Graphics companies need to ease consumer pain

WHAT DO I WANT FOR Christmas? This one is easy, and it came to me in a flash today while thinking up excuses to avoid family obligations. This one has to do with video cards, but not with the usual gripes, faster, cheaper and nominally available. Cards are pretty damn quick nowadays, and for $200, you can get something that is faster and has more RAM than most computers from three years ago.

So, what am I bitching about? In simple terms, I can't figure out what the #*^$# cards are any more. Quick, without looking, what is the memory width on an X800SE? How about the number of pipes on a 6800GTO, you know the OEM version from Dell? I won't get into esoterica like the number of pixel shader units in a high end mid range part vs a low end high range part, that would induce a haemorrhage.

So, what I want for Christmas is simple, each company that puts out a video chip would, in my fantasy world, make a big table with what each chip is. It would simply show clock speed, ram width, ram speed, number of pipes and if applicable, the number of PS and VS units. Since we are dreaming, why not also throw in power consumption and summarily delete pointless marketing babble?

This whole thing would take no more than half a day to create, and you could assign it to any misbehaving intern. It would make life so much easier for everyone from an average consumer wondering what he's bought to an enthusiast trying to figure out mindless esoterica.

Before you point me to a few pages here and there, I looked at ATI and Nvidia's pages for a while, and could only find partial examples of what I was looking for. There was no comprehensive table on either site that I could find, and if it wasn't found in 10 minutes, it is too well hidden to be useful. Nope, I want something in big bold letters, linked from the main page, or maybe in prominent place under the products page.

Wouldn't it be a happy day if this came about? It wouldn't even need to show the competition or be a marketing trick, just a useful source of information when you need it. No hunting down reviews on third rate web sites hoping you can find what you are looking for. No comparing three of these sites to figure out what you could get with one manufacturer made table. Nope, like Santa, it is a mythical hope and dream for those that still can believe. Since world peace looks increasingly out of reach, I think I will try and work on an even more impossible goal. µ