Nvidia exec admits GPU line-up is numerically 'challenged'

Too many cards, too many choices

By Tony Smith • Get more from this author

9th May 2008 11:50 GMT

Nvidia has admitted that its vast array of graphics chips is bewildering consumers, who find increasingly difficult to work out what does what.

The confession comes from erstwhile Register columnist Roy Taylor who admitted to website GamesIndustry.biz that "there is a need to simplify [the range] for consumers, there's no question".

He added: "We think that the people who understand and know GeForce today, they're okay with it - they understand it. But if we're going to widen our appeal, there's no doubt that we have to solve that problem."

A quick look at Nvidia's website reveals the extent of the problem: seven GeForce 7-series product lines, each with up to two members - labelled LE, GS, GT etc - along with four classes of GeForce 8-series GPUs - again with sub-labels GS, GT, GTS, GTX and Ultra - and two 9-series lines suffixed GSO, GT, GTX or GX2.

Just to keep buyers on their toes, the GeForce 9600 series isn't as powerful as the 8800 line, despite the higher model number.

And that's just the desktop product line... And before the arrival of Nvidia's next generation of GPUs which is surely not very far off now...

It all derives from the desperate competition waged between Nvidia and AMD/ATI, and the need both firms felt to fill every possible price point in a bid to keep the other out and fight off the growing threat from Intel's integrated graphics offerings. Enough already.