have 999 variants inside same generation of chip architecture...
Well, that's my 2 cents, though I doubt anyone will read this one way or the other :P