NVIDIA Rebrands The GeForce

When we were recently invited to one of NVIDIA's many conference calls, we were quite excited. After the shocking mauling by ATI's Radeon HD 4870 and its ilk, we expected NVIDIA to strike back with a new GPU or two. Something along the lines of the Empire Strikes Back, perhaps?

However, that hope was quickly dashed. The big announcement (with NDA and all) was nothing more than a rebranding exercise, and it was a weak one at that. If this is the best response NVIDIA can come up with, then 2009 is going to be a really painful year for them.

Don't believe us? Well, see for yourselves. We present the latest addition to the GeForce family - the NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250!

New Name For An Old Card

If the new GeForce GTS 250 card looks familiar to you, it is only because the card is nothing more than a rebranded GeForce 9800 GTX+. As part of its rebranding exercise, NVIDIA renamed the card so that it appears to be part of the new GeForce GTX 200 family, instead of as an extension of the older GeForce 9800 family. NVIDIA used BMW as an analogy, where the GeForce GTX cards are enthusiast-grade (BMW 7 series) while the GeForce GTS cards are performance-grade (BMW 5 series).

Frankly, the analogy is erroneous in more ways than one. For one thing, no car enthusiast would think of a BMW 7 series car as "enthusiast-grade". Neither is the BMW 5 series known as a "performance-grade" car. The only way BMW cars could possibly equate with NVIDIA card series is in the price points - the GeForce GTX (like the BMW 7 series) is more expensive than the GeForce GTS (BMW 5 series).

In addition, the GeForce GTS is internally quite different from its GeForce GTX brethren. Although its new name suggests that it is based on the new NVIDIA GT 200 GPUs, it actually uses the older G92 GPU which is a generation older technologically. If we were to use NVIDIA's BMW analogy, the GeForce GTS 250 would be the BMW E39 while the GeForce GTX cards would be the BMW E60. In other words, the GeForce GTS 250 is one generation older than the GeForce GTX cards.

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