ATI needs to reduce its product line!

[GTaudiophile]

I just went over to Newegg to see if they list the X1900 in their videocards section, and while they don't list it yet, I noticed that nVidia has 19 GPUs listed, GeForce MX440-8x through GeForce 7800GTX. By comparison, ATI has 41 GPUs listed, Radeon 7000 through Radeon X1800XT. This only serves to confuse John Doe Consumer even more than he already is!

What happened to clearly defined low-, mid-, and high-range hardware? They should simply offer X1300A, X1300P, X1300AIW, X1600A, X1600P, X1600AIW, X1900A, X1900P, X1900AIW where A=AGP, P=PCIe, and AIW=All In Wonder. Then within each of the "A" and "P" categories, a "PRO" level, "XL" level, and an "XT" level. So, the total number of desktop GPUs offered by ATI, not including mobile and FireGL products, would be 6 x 3 = 18 + the 3 AIW cards = 21. As AGP gets phased out, they could drop 9 of the GPUs for a new total of 12. Then their mobile line-up could be just as simple: X1300M, X1600M, and X1900M. And for the FireGL line, X1900GL or something. And in an ideal world, ATI wouldn't offer stupid CrossFire Master cards with bulky dongles. They would simply let you buy two normal X1900s like nVidia, thus negating another lineup for those.

Oh well, obviously the guys who get paid millions in ATI's marketing department know a whole lot more than me!

 

[NoStateofMind]

They are simply trying to fill every price point in oreder to sell as much as possible IMO.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Originally posted by: PC Surgeon
They are simply trying to fill every price point in oreder to sell as much as possible IMO.

LOL! Well, I guess they are doing a good job then. With 41 cards listed, in theory they have a GPU for every $17 price point between $0 and $700!

 

[CKXP]

think about what NV did the 6800 lineup...6800le,6800xt,6800,6800gs,6800gt, and 6800ultra

 

[Budarow]

I don't give a rip about how many products ATI offers as long as I get high end cards for CHEAP prices

 

[Acanthus]

both nvidia and ati have way too many skus running.

5 would make sense to me, maybe 10 if you really wanted to cover everything, both companies are pushing well over 30.

 

[ayabe]

They just need to stop making AGP cards, problem solved.

 

[schtuga]

Originally posted by: CKXP
think about what NV did the 6800 lineup...6800le,6800xt,6800,6800gs,6800gt, and 6800ultra

I think it was easier to differenciate the 6800's then the x800 and x850 series

The vanilla,gt,gto,gto2, pro,xl,xt ,xtpe,and the wtf.THEN add in the x850's.That puts you well over 10 cards if you add in allinwonder,and crossfire.

This is a big reason why ATI had stock sitting on shelves and forced them to write $70 million of it down.
Technically ,ATI a great
But they are poorly managed.

 

[Steelski]

All this however annoying is really clever marketing. infact is some cases ATI offer the same cards with different lables. X800 and X800GTO are almost identical.
Remember that ATI are not doing this for us (the not so avarage Johns) but for the person that goes into a blace to buy (PC world in the UK) and he sees lots and lots of Radeons with all nice names and colours, He sees less GeForce products and then thinks. This Radeon must be really something if there are so many of them. Or something to that effect. The fact that the 7000(radeon) series is still around is that someone forgot to get onboard graphics to their email browser. Its just marketing really.

 

[Avalon]

Yeah, I really don't like how there is a card for every price point +/- $10 from 0-$600. It's getting ridiculous. I remember back in the R300 days. You had a Radeon 9000 vanilla/pro, Radeon 9500 vanilla/pro, and Radeon 9700 vanilla/pro. Simple. I don't think either company needs to have 20 cards. No more than 10 different cards is more than enough.

Now there are SEs, XTs, XLs, LEs, etc. etc.

 

[Steelski]

Originally posted by: schtuga

Originally posted by: CKXP
think about what NV did the 6800 lineup...6800le,6800xt,6800,6800gs,6800gt, and 6800ultra

I think it was easier to differenciate the 6800's then the x800 and x850 series

The vanilla,gt,gto,gto2, pro,xl,xt ,xtpe,and the wtf.THEN add in the x850's.That puts you well over 10 cards if you add in allinwonder,and crossfire.

This is a big reason why ATI had stock sitting on shelves and forced them to write $70 million of it down.
Technically ,ATI a great
But they are poorly managed.

I would tend to agree. Maybee its why we have not seen a X1800XT 256MB version.

 

[Steelski]

Originally posted by: Avalon
Yeah, I really don't like how there is a card for every price point +/- $10 from 0-$600. It's getting ridiculous. I remember back in the R300 days. You had a Radeon 9000 vanilla/pro, Radeon 9500 vanilla/pro, and Radeon 9700 vanilla/pro. Simple. I don't think either company needs to have 20 cards. No more than 10 different cards is more than enough.

Now there are SEs, XTs, XLs, LEs, etc. etc.

Dont forget Ultra Extremes

 

[Avalon]

Originally posted by: Steelski

Originally posted by: Avalon
Yeah, I really don't like how there is a card for every price point +/- $10 from 0-$600. It's getting ridiculous. I remember back in the R300 days. You had a Radeon 9000 vanilla/pro, Radeon 9500 vanilla/pro, and Radeon 9700 vanilla/pro. Simple. I don't think either company needs to have 20 cards. No more than 10 different cards is more than enough.

Now there are SEs, XTs, XLs, LEs, etc. etc.

Dont forget Ultra Extremes

It was even simpler back in the GF1/3DFX days as well
But yeah, can't forget the Ultras, GTs, Ultra Extremes, XTXTXTXTX's, etc.

 

[ElFenix]

honestly, what couldn't they adress by having:

x1300 suck edition
x1300
x1300 pro
x1300 xt
x1600
x1600 pro
x1600 xt
x1800
x1800 pro
x1800 xt
?

 

[selfbuilt]

Originally posted by: schtuga
The vanilla,gt,gto,gto2, pro,xl,xt ,xtpe,and the wtf.THEN add in the x850's.That puts you well over 10 cards if you add in allinwonder,and crossfire.

This is a big reason why ATI had stock sitting on shelves and forced them to write $70 million of it down.

Ah, not exactly ... the gt, gto, gto^2 all came out well after the markdowns started. In fact, they had to take huge markdowns on exisiting X800pros/xt/xtpe cards because the 850s were long since out and they could no longer unload the old x800 cards. Also the x1x00 series was coming, and Nvidia was beating the crap out of them with the 6x00 series (and shortly the 7x00 series). The proliferation of gt/gto/gto^2 actually came AFTER the markdowns started, as is frankly just part of the whole process of getting rid of the glut of old x800 chips.

I realize it's a pain dealing with the proliferation of models, but it's ATI's way of making the best of a bad situation (i.e. salvaging what they can, given Nvidia's dominance with the 6x00 and 7x00). Anything that helps keep ATI going is good news in the end, since competition in the market place is what we all need.

 

[v8envy]

Also, you're thinking as the buying consumer, not as a marketing department. Confusing the buyer is the bread and butter of marketing departments. The ultimate goal is to get you to drool over the flagship card, and then drop full retail on a cheap-to-make 'SE' sucker edition card with lots of cheap ram and a 4 pipe GPU.

Having too many products for the customer to understand helps with that goal.

Me, I love it. With this many products there are plenty of chances for good products to fall through the cracks -- e.g., the X700Pro, various X800 models, 256 bit X1600. Which increases their odds of being blown out for well less than $100 AR.

And yeah, ATI still has a huge glut of X800 (and X850) GPUs they can't unload. That's why a $200 X850XT is becoming so commonplace.

I am however blown away that they decided not to repeat the mistake of making too many cores nobody wants to buy with the R520 GPUs. Cut the losses early, and give customers what they want to buy. Good for ATI!

 

[Munky]

it's ATI's way of making the best of a bad situation (i.e. salvaging what they can, given Nvidia's dominance with the 6x00 and 7x00).

:roll:

What kind of dominance was that? That you could buy 2 Nv cards for 2x as much and they would perform faster than 1 Ati card? That's the only possible dominating feature the 6xxx generation had, with the appropriate "dominating" pricetag. I dont see any 6800u's dominating an xt pe, and I definitely don't see any 6600gt owners happily jumping for joy because they bought a slower sm3 card instead of a faster sm2 card.

Re: the topic, the naming scheme is only confusing for the average Joe, who most likely would just buy a Dell with some x300se and not know any difference. Or he would walk into a store and buy a 512mb gf6200, because "more is better". IMO it's a good thing that we have all these models to chose from, because more choices is supposed to be a good thing. How else would you have cards like the gto and gto2 that can be modded into a full fledged xtpe for under $200?

 

[erwos]

I guess my fundamental problem is that the "XL, XT, LE, GT, GTX, Ultra, Pro" naming schemes in use don't really tell me anything about how they intrinsically relate to each other. Let's say I was a total noob, and saw the 6800 and the 6800LE for the first time. How am I supposed to know (besides price - maybe!) which is better without researching? Maybe "LE" means "fancy limited edition". Maybe it means "trashy limited edition". Maybe it means "short-time-only limited edition". And how am I supposed to magically know an XT is better than an XL, LE, or a "Pro"?

What's I'd _prefer_ is that they stick to a purely numeric naming scheme. So, instead of a 6600GT, they'd have a 6650 or 6700. The numbers accurately tell you what part is faster than what, without any idiotic suffixes. They could also subdivide their "low-end" and "high-end" products with different names - eg, "Rage" could be ATI's low-end, and "Radeon" could remain the high-end. Similarly, nVidia could do something like restore the TNT name to the low-end, and keep Geforce for the high-end. This would give them more room to play with the generational numbers.

-Erwos

-Erwos

 

[PingSpike]

Originally posted by: Steelski
All this however annoying is really clever marketing. infact is some cases ATI offer the same cards with different lables. X800 and X800GTO are almost identical.
Remember that ATI are not doing this for us (the not so avarage Johns) but for the person that goes into a blace to buy (PC world in the UK) and he sees lots and lots of Radeons with all nice names and colours, He sees less GeForce products and then thinks. This Radeon must be really something if there are so many of them. Or something to that effect. The fact that the 7000(radeon) series is still around is that someone forgot to get onboard graphics to their email browser. Its just marketing really.

Or, if he's an nvidia user interested in possibly trying ATI products, he gets confused and discouraged.

 

[imported_Rampage]

Originally posted by: munky

it's ATI's way of making the best of a bad situation (i.e. salvaging what they can, given Nvidia's dominance with the 6x00 and 7x00).

:roll:

What kind of dominance was that? That you could buy 2 Nv cards for 2x as much and they would perform faster than 1 Ati card? That's the only possible dominating feature the 6xxx generation had, with the appropriate "dominating" pricetag. I dont see any 6800u's dominating an xt pe, and I definitely don't see any 6600gt owners happily jumping for joy because they bought a slower sm3 card instead of a faster sm2 card.

Re: the topic, the naming scheme is only confusing for the average Joe, who most likely would just buy a Dell with some x300se and not know any difference. Or he would walk into a store and buy a 512mb gf6200, because "more is better". IMO it's a good thing that we have all these models to chose from, because more choices is supposed to be a good thing. How else would you have cards like the gto and gto2 that can be modded into a full fledged xtpe for under $200?

I dont think he meant to hurt your feelings.

And I like lacuna coil too.. not a bad band. But I'm listening to black label society right now.
*devil horns*

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: ElFenix
honestly, what couldn't they adress by having:

x1300 suck edition
x1300
x1300 pro
x1300 xt
x1600
x1600 pro
x1600 xt
x1800
x1800 pro
x1800 xt
?

PCI market.
The market for cheap cards that only need 2D not 3D.

 

[imported_Rampage]

Originally posted by: PingSpike

Originally posted by: Steelski
All this however annoying is really clever marketing. infact is some cases ATI offer the same cards with different lables. X800 and X800GTO are almost identical.
Remember that ATI are not doing this for us (the not so avarage Johns) but for the person that goes into a blace to buy (PC world in the UK) and he sees lots and lots of Radeons with all nice names and colours, He sees less GeForce products and then thinks. This Radeon must be really something if there are so many of them. Or something to that effect. The fact that the 7000(radeon) series is still around is that someone forgot to get onboard graphics to their email browser. Its just marketing really.

Or, if he's an nvidia user interested in possibly trying ATI products, he gets confused and discouraged.

The clean, simple Nvidia lineup is the way to run a company and lead the industry.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: erwos
I guess my fundamental problem is that the "XL, XT, LE, GT, GTX, Ultra, Pro" naming schemes in use don't really tell me anything about how they intrinsically relate to each other. Let's say I was a total noob, and saw the 6800 and the 6800LE for the first time. How am I supposed to know (besides price - maybe!) which is better without researching? Maybe "LE" means "fancy limited edition". Maybe it means "trashy limited edition". Maybe it means "short-time-only limited edition". And how am I supposed to magically know an XT is better than an XL, LE, or a "Pro"?

You're not. Hence the marketing confusion factor.

What's I'd _prefer_ is that they stick to a purely numeric naming scheme. So, instead of a 6600GT, they'd have a 6650 or 6700. The numbers accurately tell you what part is faster than what, without any idiotic suffixes.

This has problems too if you have situations like the same GPU core with a different memory bandwidth (ie, the 9800SE versus the 9800/9800Pro/9800XT). What would have called that card? In terms of performance it was more like a 9600Pro.

And model numbering like this can be used to mask relative performance just like current model numbers -- how much faster is a '6700' than a '6650'? Is the gap between the '6650' and '6700' the same size as between the '6700' and '6750'? There's no way to really know without seeing the benchmarks or knowing the exact specs. This is one of the reasons I don't like Intel's model numbering system -- it's VERY vague, other than that higher-numbered CPUs should perform better.

They could also subdivide their "low-end" and "high-end" products with different names - eg, "Rage" could be ATI's low-end, and "Radeon" could remain the high-end. Similarly, nVidia could do something like restore the TNT name to the low-end, and keep Geforce for the high-end. This would give them more room to play with the generational numbers.

IMO, this would be even more confusing than what we have now.

The biggest problem seems to be the continuing proliferation of older cards on the market. I mean, it wouldn't be so bad if ATI had one PCIe and one AGP product line, but you can still get the last-generation stuff (ie, RADEON X800/850), and even the generation before that (RADEON 9XXX)!

 

[PingSpike]

Originally posted by: Rampage

Originally posted by: PingSpike

Originally posted by: Steelski
All this however annoying is really clever marketing. infact is some cases ATI offer the same cards with different lables. X800 and X800GTO are almost identical.
Remember that ATI are not doing this for us (the not so avarage Johns) but for the person that goes into a blace to buy (PC world in the UK) and he sees lots and lots of Radeons with all nice names and colours, He sees less GeForce products and then thinks. This Radeon must be really something if there are so many of them. Or something to that effect. The fact that the 7000(radeon) series is still around is that someone forgot to get onboard graphics to their email browser. Its just marketing really.

Or, if he's an nvidia user interested in possibly trying ATI products, he gets confused and discouraged.

The clean, simple Nvidia lineup is the way to run a company and lead the industry.

Don't get me wrong, I think ATI makes great products. And nvidia is guilty of this crap as well, but ATI really just took this bad idea and ran with it. Ran right to the fvcking moon with it. Then they said, "fvck the moon, TO MARS!"

The good news for consumers is we have to companies with strong offerings. But I think ATI needs to reevaluate its product line numbering system.

 

[erwos]

Originally posted by: Matthias99
And model numbering like this can be used to mask relative performance just like current model numbers -- how much faster is a '6700' than a '6650'? Is the gap between the '6650' and '6700' the same size as between the '6700' and '6750'? There's no way to really know without seeing the benchmarks or knowing the exact specs. This is one of the reasons I don't like Intel's model numbering system -- it's VERY vague, other than that higher-numbered CPUs should perform better.

The current system has this exact same problem - in fact, it's worse, since you've got no clue whatsoever what's faster than what. At least with mine, you'd be reasonably assured that one particular card is faster than some other one - not assured now, with the 6600GT and the 6800LE.

-Erwos