Often, before choosing, it is difficult to understand its positioning in the lineup, as well as its features and performance. This article is intended to highlight this issue and tell you about the main lines of NVIDIA video cards, their generations, purpose, labeling and performance.
Introduction
This material will not consider cards until 2010 and the Fermi microarchitecture, since they have already lost their relevance today. The only exceptions are the top-end solutions for their time, but now they are just mediocre and are not sold anywhere. Also, the ION line will not be considered here, due to the fact that on this moment computers with these cards are not sold.
For search useful information For video cards, we recommend using their website.
If you are interested this information, then you can look at similar articles about and, you may also be interested in:
Rulers
GeForce
This family is the most basic for NVIDIA. Its representatives are installed both in powerful gaming PCs and in simple office laptops. Video cards from this family satisfy 90% of the needs of ordinary consumers. The remaining families are designed for enthusiasts, for professionals and the corporate segment, or even for tasks that are quite unusual at first glance.
Generations
The generation and microarchitecture of the video chip are reflected in its code name. So:
- GF-Fermi
- GK–Kepler
- GM-Maxwell
- GP-Pascal
You can read about the first released cards in Pascal at the appropriate links:, and now they have arrived and.
However, there are a few changes that need to be made to this table:
| Models | microarchitecture |
|---|---|
| 605 | Fermi |
| 610 | Fermi |
| 620 | Fermi |
| 630* | Fermi |
| 640* | Fermi |
| 645 | Fermi |
| 730* | Fermi |
| 750 | Maxwell |
| 750ti | Maxwell |
| 640M LE* | Fermi |
| 670M | Fermi |
| 675M | Fermi |
| 710M | Fermi |
| 720M | Fermi |
| 820M | Fermi |
| 870M | Kepler |
| 880M | Kepler |
| 920M | Kepler |
* - means that an exception exists for some modifications of these video cards.
- GT - this letter combination reflects low-performance video cards, they cannot be considered as gaming.
- GTX - this index refers to mid-range and high-end video adapters that are well suited for games.
- M - mobile video card (they are much weaker than their brothers without this letter)
- X - marking a more efficient video card for mobile solutions
- LE - this is the version of the card with a lower clock speed for mobile adapters
- Ti - designation for a more powerful version of desktop cards
It is worth noting that the more productive version differs not only in overclocking, but also in core components (unified shader units, texturing units, rasterization units).
Perhaps, starting with the Pascal generation, mobile video cards will no longer be equipped with the letter M, since they use almost the same chips.
The numbers following the generation indicate the position of the model in the line.
Interesting fact: 90 means 2 80 chips in SLI mode (work in pairs).
TITAN
This is a GeForce sub-line, because they have the GTX index. First you need to figure out the positioning of this line. These are the fastest and most expensive video cards at the moment. But this price is really too high for this level of performance. The thing is that they are also positioned as powerful professional video cards for mathematical calculations and FP 64 calculations (double precision floating point calculations). This is a kind of SUV in the world of video cards - and you can work and play. The exception is the Titan X, which lacks stars from the sky in FP 64 calculations and, in fact, is just a very expensive video card with a huge set of video memory.
In this line at the beginning of 2016 there are only 5 video cards and almost all of them are in reference design (versions from third-party manufacturers).
TITAN, TITAN Black Edition and TITAN Z belong to Kepler, TITAN X belongs to Maxwell, still exists in Pascal (differences in prefixes: the first has the full name NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN X, and the second just NVIDIA TITAN X).
You can read about all models on the site.
Quadro
This family is for professional use. These cards are very well suited for complex 3D applications and computational simulations. These cards render real films with special effects. These cards are not suitable for games. Even the most expensive solutions will lose to average gaming GeForce graphics cards. The thing is that these video adapters are designed for calculations with double precision floating point (FP 64), and single precision (FP 32) is enough for games. But in these more precise calculations and applications using OpenGL drivers the superiority of Quadro is simply colossal, because even cheap Quadro (although they are not so cheap) can do the most powerful gaming video cards (with the exception of some Titans). If there is no specific optimization for the capabilities of Quadro cards in the application, then the result is decided by the number of stream processors and throughput memory, in which gaming video cards are in full order.
We will not touch on cards prior to the Fermi microarchitecture.
The first letter means the microarchitecture of the chip:
- she's gone - Fermi
- K-Kepler
- M-Maxwell
There are also letter indices at the end of the model name:
- M - designation of a mobile video card
- D is another set of outputs. In the case of the K2000, instead of two DisplayPorts and one DL-DVI, the D version has two DL-DVI outputs and one mini-DisplayPort.
The numbers indicate the position of the video card model in the line (more is better).
Tesla
It has long been known that video cards (GPUs) perform mathematical calculations much faster than processors (CPUs). The thing is that in these operations great importance play the number of cores and the parallelism of calculations. There are many more cores in video chips than in CPUs. If we take CUDA, then there can be up to 3072 of them in one video card! This feature is related to the role of the video card in the computer - it needs to do a lot of simple actions parallel and in a very short time. Tesla is a family designed specifically to speed up mathematical calculations. Such cards do well with both FP 32 and FP 64 calculations. They are used in research centers and on servers, because per unit of energy consumed they will do more useful work than a processor. An interesting fact: there are no video outputs in the cards of this line. The first letter means the generation
- K-Kepler
- M-Maxwell
The numbers are an indication of the position of the chip in the line (more is better). Here we will not analyze letter indices and marking details. Our goal is to introduce you to this family and tell you a few words about it. There is little information about the entire family due to the use only in narrow areas and the difficulty in acquiring.
Interesting fact: There is such a video card NVIDIA Quadro M6000 with 24 GB!
NVS
This family was created for the corporate segment. Previously, it was part of the Quadro family and was also designated by the letters "NVS". These video chips are designed for business applications (financial, corporate, ECAD), multi-monitor solutions. For example, they are used for digital information panels. Their features are a large number of ports for connecting displays in some models and a very low total cost of support (TCO). They do not shine with performance and they use not so fast DDR3 memory. Heat dissipation does not exceed 70 W. For comparison, the most powerful NVIDIA NVS 810 model has only 512 CUDA cores, 68W TDP and 4 GB DDR3 memory, but as many as 8 Mini DisplayPort 1.2 outputs.
You can find out all the information about current models.
Tegra
A family of systems on a chip (SoC) for mobile devices (there is about SoC on our website). As part of it, the first dual-core and quad-core solutions were presented. At the time of their release, they are top solutions in terms of graphics, but things are pretty good in the processor part. At the moment they have their own development of Denver cores, instead of the "classic" Cortex. There are two versions of Tegra K1:
- 2 Denver cores
- 4 cores Cortex-A15
Tegra K1 was built on the Kepler microarchitecture, and Tegra X1 on Maxwell. Oddly enough, Tegra X1 uses 4 Cortex-A-53 cores and 4 Cortex-A-57 cores (big.LITTLE technology). The advantage is that there are exclusive projects and ported computer games, made only for Tegra-based devices, due to their power and company connections. Nvidia also has its own tablets and portable consoles that have some interesting technology. For example, broadcasting games from a PC to the screen of your mobile device based on Tegra. Tegra-based devices are a good help for mobile gaming.
Tegra 2 became the first 2-core chip for mobile devices.
Tegra 3 repeated the success of the previous chip, but with 4 cores.
Tegra K1 switched to the microarchitecture of the graphics core Kepler and 28 nm and came close in performance to the PS3 and XBOX 360.
Tegra X1 adopts big.LITTLE technology, adopted Maxwell microarchitecture and 20nm process technology. Became the first system-on-a-chip to achieve 1 teraflops of FP16 floating point performance. He used 10 watts to demo Unreal Engine 4 "Elemental", 100 watts for Xbox One, and 300 watts for the top PC of 2012. This does not mean that it can compete with the top PC of 2012, but only shows a huge increase in the efficiency of video chips.
About others Interesting Facts You can learn about the GPU by .
Conclusion
We hope that our article was understandable and interesting for you, and also helped you understand the lines and markings of NVIDIA video cards. If you have any questions and inconsistencies, then first look at the Introduction, if the problem is not resolved and the questions remain, then you are welcome in the comments!
Choosing a video card is not an easy task, as manufacturers produce devices in large quantities. It is not easy to navigate in all this diversity, even if graphics accelerators differ from each other only by letter marking, they can have a significant difference in performance.
Today we will answer the question what does Ti mean in Nvidia graphics cards, we will talk about other letter designations and characteristics.
Letters for Nvidia graphics cards
Nvidia video cards can be divided into several classes - the budget version of GT, middle class GTS and the most productive GTX variant. Letters are usually preceded by numbers.
Designation of numbers on video cards:
- The first indicates the generation - the higher it is, the newer the card
- The second is an indicator of the position of the device in the line, performance depends on it.
- The last digit can be 0 or 5, in the first case the model is original, in the second it is modified
There are also postscripts in the form of different combinations of letters. LE and XT are cheaper, they indicate a stripped-down version of the video card. OC - Overclocked, message about the overclocked version of the accelerator. Ti - Titanium, denotes a more powerful version of the video card. Performance is not achieved through factory overclocking; accelerators with this index have more powerful graphics chips. They have more execution units, which are called CUDA Cores in Nvidia terminology.
Some users are mistaken in believing that these letters indicate differences in the cooling system. Fans are different, but it depends on the manufacturer - Asus, Palit, Gigabyte and other companies.
What to look for when buying?
Noteworthy is the warranty period, which should be 2-3 years. The manufacturer deserves interest - devices from MSI and Gigabyte are the most popular, although the rest also strive to catch up in terms of quality.
Be sure to consider the type and frequency of video memory. For modern video cards, it has the GDDR3 or GDDR5 standard. The first is used in weak devices, whose video chips have low performance. In the middle class and above, GDDR5 memory is used, the most powerful devices boast GDDR5X memory. Video memory frequency - important characteristic, which directly affects how fast your device will work. The width of the data bus is also a significant factor - for gadgets, this value varies.
Pay attention to the number and frequency of operation of the computing units of the video chip. Performance depends on their number. Consider the characteristics and cost of the device you choose, this will help you make the right choice.
In the classification of video cards " NVIDIA GeForce» A system of alphabetic and numerical indexes is used. The GeForce line is divided into many series, denoted by a three or four-digit number, and the series, in turn, are determined by a set of video accelerators with different power, which are marked with complex abbreviations, usually starting with "G". For example, the following can be said about the video card "NVidia GeForce 8600 GT": it belongs to the "GeForce" product line of the 8600 series, the power index is GT.
The differences between the GTX and GT video cards lie in many parameters. Of course, their parameters are not constant, because they depend on the series of the video card, but there are some aspects according to which you can put a "more" or "less" sign between them.
There is such a characteristic of video cards as bus width - the size of information processed by it in one cycle of operation is directly proportional to this value. Width GT allows processing 128 bits per clock cycle.
Efficiency is a parameter that reflects the performance of the video accelerator per 1 watt of electricity consumed, in other words, an indicator of the card's environmental friendliness. Green efficiency is shown as a percentage. In GT-cards, it rarely reaches the halfway mark.
The price-quality ratio can also be expressed as a percentage. For GT graphics cards, its average value is approximately 60.
And finally, the comparative performance index (calculated by the ratio of the performance index of the card to its maximum value achieved. Its maximum value for GT cards is 1200 units.
Power index GTX speaks of the technological superiority of the view adapter. The command processing speed for the GTX reaches 512 bits, a fairly decent value by modern standards.
Both the efficiency and the ratio of price and quality in percentage terms can reach a maximum at modern maps gtx.
The comparative performance index of the GTX reaches 8000.
TheDifference.ru determined that the difference between a GT graphics card and a GTX graphics card is as follows:
GTX allow you to process in one cycle of their work 2 or 4 times more information than GT video cards
GTX cards are more efficient than GT cards, making them more environmentally friendly
GTX value for money is better than GT
The performance of the GTX cards is superior to that of the GT.
Ilya 3463
In a modern PC, a graphics card is as important a component as a processor or RAM. The cost of graphics accelerators can vary from a couple of thousand rubles to the same amount, but in dollars. Here we look at current proposals in price category up to 6 thousand rubles.
Since this is a practical guide for users, we will not delve into the theory, but consider only the main characteristics of graphics accelerators. Do not forget about.
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Asus Notebook 15.6" ROG GM501GM-EI032 ZEPHYRUS Core i7 8750H/16Gb/1000Gb+256Gb SSD/NV GTX1060 6Gb/15.6" FullHD/DOS black (90NR00F1-M01850) | Electrozon | 114 250 R |
The main component of a video card is the GPU. There are currently only two GPU manufacturers on the market - NVIDIA and AMD, each of which specializes in its own field of application.
If you are a fan of video games, do not hesitate to take a card with an NVIDIA processor. With their hardware-supported PhysicX, CUDA and Pure Video HD technologies, these graphics cards provide a completely different level of gaming experience than their competitors.
In its turn, AMD video cards will please those whose profile will be working with graphics or video editing - here AMD Radeon can attract the buyer with an optimal price / quality ratio.
As for other technical criteria, in the budget range, the difference in such indicators as bus width or memory size is so insignificant that focusing on it seems like a waste of time. The same goes for video card interfaces, which are unlikely to change in the next few years, but those who are going to connect their PC to an HD TV should pay attention to the presence of an HDMI port.
Let us dwell, perhaps, on such a specific criterion as the cooling system. Few people think about this when purchasing, and after all, overheating of a video card is one of the main reasons for the failure of graphics accelerators.
Before buying, be sure to check that in addition to the banal fan, the video card has a heatsink installed for even heat dissipation. Such a trifle later can save your video card at the moments of the highest load. GPU(I tell you as a person who has already buried one burnt "vidyuha").
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Electrozon | 2 740 Р |
The package bundle of video cards, perhaps, has not changed much since their appearance on the market. The only thing worth clarifying is the ability to connect video cards in “paired” mode ( SLI technology for NVIDIA and Crossfire for AMD, respectively). Foreseen, this possibility will allow you to further increase the performance of your PC at no extra cost by purchasing a similar video card. When buying, you should also check the availability of power cables, information transfer, as well as a disk with drivers and other software.
However, let's move on to concrete examples. From all the pile of proposals that are now on the market, it is not easy to find something worthwhile, but we, guided by the above facts, will try to isolate the most rational proposals.
When choosing products in the price category up to 6,000 rubles in the NVIDIA line, you should especially pay attention to the Titanium line, usually denoted by a small postscript Ti. This card features excellent performance at a very reasonable price. If you are going to try out all the latest innovations in the gaming industry and at the same time do not intend to completely empty your wallet, then NVIDIA model 650Ti is your choice.
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Well, if entertainment is not your profile and you are looking for an inexpensive video card for working with graphics and video editors, then you should look at video cards based on the AMD Radeon 6770, but in this case, pay special attention to the video card cooling system - these models have an unpleasant tendency overheat, especially models with factory overclocking.
The video card market is constantly evolving, which means that your choice will constantly increase. It's easy to get lost in such a variety, but when choosing such an important PC component as a video card, you should not forget what you still need it for. Before buying, consider whether it is worth chasing the latest trends, or if you just need a good workhorse that, if chosen correctly, can take you through the worlds of the latest video games.
tell friends
The classification of video cards "NVidia GeForce" uses a system of alphabetic and numerical indices. The GeForce line is divided into many series, denoted by a three or four-digit number, and the series, in turn, are determined by a set of video accelerators with different capacities, which are marked with complex abbreviations, usually starting with "G". For example, the following can be said about the video card "NVidia GeForce 8600 GT": it belongs to the "GeForce" product line of the 8600 series, the power index is GT.
The differences between the GTX and GT video cards lie in many parameters. Of course, their parameters are not constant, because they depend on the series of the video card, but there are some aspects according to which you can put a "more" or "less" sign between them.
There is such a characteristic of video cards as bus width - the size of information processed by it in one cycle of operation is directly proportional to this value. Width GT allows processing 128 bits per clock cycle.
Efficiency is a parameter that reflects the performance of the video accelerator per 1 watt of electricity consumed, in other words, an indicator of the card's environmental friendliness. Green efficiency is shown as a percentage. In GT-cards, it rarely reaches the halfway mark.
The price-quality ratio can also be expressed as a percentage. For GT graphics cards, its average value is approximately 60.
And finally, the comparative performance index (calculated by the ratio of the performance index of the card to its maximum value achieved. Its maximum value for GT cards is 1200 units.
Power index GTX speaks of the technological superiority of the view adapter. The command processing speed for the GTX reaches 512 bits, a fairly decent value by modern standards.
Both efficiency and value for money in percentage terms can be maxed out with modern GTX cards.
The comparative performance index of the GTX reaches 8000.
Findings site
- GTX allow you to process in one cycle of their work 2 or 4 times more information than GT video cards
- GTX cards are more efficient than GT cards, making them more environmentally friendly
- GTX value for money is better than GT
- The performance of the GTX cards is superior to that of the GT.
