GeForce - Nomenclature

Nomenclature

The company followed a naming scheme similar to that shown below for the GeForce FX series to the GeForce 9 series.

Category Number range Suffix1 Price range2 (USD) Shader amount3 Memory Outputs Example products
Type Bus width Size
Mainstream 000-550 SE, LE, GS, GT ≤$100 ≤25% DDR, DDR2 25%-50% ~25% VGA/DVI GeForce 9400GT, GeForce 9500GT
Performance 600-750 GSO, GTS, GTO $100–$175 25%-50% DDR2, GDDR3 50%-75% 50%-75% VGA/DVI
Two DVI		 GeForce 9600GT, GeForce 9600GSO
Enthusiast 800-950 GTX, Ultra, GX2 ≥$175 50%-100% GDDR3, GDDR5 75%-100% 50%-100% VGA/DVI
Two DVI
DVI/HDMI		 GeForce 9800GT, GeForce 9800GTX

Since the release of the GeForce 100 series of GPUs, NVIDIA changed their product naming scheme to the one below.

Category Prefix Number range Price range2 (USD) Shader amount3 Memory Outputs Example products
Type Bus width Size
Business, HTPC No prefix, G, GT 00-40 ≤$100 ≤25% DDR2, (G)DDR3 25%-50% ~25% VGA/DVI GeForce 210, GeForce GT 220
Video Games, Multimedia GT, GTS 40-50 $100–$175 25%-50% (G)DDR3, GDDR5 50%-75% 50%-75% VGA/DVI
Two DVI		 GeForce GT 240, GeForce GTS 250
Enthusiast GTX 50-95 ≥$175 50%-100% GDDR3, GDDR5 75%-100% 50%-100% VGA/DVI
Two DVI
DVI/HDMI		 GeForce GTX 670, GeForce GTX 680
  • Earlier cards such as the GeForce4 follow a similar pattern.
  • 1: Suffixes indicate its performance layer, and those listed are in order from weakest to most powerful. Suffixes from lesser categories can still be used on higher performance cards, example: 8800 GT.
  • 2: Price range only applies to the most recent generation and is a generalization based on pricing patterns.
  • 3: Shader amount compares the number of shaders pipelines or units in that particular model range to the highest model possible in the generation.
  • cf. Nvidia's Performance Graph here.

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