RSSNVidia considers an across-the-board overhaul of its marketing strategy
By Michael Hatamoto | Published May 8, 2008, 7:19 PM
To help casual consumers who may not be able to track every code name and official product launch, GPU maker NVidia now says it's considering plans to simplify its product range.
The news comes from the company's Vice President of Business Content Roy Taylor, in comments made recently to GamesIndustry.biz.
NVidia's attempt to become more consumer friendly is a challenge it understands must be tackled to broaden its appeal to consumers not yet become acquainted with the brand, which is still linked in most buyers' minds to graphics cards. Consumers accustomed to low-cost computers are typically de facto users of Intel's integrated GPUs, and it's this market that NVidia now wants to crack.
A glimpse of NVidia's Web site reveals the company has six different desktop lines of video cards, with some lines, including its popular GeForce series having multiple series subsets.
For example, NVidia will launch its GeForce 9900 video card -- code name GT200 -- series just a few months after launching the 9800 GXT graphics card, and the 9900 GTX will likely replace the 9800 GX2 in the future. Last month, NVidia re-announced its GeForce 9800 GX2 to accompany the GeForce 9800 GTX and GeForce 9600 GT GPUs.
NVidia has yet to release a roadmap for when this consolidation will begin taking place.
The Santa Clara-based company's internal product range modifications will come at a time when its first quarter profits rose 34% but still missed analyst outlooks. After Q1 ended on April 27, NVidia reported income of $176.8 million, or 30 cents per share, but financial analysts anticipated stock profit of 38 cents per share.
NVidia remains in control of the GPU market at present, with AMD still having difficulty benefitting from its 2006 purchase of ATI. Recently, Intel and NVidia have traded barbs, with an Intel engineer claiming during the Intel Developer Forum that discrete graphics cards will eventually become "unnecessary" for consumers.
"The better question to ask is this...'Moving forward will there be a need for a high-end CPU?'...probably not," NVidia Director of Public Relations Derek Perez boldly predicted shortly afterward.
When a 7600 whoops a 8400 hands down, you know that a higher number isn't always better.
We need something that will actually let us know what we can expect.
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I was shopping for a video card this last week. I had to keep a chart with the various video cards and their relative benchmarks up in another window , there is really not much order or logic in their numbering schemes or letter designations.
Nvidia is advancing through the numbers 6200 7600 8800 9800 but they have pros ultras gt gs
ATI did that several years ago and then started over with 800 1500 1950 2600 3850 , it seams like the model numbering schemes whole purpose is to confuse and hide the true performance, sell a 7900 for $400 and then make someone think they are getting a great deal with a "7000 series" card for $125, when in fact the card runs only about 25% as fast as the expensive card.
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I agree. A card with a lower model number but more advanced subset can be much better than a newer counterpart.
And i don't trust they'll come up with something too much better.
But this is such a widespread malaise-- and one daren't take a few months off from computing & religiously following enthusiast sites.
I took a year off, then needed to buy new systems-- i had to practically relearn everything all over again in every single component area: ram, processor, video, etc.
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be nice if they start releasing something new....9800 is just 8800 3.0.
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I know...big bucks for what?
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Having a 'program' doesn't even help this morass!
What would also be nice is for games to offer options where various shading and FX can be adjusted or turned off allowing their operation on lower 'ranked' cards and machines.
The notion of having to have the latest CPU/GPU in order to play a game is nonsense.
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Yepp, subsets is exactly where the problem lies. It's simply WAY to complex for normal people to remember, as in see difference.
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