Is NVIDIA's rebranding strategy helpful?

[3870x2]

Not really good business practice is it. :shadedshu Bad nvidia.
Imagine if something like a car manufacturer did this. Announcing the new... . uh looks the same as the last one!

They may as well just stick with the original name. Either give us something new or dont bother.

/rant over

Actually, it is a good business practice, that is exactly why they do it. I think what you were trying to say is it isn't good integrity.

 

[PVTCaboose1337]

Rebranding just confuses me. It does not help me, it helps NVIDIA think that they are innovative.

 

[LittleLizard]

i dont see a need for new gpus as if u want to play a game at high settings, just grab 2 existent cards and connect them

 

[DrPepper]

i dont see a need for new gpus as if u want to play a game at high settings, just grab 2 existent cards and connect them

Try grabbing two 7800's and see if you can play crysis on dx10 then you will see the need for new gpu's

 

[newtekie1]

That is not the point, no one no matter how little knowledge they have deserves to be duped.

No one that does any research will be duped. Furthermore, no one should be upgrading from a high end card from the privious generation to the mid-range of the current anyway, rebranding or not.

Again, not sure what you are implying here. 4870 competes well with the GTX260 (GT200) & 4850 competes well with the 9800GTX+ (G92). So in a way, RV770 has broader scope of implementation and competes well with Nvidia's latest arch.

I'm not implying anything, I think I pretty much came out and said it. The regular 9800GTX(no +) outperforms the HD4850, and the 9800GX2 outperforms the HD4870. Hardly what I would consdier "crushing".

 

[GPUCafe]

I'm not implying anything, I think I pretty much came out and said it. The regular 9800GTX(no +) outperforms the HD4850, and the 9800GX2 outperforms the HD4870. Hardly what I would consdier "crushing".

Two GPUs against one? I bet then RV770 crushed Nvidia's latest GT200 (4870X2 vs GTX280) Until the GTX295 showed up, a lot of people defended GT200 using the same argument (Its not fair to compare 2 GPUs against 1!!!) and now it is suddenly fair again?

Clearly RV770 was designed from the ground up to a performance GPU (unlike GT200 which is the flagship) but I guess people wont view it that way.

And 4850 and 9800GTX+ trade blows, so it would be slightly ahead of 9800GTX.

 

[Megasty]

I think the rebranding needs to stop. I really don't get it. Before this last war started, they hardly ever did it. Now we have one card with 5 different names. In the end, they'll always have my business but I can't say I'm too pleased with the way they just have to enter an old card in a new series just because the performance of the old card fits the new name.

 

[wolf]

Two GPUs against one? I bet then RV770 crushed Nvidia's latest GT200 (4870X2 vs GTX280) Until the GTX295 showed up, a lot of people defended GT200 using the same argument (Its not fair to compare 2 GPUs against 1!!!) and now it is suddenly fair again?

Clearly RV770 was designed from the ground up to a performance GPU (unlike GT200 which is the flagship) but I guess people wont view it that way.

And 4850 and 9800GTX+ trade blows, so it would be slightly ahead of 9800GTX.

easyest way to compare is price segments, not single vs dual GPU, its just funny that the ONLY way ATi can maintain their top end is with a dual.

its funny because for the most part a GTX280/285 will trade blows well with an X2, often having higher MIN FPS (what really matters) and then nvidia can pull the dual GPU trump card at the moment of their choosing, which is exactly what they did.

nvidias single GPU comparing with ATi's 2 is fair because of price, but when you take 1 of each, or two of each, nvidia comes out on top.

a few examples.

GTX260 vs HD4870
GTX295 vs HD4870X2
9800GX2 vs 3870X2
9800GTX+ vs HD4850

generally you will find the nvidia counterparts mentioned will beat out the ATi part, and almost definitely if OC's are taken into account.

price vs performance is paramount, but what has to be taken into account is the market of people who only want the best of the best. for this there is Nvidia.

 

[phanbuey]

Its a crappy strategy... alot of strategies are "effective" but crappy - including false advertising, mass emailing, annoying head on commercials etc. etc. ... but they are only effective for a short amount of time. Its a temporary measure - if it is overdone then people will begin to assume that their new products are just old leftovers and just stay away altogether.

When a company starts being known for rebranding rather than innovation, then the campaign will backfire.

 

[GPUCafe]

price vs performance is paramount, but what has to be taken into account is the market of people who only want the best of the best. for this there is Nvidia.

Right now yes. Until last month, the answer was ATI.

 

[wolf]

Right now yes. Until last month, the answer was ATI.

not quite, Nvidias GTX280's in TRi SLi do about as well as 2x 4870X2, purely because 4 GPU scaling from either company sucks ass.

really the BEST performance you can get is 2 really good cards, because 2 card scaling is coming into its prime.

in that respect, Nvidia still had the upper hand, so im going to disagree with you there.

I would say that 2x 4870X2 is the BEEFIEST setup for sure, but i doubt i would have gotten you the best FPS, with 4870X2's in CF often doing worse than a single 4870X2.

 

[ShadowFold]

not quite, Nvidias GTX280's in TRi SLi do about as well as 2x 4870X2, purely because 4 GPU scaling from either company sucks ass.

really the BEST performance you can get is 2 really good cards, because 2 card scaling is coming into its prime.

in that respect, Nvidia still had the upper hand, so im going to disagree with you there.

I would say that 2x 4870X2 is the BEEFIEST setup for sure, but i doubt i would have gotten you the best FPS, with 4870X2's in CF often doing worse than a single 4870X2.

I just got done play Stalker Clear Sky and Left 4 Dead and my two 4830's scale REALLY well. I logged GPU-Z and my second card was being used 98-100% at almost all times. Not to mention I was playing with 2x AA and getting some good numbers in Clear Sky DX10 mode. Left 4 Dead was a solid 122fps.. Can't seem to get it higher than that!

 

[wolf]

I just got done play Stalker Clear Sky and Left 4 Dead and my two 4830's scale REALLY well. I logged GPU-Z and my second card was being used 98-100% at almost all times. Not to mention I was playing with 2x AA and getting some good numbers in Clear Sky DX10 mode. Left 4 Dead was a solid 122fps.. Can't seem to get it higher than that!

im not sure why this was directly an answer to my post, i am very happy for you that the cards scale so well!

i just had such a horrible experience with my 4870's very cheap looking cards and the performance was lacking... especially with stutter.

good to know the lower end cards actually improved on that

 

[tkpenalty]

Above posts

We're discussing about Nvidia's rebadging stratergy, not graphics cards which a dwindling number of people can afford.

Deceptive or not, dishonest or not, in the end the consumer gets the same amount of performance for the same price. A lot of you need to realise that this may be the only way that Nvidia stays in competition. I'd call it really, a white lie to be honest.

that the renaming doesn't necessarily confuse the consumer as generally the previous generation of cards is phased out anyway, meaning that by the time the GTS240 comes out, the 9800GT won't be sold anymore. Therefore, they'd only have the GTX295, GTX285, GTX280, GTX260, GTX240 and GTX220 from Nvidia's range of cards. Very confusing? I think not!

And to the majority of TPU, rebadging in a graphics card market's frequency when compared to the Guitar industry makes Nvidia look very innocent (as well as AMD).

AND Finally, innovative, whatever or not, a 8800GT = 9800GT and GTX240 in performance, AND price if they were still avaliable. Does the consumer get ripped off? No. Its an excellent value card that can play almost every recent title at max settings for a majority of games (ignoring the synthetic benchmarks which are never reliable indicators of performance).



Unfortunately... I have to admit the 48xx series isn't as desirable as it was on release now thanks to the latest driver sets for the G92 cards... most of my games from the 169.21 driver onwards have almost had their framerates doubled .

 

[newtekie1]

Two GPUs against one? I bet then RV770 crushed Nvidia's latest GT200 (4870X2 vs GTX280) Until the GTX295 showed up, a lot of people defended GT200 using the same argument (Its not fair to compare 2 GPUs against 1!!!) and now it is suddenly fair again?

I didn't say it was fair, but really where the performance comes from(1 core or 50) doesn't matter, performance is all that matters. And until the HD4870x2 was released, ATi's two top cards from the current generation were outperformed by nVidia's top two cards from the previous generation. It took two of ATi's cores to manage to top the previous generation from nVidia. How is that ATi "crushing" nVidia?

Clearly RV770 was designed from the ground up to a performance GPU (unlike GT200 which is the flagship) but I guess people wont view it that way.

RV770 wasn't designed from the ground up, it was largely based on RV670, which was largely based on R600. A lot of work went into RV770 to make it better than RV670, but they started with RV670 and went from there. Don't kid yourself, ATi was trying their best to top nVidia with the RV770. And they did a damn good job at it, but they only managed to top G92, and not by a whole lot.

And 4850 and 9800GTX+ trade blows, so it would be slightly ahead of 9800GTX.

Nope, the HD4850 and 9800GTX trade blows, in fact they are dead even, so the 9800GTX+ would be slightly ahead of the HD4850.

 

[Easy Rhino]

wait, the 9800gt is the exact same card as the 8800gt ????

 

[btarunr]

wait, the 9800gt is the exact same card as the 8800gt ????

Didn't you know? Another example would be 8800 GS > 9600 GSO > GT 240 (?)

 

[Easy Rhino]

Didn't you know? Another example would be 8800 GS > 9600 GSO > GT 240 (?)

honestly i had no idea they were the exact same card. i figured there would be atleast a reorganized PCB.

 

[newtekie1]

The 8800GS/9600GSO issue is really supid.

Yes, the 9600GSO had the same specs as the 8800GS, however I believe when nVidia moved to the 9600GSO, they also opened up the PCBs to be redesigned by the manufacturers. Because every 8800GS I've seen has the standard reference G92 PCB, but most of the 9600GSO's I've seen have reworked PCBs, usually with cheaper power phases.

Now it really got stupid when the 9600GSO was completely changed and re-released using the G94 core, cutting the shaders in half, but upping the memory bus to 256-bit.

Now, I don't know if the GT240 will be the old G92 or the new G94, I'm guessing the G94.

 

[Salsoolo]

No, I am sick of 6 month product cycles

 

[btarunr]

The 8800GS/9600GSO issue is really supid.

Yes, the 9600GSO had the same specs as the 8800GS, however I believe when nVidia moved to the 9600GSO, they also opened up the PCBs to be redesigned by the manufacturers.

Umm no. Manufacturers were free to come up with custom-designed 8800 GS. Here's an example: http://www.palit.biz/main/vgapro.php?id=713

 

[TheMailMan78]

Well to be honest I get confused on the different names. It went from the 8000 series to the 9000 series to the 200 series? Also from what I understand (little I know) its the same damn CPU?

 

[phanbuey]

Well to be honest I get confused on the different names. It went from the 8000 series to the 9000 series to the 200 series? Also from what I understand (little I know) its the same damn CPU?

yep... thats what theyre trying to do.

 

[newtekie1]

Umm no. Manufacturers were free to come up with custom-designed 8800 GS. Here's an example: http://www.palit.biz/main/vgapro.php?id=713

But was the PCB custom, or just the cooling?

 

[trt740]

a bad, misleading, business practice