Nomenclature of NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards explained

Since AMD acquired ATI Technologies in 2006, it has always used the legacy name ‘Radeon»On its graphics cards, while NVIDIA has always used GeForce in addition. In this case, Radeon and GeForce simply state that the product that follows this name is a dedicated graphics card, no more and no less, because NVIDIA and AMD also make other types of products. As AMD makes processors, the difference is obvious, there is no “Ryzen Radeon” CPU, and in the case of NVIDIA, we can also see the NVIDIA Shield and not the “GeForce Shield”.

AMD Graphics Cards Nomenclature

The case of AMD is somewhat special, because not long ago they decided to change the model of their nomenclature. For example, in 2008 we had the Radeon HD 4000 Series, and that remained until the Radeon HD 7000 series in 2012. However, when they released their next generation of graphics cards in 2013, the nomenclature changed and instead of being the 8000 series, they became the Radeon 200 Series. This is how it stayed for two more generations until the 400 series, then switch to the Vega series, and in 2019 they changed again to be called Radeon RX 5000 Series. In 2020, the Radeon RX 6000 series arrived according to this latest nomenclature.

Despite the fact that AMD seems to be very fond of playing around with users by constantly renaming their products, the nomenclature has more or less the same meaning.

In the table above you have some examples which, broken down, give us the following information:

• Prefix: Traditionally, the prefixes R3 and R5 were for entry level, R7 for gaming lineup, and R9 for high end, but with the current nomenclature all graphics just have RX as a prefix regardless of their segment.
• Radeon mobility: Graphics for laptops have an M for “Mobility” on the front.
• Generation: Refers to the generation of the GPU.
• Performance level: this is what was previously indicated in the prefix. The higher this number, the better the segment to which the GPU belongs.
• Review: When two GPUs share the same lineup, AMD usually gives them a 5 in the exam.
• X / XT: This suffix is ​​used for faster versions of the same level or revision.

Nomenclature of NVIDIA graphics cards

With NVIDIA it’s a little easier than with AMD, as they’ve followed the nomenclature of their graphics cards for many generations, except when they got to the GTX 1000 series, they switched to the 2000 series instead of the 1100. Series. Even so, the names are much more understandable.

We are going to see the NVIDIA graphics nomenclature in tabular form and now we break it down:

• Prefix: GT is used for low-end or entry-level graphics, while GTX is for gaming-oriented GPUs, from entry-level to hobbyist. In recent generations, this prefix has been replaced by RTX for graphics with dedicated ray tracing hardware.
• Generation: the higher this number, the more modern the graph will be.
• Performance level: Indicates relative performance, the higher the number the better.
• Review: same as AMD graphics.
• Suffix: in NVIDIA the “Ti” (Titanium) is more or less equivalent to the XT of AMD graphics, they are faster graphics than those without this suffix. NVIDIA also puts an “M” here for laptop graphics.

So, now you know that by just looking at the name of an AMD or NVIDIA graphics card, you can find out a lot about it, like which generation or market segment it belongs to.