The most stupidly named video card of all time ?

Zinn

Zinn

2[H]4U
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IMO that (dis)honor goes to the ATI X1950XTX (of which there was a "Performance Edition" variant for a grand total of ATI X1950XTX PE)

But what are some other extremely questionable video card marketing / branding decisions?

PS please keep this clean and in good humor! (Not a flame thread)
 
I'd give it to any card name that has more than one variation you can buy, which usually includes wildly different specs. Nvidia being the chief offender of this:
9600 GSO
GTX 460
GT 630 and 640
...and so on.
 
Grebuloner said:
I'd give it to any card name that has more than one variation you can buy, which usually includes wildly different specs. Nvidia being the chief offender of this:
9600 GSO
GTX 460
GT 630 and 640
...and so on.
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I completely agree with you. One card that sticks out this generation is the Geforce GT-640... It has how many variants? :rolleyes: Personally, I think the dumbest naming convention is probably when ATI/AMD started branding their cards with the "HD" moniker. As shockingly different as the R-Series naming is, it's a lot easier to stomach than the "HD" cards.

EDIT: Found the GT-640 variants. It really depends on whether or not you get OEM...

1. Retail GT-640 - 2 GB DDR3 VRAM - 384 cores, 900 Mhz clock
2. Retail GT-640 - GDDR5 VRAM - 384 cores, 1046 Mhz clock - Basically, this is the faster one to get for retail
3. OEM GT-640 - DDR3 VRAM (128-bit) - 384 cores, 797 Mhz clock
4. OEM GT-640 - DDR3 VRAM (192-bit) - 144 cores (Fermi?) -
5. OEM GT-640 - GDDR5 VRAM - 384 cores, 950 Mhz clock - this is the fastest OEM variant, at least on paper.

There we go.
 
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Zinn said:
IMO that (dis)honor goes to the ATI X1950XTX (of which there was a "Performance Edition" variant for a grand total of ATI X1950XTX PE)

But what are some other extremely questionable video card marketing / branding decisions?

PS please keep this clean and in good humor! (Not a flame thread)
Click to expand...

Agreed that the "Platinum Edition" names were stupid. They had what, a 20 Mhz overclock compared to the normal XT cards? :)
 
XFX had a GTX 7900 XXX-edition.

I could've sworn they also at one time had an X1900 XTX XXX-edition, but nothing shows in a Google result.
 
gt 630? gt 640?

What about the gt 635?

CLICK

:)

LC

P.S. I don't see the 4GB variant in your list.
 
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MindBuster said:
Glide, Rampage, Voodoo, Rush, Banshee. :D

(I had a Banshee)
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+1

Well I can deal with stupid names for cards, I'd buy a Geforce GTX 880ti double pow-wow black supremacy edition if it performs.
What I can't stand is how AMD went through 2 naming scheme changes in a short period of time where you couldn't tell what on the shelf in front of you is better, worse or the same as the card that you already have in your system at home.
 
I think cards like the R7 265, which uses the Pitcairn chip and therefore won't crossfire with R7 260's nor supports the full Bonaire feature set but does with R9 270's, and the HD 7870 XT (IIRC) that again would crossfire with 7900 cards but not 7800's.
 
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Relayer said:
I think cards like the R7 265, which uses the Pitcairn chip and therefore won't crossfire with R7 260's nor supports the full Bonaire feature set but does with R9 270's, and the HD 7870 XT (IIRC) that again would crossfire with 7900 cards but not 7800's.
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+1 on the current R(X)
 
I used to buy the ATI AIW cards w/built in TV tuner and capture. "All-in-Wonder" was a pretty stupid name :D
 
IMHO on the Nvidia side:

GeForce 5000-9000 Series were all a shitnado of naming. It's during this period that I stopped following graphics news because the naming just went full retard. I started back up again with the 200 Series until now.

The Rx-xxx crap from AMD is also not helping their cause with the stupid ass codenames they also come up with.
 
GeForce4 line had issues
as did the 8x00 and 9x00 ATI lines of the time
 
doz said:
ATI Riva TnT2
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The Riva's were Nvidia chips.

With that said, graphics cards have always had that xXOMG420EXTREMEZXx shitty naming scheme to them for some reason.

I think Taiwan thinks all Americans that would buy the cards are fat cheeto eaters that love mountain dew....wait....fuck they're
right.
 
BFG had some stupid card name. I had the BFG 8800GTXOMGWTFBBQ edition
 
stiltner said:
The Riva's were Nvidia chips.

With that said, graphics cards have always had that xXOMG420EXTREMEZXx shitty naming scheme to them for some reason.

I think Taiwan thinks all Americans that would buy the cards are fat cheeto eaters that love mountain dew....wait....fuck they're
right.
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Damn, now I want me some cheetos.

I do remember as a kid looking at some of these video card boxes and not really understanding all the codes and symbols on them but thinking they were really cool. Marketing is most powerful on the most impressionable, I suppose.
 
Droc said:
BFG had some stupid card name. I had the BFG 8800GTXOMGWTFBBQ edition
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Was going to mention some of those BFG ones myself, used to have one or two over time.

Still even have a T Shirt from one :)
 
How about names like Twin Frozr, DirectCU, Windforce, or FTW? Though, I guess those are really names of cooling systems, rather than the cards themselves.
 
FTW (EVGA's edition) is not the cooling system, its a variant name for a slightly more OCed card than the Superclocked (in regards to their video cards, but they also use it for mobos). Its still stupid, though, as are most of their editions (Classified, Dual Classified, K|ngp|n, etc). I say that as an owner of an EVGA GTX 670 FTW, fwiw.

For stupidest name, I think its a tossup between the Matrix Mystique, Sierra Screamin' 3D (yes, THAT Sierra surprisingly), Jazz Multimedia Outlaw 3D "Bonny & Clyde" edition and the S3 86C911, which was named after a Porsche 911 to signify performance.
 
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I bought a $2400 video card for my Amiga back in 1993 which had a funny name, Newtek's Video Toaster 4000
 
I've always disliked PNY branded cards due to their names. For example the PNY XLR8 GeForce 9800 gtx or even better the PNY VCGGTX780T3XPB-OC G-SYNC!
 
Definitely Nvidia's nomenclature on the GT series cards beginning with the Fermi arch.

Who in their brilliant mind thought it was smart to name cards spanning 3 different architectures with the same prefix? Almost bordering on scam if you ask me.
 
Also remembering how around the 6800 / X1900 generation, ATI and Nvidia would ape naming conventions from the competitor's performance cards and attach them to significantly underperforming cards.

So the 6800 XT was worse than the 6800, although you'd be forgiven for confusing the with the X1950 XT, which was a high-performing card. Then there was the X1950 GT which was a piece of shit.

Basically, really shady marketing tactics by both NV and ATI to tarnish their competitors' branding by confusing consumers.
 
Real 3d Starfighter 3d. Terrible card. This was one of the first 3d agp cards available, which I purchased to complement my PII 350mhz overclocked to 392mhz lol. The card had 8meg of frame buffer memory. System memory was used to store textures through the agp bus. Although the card was relatively cheap compared to the 3dfx voodoo 2, there was a short stutter in games everytime new textures loaded ie. constantly in Quake 2. Returned the card for a refund shortly after. If memory serves, the card used the first intel graphics chip (forget name)
 
The whole R9 290X, R9 270X crap pisses me off. Thankfully I only need to know the top 2 models for my video card purchases. Similarly, Titan, 780, 780 Ti, Titan Z also piss me off to no end. Could have been much simpler with lines like 770, 780, 790, 790 Ti or something.

Worst of all time was the jump to X800/X1800 series from ATi. Get X800 Pro, X800 XL, X800 XT, X800 XT PE blah blah. Very confusing. I remember buying an X800 XL whereas, I wanted to purchase an X800 XT :rolleyes:
 
Weren't there also Crossfire editions of said X1950XTX?

I sometimes find the EVGA naming scheme annoying. There were a bunch of different Superclocked, FTW, FTW+ and whatever else they could add, in addition to each one having different warranties(AR, KE) back then.
 
Zepher said:
I bought a $2400 video card for my Amiga back in 1993 which had a funny name, Newtek's Video Toaster 4000
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Dana Carvey based the Garth Algar character on his nerdy brother Brad, who designed the prototype that became the Video Toaster. Also, the Video Toaster was used to create the scene transitions in Home Improvement.

Just a little tidbit of useless 90's trivia for y'all.
 
My first choice would be Guillemot Maxi Gamer Phoenix.

Secondary nominations:

Creative Labs 3D Blaster Banshee
2theMAX Fantasy FX Power 3D
ATI Rage Fury MAXX
ATI Pro/Xpression+PC2TV
and I have to say it... Matrox Mystique
 
PNY naming sucks to much heck it sound like the company is secretly admiring PONIES and what not, next time rename in to UNICRON so it would be more subtle LOL
 
I have a harder time discerning similar names in a series than the really different ones that don't actually make sense.

For me one of the harder-to-remember series was the 8000 series from nvidia. I had an 8800GTX (G80), which had a little brother an 8800GTS (G80), then they came out with the 8800GT (different architecture, G92) AND a new version of the 8800GTS (which used G92 instead of the G80 previously used). But wait! There was also a lower version of the 8800GT, and it was named the 8800GS! Confused yet?

They encompassed 2 architectures (G80 and later G92), all had different memory bandwidths, and varied greatly in texture units and raster operators.
 
Zinn said:
IMO that (dis)honor goes to the ATI X1950XTX (of which there was a "Performance Edition" variant for a grand total of ATI X1950XTX PE)

But what are some other extremely questionable video card marketing / branding decisions?

PS please keep this clean and in good humor! (Not a flame thread)
Click to expand...

see sig Nvidia practically didn't make a truly new card from 8800 til 480. No clue many years went by, yeah you could make the argument between 80 and 92, but it was incremental and each was rebadged like 100 times.

MindBuster said:
Glide, Rampage, Voodoo, Rush, Banshee. :D

(I had a Banshee)
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boo_this_man_half_baked.gif
 
noobthegreat said:
Damn, now I want me some cheetos.

I do remember as a kid looking at some of these video card boxes and not really understanding all the codes and symbols on them but thinking they were really cool. Marketing is most powerful on the most impressionable, I suppose.
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You have to remember, at the time "leet" speak was all the rage. Thank god most of the internet, including myself, grew out of that phase.
 
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