Is NVIDIA's rebranding strategy helpful?

[W1zzard]

NVIDIA has quite a history of reusing existing products and catapulting them into their latest and greatest lineups. The best example is the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT that got renamed to GeForce 9800 GT and now to GeForce GTS 240 (with a small alibi overclock).

What do you think about such a business practice?

[alexp999]

Not really good business practice is it. 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

[KieranD]

for the customer wanting to buy second hand it helps drive down prices of the 9800 and 8800 but apart from that its pretty useless

everyone should just get a 8800gt with modded cooling because it will be far cheaper and give similar performance, you might even be able to go sli with 2x8800gt

[Sasqui]

It's cheesy, deceptive and confusing. I wondered about the 8800GT vs the 9800GT and din't even know they were exactly the same. Now thier going to call it a GTS 240 with a small overclock? Wow.

If you hadn't explained that, I wouldn't have known.

[jagjitnatt]

I am really sick of this rebranding. I don't think there is a need for 6 month product cycle. A year is fine too. There should be time enough for the product to get to the masses. Not all of us are early adopters. Then we wait for some price cuts too. Till that time, a new series is going to be launched and we get confused about our purchases.

A new series should bring in new technology, not just an optical shrink or a new memory type.
A series doesn't need more than 8-10 cards.
I hate when a card goes +,-,OC, golden sample, OC+, oc++, xx nm, etc etc.

And we have those GS, GT, GTS, GTX, GSO, turbo cache, 256mb, 512mb and some even 1gb entry level cards. good ol days, we had just 2 or 3 prefixes and that was good. the GeForce4,5,6 series was good with naming and no. of cards.

[Asylum]

I think its a rip off....I just sold 2 8800 GT in the forums and was kind of hard to sell because everyone thinks its old tech.... But if i could slap a new 9800 GT or GTS 240 sticker on them they would sell like hot cakes even at a higher price!!

[kid41212003]

Just think about it, what's the different between GTX260 and GeForce 8800GT? They're both fully support DX10. It just the 8800GT is slower than the GTX260.

In this kind of economy, it's alot more effective to re-use the 8800GT, because there is no point making a new card with reduced performance while there are already cards fit into that performance range.

I think, they're not going to make anything new mid and low end cards until DX11 came out.

[jbunch07]

This kind of practice has made me lose a lot of respect for Nvidia. They have tons of money capable of backing up R&D for new architecture and what not, yet they keep rebranding the same technology.

[btarunr]

Although I hate re-branding, we've to give props to NVIDIA for keeping the prices of the re-branded products stable.

The 8800GT started off at what, $249.99? But when 9800GT released, it's not like it sold for more than what 8800GT did at that point in time (no significant difference in price). Even when GTS 240 comes up, its price won't exceed $120. So it's been doing the re branding all because of its competition, but then also being honest with the pricing.

[lemonadesoda]

This comment should have a LINK after it!

[lemonadesoda]

I have no issue with the GTX240 not being anymore powerful than an 8800 or 9800. In fact, i dont mind it being less powerful. But what I do want is this:

1./ No naming trickery, having the same SKU at different prices in different boxes but what is inside is the same. What confusion! And burden of having to constantly re-inform yourself.

2./ We know that most retail personnel are pretty thick, or cant be bothered to inform themselves. That ignorance will be passed on to the consumer. Sure, you make a sale. But you do brand damage in the process

3./ They should at least have the GTX240 as being a lower powered, cooler version, for silent PC, with at least the same feature set, at the other GTX2xx boards. They are only creating MORE confusion, since DX10 features are not the same across the board range

Bad job nVidia.

[btarunr]

Originally Posted by lemonadesoda

This comment should have a LINK after it!

Done.

[TRIPTEX_CAN]

I dont like the way products are rebranded. I thinks it's deceitful and leads uninformed consumers to believe they are purchasing a product from the same generation family as the current flagship.

Right now if someone new to this "game" is looking for a GPU they'll see the GTX295 kicking ass and taking names but quickly realize it's out of their budget. Eventually they may come across a shiny "new" GTX240 which used to be a 9800GT which used to be a 8800GT.

[mtosev]

not helpful for noobs. we who know pc stuff aren't affected.

[newtekie1]

Originally Posted by TRIPTEX_MTL

I dont like the way products are rebranded. I thinks it's deceitful and leads uninformed consumers to believe they are purchasing a product from the same generation family as the current flagship.

Right now if someone new to this "game" is looking for a GPU they'll see the GTX295 kicking ass and taking names but quickly realize it's out of their budget. Eventually they may come across a shiny "new" GTX240 which used to be a 9800GT which used to be a 8800GT.

What does it matter that if the GTS240 is a new product or not? Any new product they would release would likely be pretty similar to the 8800GT/9800GT anyway.

Lets just take GT200 and figure what a mid-range product based off it would look like. You cut a GT200 in half, which is typically what a mid-range card is(the flagship cut in half) and you get 120SPs, 40 TUs, and 16 ROPs and a 256-bit GDDR3 memory bus. Sounds remarkably close to the G92(128SPs/64TUs/16ROPS/256-bit) doesn't it? Why remake something you already have?

[phanbuey]

Originally Posted by newtekie1

.... Why remake something you already have?

Right! But why re-brand it? Its like honda coming out with a car that is a civic, but calling it the GT7000. And then renaming it to the GT-R Type X. And then renaming that. Its the same car the whole time.

Or intel renaming their E8500 to the Core i3 for no reason whatsoever.

It just looks rediculous.

EDIT: Bjorn Endre puts it best:

"... (in a commercial) You get to see the robots that build the cars and how thorough everyone is checking everything is alright. Then at the end of the ad you just briefly see the guy who prices the cars; a clown, and the ad ends with “Skoda – built by professionals, priced by clowns”. It’s a pretty funny and clever ad-campaign. So what does that have to do with video cards? Well, I am pretty sure NVIDIA could have chosen to run a similar campaign saying “NVIDIA cards - built by professionals, named by clowns”. "

[newtekie1]

Originally Posted by phanbuey

Right! But why re-brand it? Its like honda coming out with a car that is a civic, but calling it the GT7000. And then renaming it to the GT-R Type X. And then renaming that. Its the same car the whole time.

Or intel renaming their E8500 to the Core i3 for no reason whatsoever.

It just looks rediculous.

You would be surprised at how often the card makers do rebrand stuff.

A few examples:

Chevy Malibu: When the new re-designed Malibu came out, Chevy continued production of the old version, but only sold it into fleets(taxi's, company cars, etc), and rebranded it "The Classic" later changing it back to "Malibu Classic". Same car, 3 names.

Then there is the 2004-2006 Pontiac GTO, which was just a rebranded Holden Monaro. The cars were identical, with the exception of badging, and the front bumber/Grill piece.

I can't say I agree with rebranding the cards, but I really don't agree with their naming scheme to start out with. I understand why they are rebranding it though. It is a catch 22 situation. If you leave the name alone, then it starts to suffer from market stagnation, the consumer gets tired of seeing the same name on the selves. It also makes it hard to compare the cards, the new name lets you know where it stands in the line-up of current cards. Most consumers don't care what is under the heatsink, they care about where it lands in the performance line-up, which is why the new names make sense.

IMO, they should have never released any G92 cards under the 8800 series name, they should have been 8900 cards and GT200 should have been the 9800 series. But it is easy to look back and say what should have been. Now nVidia is stuck with fixing the naming issues, and making all of them under one naming scheme.

[niko084]

I think it works from a business profit standpoint, but its annoying and misleading... Personally I look down upon a company for doing such. If you can't release a new card every *** days fine, don't, take the time and build a proper one and then give it a name.

[DarkMatter]

Originally Posted by newtekie1

You would be surprised at how often the card makers do rebrand stuff.

A few examples:

Chevy Malibu: When the new re-designed Malibu came out, Chevy continued production of the old version, but only sold it into fleets(taxi's, company cars, etc), and rebranded it "The Classic" later changing it back to "Malibu Classic". Same car, 3 names.

Then there is the 2004-2006 Pontiac GTO, which was just a rebranded Holden Monaro. The cars were identical, with the exception of badging, and the front bumber/Grill piece.

I can't say I agree with rebranding the cards, but I really don't agree with their naming scheme to start out with. I understand why they are rebranding it though. It is a catch 22 situation. If you leave the name alone, then it starts to suffer from market stagnation, the consumer gets tired of seeing the same name on the selves. It also makes it hard to compare the cards, the new name lets you know where it stands in the line-up of current cards. Most consumers don't care what is under the heatsink, they care about where it lands in the performance line-up, which is why the new names make sense.

IMO, they should have never released any G92 cards under the 8800 series name, they should have been 8900 cards and GT200 should have been the 9800 series. But it is easy to look back and say what should have been. Now nVidia is stuck with fixing the naming issues, and making all of them under one naming scheme.

I agree. Average Joe could care less about the inside of the cards, they want the naming to be easy to understand WHEN they are going to buy. G92b is a very good mainstrem chip, there's no need of any new one. I challenge anyone to give me the specs of a chip with Nvidia's architecture that would fill the same price point, that actually is better than G92b. Pff it's so easy to ask for a mainstream card based on GT200, when you actually didn't think of what's going on inside the chips...

Innovation has to come in the cards that will actually be able to use the new features, that is, high end cards. Did DX10 help any in 8600 or HD2600 cards??

[wickerman]

there is no doubt that G92 is a wonderful chip and has been doing incredibly well in its price point, but the fact remains that enthusiasts do drive the market to some extent. The enthusiasts are the ones that tend to give out the advice on the forums when people come along and ask "What do I need to buy".

Rebranding is not really a bad thing, it really only makes sense that as your product lines move forward you carry over successful products into the new naming scheme. The problem is doing this without any significant innovation to the rebranded product hurts your image. Nvidia had enough of a hit when their GT200 series launched and failed to surpass the 4800 series by any significant margin, and not only that but were initially twice the price. Having to cut the prices of your "inferior" products to compete with the shining example of efficiency from your only rival, hurts your image even further. In recent times Nvidia was seen as the gamers choice and now they are becoming the budget choice. It happens every few product cycles, its nothing new...but nobody really expected it to be this significant and that Nvidia would rely on G92 for so long.

G92 was simply too good for its own market. As newtekie1 mentioned, its not worth cutting GT200 down to fit the market segment that G92 fits so well, but the fact remains G92 is getting old. G92 has (so far) been featured in 7 mainstream graphics cards (8800 GS, 8800 GT, 8800 GTS 512, 9600 GSO, 9800 GT, 9800 GTX, 9800 GX2...8 if you count the 9800 GT "green edition") and 1 professional series card (Quadro FX 3700) and after so many variants and rebrands, it has just become stale. Its not bad in any particular way...just stale. So telling people that G92 is gunna be renamed and put into 2-3 more products just puts people off. Graphics cards have always been the staple of innovation. DX standards are quick to advance, game developers are always demanding more power, and enthusiasts are always looking to get their hands on new cards to bench the hell out of. We all know what G92 can do at this point, so overclocking it and utilizing those 55nm nodes really doesnt bring any surprises to the table.

But it still shows how much better ATI has been doing...RV770 is simply more marketable and their approach to short product cycles and rely on the scaling of a single die instead of cutting a single monolithic die into halves and quarters as we have seen in the past. Hell these new GT2x0 series based on G92 will probably be more popular than the 8800 and 9800 series have been simply because the clock speeds are gunna go up and the price is gunna have to go down. But you cant help but say that despite its quality...g92 is not really helping Nvidia keep the performance crown, nor is it helping them keep their shining badge of innovation they got when they introduced G92 in 2007...or G80 before that.

It's a safe move, but safe is usually only good enough for second place.

[MohawkAngel]

It's like me.
I have a 7300GT 512megs DDR2 Pci-express 16X that work really nice with many recent games at maximum settings and some guys that i dont even talk to come bothers me to change my videocard. Hey I never asked advices first and second just go read the specs instead of bashing this rebranded card. Ok i know its kind of confusing because of Nvidia practice but guys instead of making me lose my time just go reads specs and learn. Damn...they are talking and acting like those stupid ass who rides Honda Civic and bashes other cars like if driving a Civic was riding a spaceship rocket that you got a special HYPERSPACE SPEED button

[ShadowFold]

No, I want real innovation that warrants a new name
I think that sums my opinion up pretty well.

[Rob!]

I always liked to associate new names with a new generation of products. Like in the last few years a new generation introduced a die shrink, or directx10 support, or something like that. Now something like a GTS240 is actually a card two or three generations old, but they make it seem brand new.

I understand prices are now much lower for the "same" products, but it's still pretty lame. New names should be for new products only.

[hat]

No, if a new card comes out, I want it to be new.

Also I believe that you shouldn't have to go to the front page just to vote on a poll. Why can't these polls work like any other and just vote on it from the thread?

[Castiel]

No, I want real innovation that warrants a new name!