Video Card GPU Naming

PC Computer Video Card Graphics Adapter GPU Naming

NVIDIA

legacy

The 3 numbers refer to the market that the card is marketed for. They go in increments of 50.

• 000-450: These are Nvidia's mainstream cards. The price range of these cards is usually under $150.00 and they usually have less than 512MB of memory. Current games will be playable at low to medium settings.
• 500-750: These are Nvidia's performance cards. They are priced from $100 - $300, and for the most part will play the current releasing games, on medium settings. These cards will have from 256 - 512MB of memory.
• 800-950: These are Nvidia's Enthusiast cards. They are priced from $200 - $700. These cards will for the most part play the current releasing games at high graphic levels. Memory on these cards will range from 512MB - 1GB.

gpu series

NVIDIA GPU Series: RTX, GTX, And GT

• GT cards are low end, not for gaming
• Anything that says GTX is designed for gaming
• As of 2018 NVIDIA no longer uses GTX as the main series name for GeForce cards intended for gaming
• RTX is the new designation for cards designed with gaming in mind. They are better performers than older GTX cards
• RTX cards have ray-tracing capabilities which is better for realistic rendering of shadows, light direct and reflected and so on

• Ti seperates two cards of the same generation and tier in terms of performance. RTX 3080 is slower than RTX 3080 Ti.

model numbering

Prefix number: The prefix number indicates the generation/series. higher prefix == newer card

GTX 970 has a nine at the beginning, indicating it is from the 9 or 900 series. The RTX 3080 has a 30 at the beginning, meaning it is from the 30 or 3000 series.

Suffix number: The suffix number indicates the GPU's performance tier. The higher the number, the faster the card is.

• 10 or 30 means weak tier. (i.e. GT 710, GT 730, GT 1030).
• 50 means entry-level tier (i.e. GTX 1650, GTX 1050, RTX 3050, GTX 950).
• 60 means above entry-level/mid-range tier (i.e. GTX 960, RTX 2060, GTX 1060, GTX 1660, RTX 3060).
• 70 means mainstream tier (i.e. GTX 970, GTX 1070, RTX 2070, RTX 3070).
• 80 means high-end tier (i.e. GTX 1080, RTX 2080, RTX 3080).
• 90 means enthusiast-level tier (i.e. GTX 690, RTX 3090).

ATi

legacy

ATI's card numbers will relate to the different markets that they are aimed towards. The ATI naming scheme has changed over the years, this is their most recent. The first number in the name refers to the series of the graphic card. The next three will determine what market the card is aimed at.

• 350-590: This is ATI's budget line. These cards will cost less than $100 and have 64MB - 128MB of memory. These cards will usually need graphics set to low settings for current games.
• 600-790: This is ATI's Mainstream line. These cards will cost from $100 - $200, with 128MB - 512MB of memory. These cards will normally play today's games at medium settings.
• 800-990: This is ATI's Enthusiast line. These cards will cost over $150, with 512MB - 1GB of memory. These cards will play today's games on high settings.

gpu series

XT, Radeon

• RX 6700 is slower than the RX 6700 XT
• Most GeForce and Radeon cards for designed for gaming
• R7 and below are older and not good for modern gaming
• R9 and RX are modern (2023) and good for gaming
• XT at the end means their "extreme" version or ultra high end
• XTX is designed on some RX RDNA 3 cards indicating higher over no XTX RX cards
• WX is a workstation Threadripper CPU with better single core performance than Epyc

model numbering

• 40 low end tier (R7 240)
• 50 or 500 entry-level (R7 250, RX 550, RX 5500)
• 60 or 600 better entry-level (R9 260, RX 560, RX 5600 XT)
• 70 or 700 mid-range performance (R9 270, RX 570, RX 5700 XT)
• 80 or 800 high-end tier (R9 280, RX 580, RX 6800 XT)
• 90 or 900 ultra high-end (R9 290, RX 590, RX 6900 XT)

notes on linux

RX 6800 XT is Faster Than RX 7800 XT in Linux Gaming because of some Windows proprietary related factors however as Linux developers optimize drivers this could change. Radeon RX 6800 XT is considered a very good performance card. Radeon graphics cards perform well in Linux. Nvidia's Ampere GeForce RTX 30 series also perform well on Linux behind the RX 6800. Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 is a good performance card in Linux.