Seems like AMD will make it easier for us to choose an ATi Graphics card in the future as Pro, Xt and the like will be replaced by numbers. The first cards to change name is the two cards comming November 15, formerly known as the 2950 Pro and XT, that now will be known as the Radeon HD 3850 and Radeon HD 3870.

Finally no wondering what is the best extension for a card

Found the news at http://www.vr-zone.com/articles/RV [...] /5358.html

Guess that's a good thing. It was more confusing trying to figure out if a lower number was an XT was better than a higher number with a Pro.

a new name will also draw more attention too, for the better or for the worst. but given the 2900 s reputation...

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php? [...] 3&Itemid=1

Fud posted it too and mentions Geocube.

If geocube sais it, its right, since they sell the cards!

http://www.gecube.com/products-02.php?prod_cat_pid=213

Anybody think that this new generation will have driver issues from the get-go like the current 2xxx series?

Well if this is true, then maybe ATI are confident that this generation will show a significant leap in performance over the 2900.

Now that would make things very interesting indeed - perhaps it will give the 8800GT a run for its money after all.

I doubt it - the architecture hasn't changed that much from the info that is out there.

How does this clear things up, other than for the people who wouldn't know the difference whatever method you used anyways?

So now you have a 3800/3850/3888 but you still have the problem where if you removed the suffixes from any generation an HD2600 is slower than an X1950, and likley the HD3600 or at least HD3400 will be slower than the HD2900.

It's cosemtics for the people who really never focused on the HD2800 vs HD3500, but 1GB vs 512MB, and bought GF6200/X300 cards because they had 256MB instead of the 128MB GF6600.

You're still going to have cross over and confusion regardless of what you call them, we've discussed it here a bunch of times and there is no clear solution, but at least we did have a clear formula in the past /generation&modelrange/refresh/performance-bin/ , that may be blown this time around if they move to numbers only, which greatly reduces their SKU options too.

Sure.

Why would it be different than the GF8800/HD2900/GF8600/HD2600 etc.

All new cards have some driver issues, unless there is truely no change, like the GF8800U or X1950XTX.

interesting changes in the gpu industry

I agree with TheGreatGrapeApe in as much as it really dosent make any differance your still going to have to really check the specs to make sure you are getting what you think you are.
Not so sure its going to limit SKU numbers though, if what the VR Zone has is right and the PRO is going to be 3850 and the XT 3870 then going up in fives they have 3 SKU options between the two cards but they could step in 2's if they wanted i guess ?
As for the drivers i would hope they dont have as many issues as last time but that was a completly different arcitecture as has been mentioned,I would however expect the usual curve of improvement after launch as would be considered normal (if such a thing exists)
Mactronix

I suspect they will have some driver issues, but I doubt it will be as bad as the HD2900 had at launch. Just my opinion though.

yeah, I agree with TGGA and don't see how this would clear things up at all. If anything, I liked the old system.

Besides, wait until we get some non-reference HD3850's with slower clock speeds, GDDR2, or with their memory bandwidth crippled in half.

To me, if you followed the cards closely, the lame sub reference cards using the same name were the real hard ones to follow. for example, how many 6800XT's were there, clock speeds varied a huge amount and then there were 128-bit ones released too. Other examples would be the 128-bit 9800 pro or various clock speeds on X1650 pro's.

To me all this shows is AMD is a little embarrassed by and wants to distance themselves from the HD2xxx models as they know they failed earn a real performance name.

Well if they had number letter combo and now only have number of course it limits your SKU options, not in a major way I guess, whether the impact is large or not depends on their numbering ethos/pref, where they go from 'comfortable SKUs' with regular intervals, to something where you have to start dealing with single digits. I can't imagine what the old FX5600 Ultra/SE/LE/LX/XT/EVP/EL/etc and R9600SE/PRO/XT/ProVantage etc would look like as numbers.

Look at the X1800GTO to X1950Pro series and all the combos therin (including the later X1650XT), you'd really have to make sure you have spacing in between that fits the lineup. But hey if they're fast and loose with them like they were with the combos, you could easily see them overlapping again.

But an HD 3850 and 3853 and 3855 while the rest of the series is an HD3600 and 3650 would be a little ugly. You'd definitely have to plan in advance, either that or then adjust clock speeds to fit SKU holes and not max performance/yield, or else simply fudge the numbers like they already do.

I don't know, I'm pessimistic, but if they from end it better with the performance delimiters like they have for CPUs, where you have an high/medium/low line, then the numbers work fine, but even then you have things like a Sempron 3800+ versus and AMD64 3800+ with the various 'cores' etc. Is that even going to be more insightful than XT vs XTX?

I don't know what they'd have as names, but as simplistic Performance / Multimedia / Value lines with an P3800 and V3200.

But based on their shared history I don't trust any of the big 3 to figure this out in a way that everyone is happy and that there isn't overlap.