**The Confusing World of GPU Names**

GeForce 4 MX was more like a GeForce 2 than a GeForce 4. This revelation highlights a trend that NVIDIA has struggled with for years: the inconsistency and often misleading nature of their GPU naming conventions.

In recent times, we've seen a plethora of examples where two or more GPUs from NVIDIA bear the same name but have vastly different specifications and performance. The GTX 660 is a prime example of this phenomenon. This card comes in four versions, each with its own unique set of specifications. However, none of them match the one that has more memory than any of them. It's hopeless to find a pattern in this.

The lack of consistency in NVIDIA's naming convention has led to frustration among enthusiasts and buyers alike. Why would anyone want to benchmark a 20-year-old motherboard when they can't even get accurate information about a GPU from NVIDIA? The answer lies not just in corporate greed, but also in the company's product strategy.

In some cases, NVIDIA has made an honest effort to match the performance between their dissimilar but same-named cards. However, this is not always the case. Sometimes, it seems like they're deliberately trying to confuse consumers with multiple versions of the same GPU, each with its own set of specifications and limitations.

One such example is the RTX 4070, which was initially released with a significantly slower memory configuration compared to its GDDR6X counterpart. This was done in an attempt to boost other specs that were impacted by the lack of memory, resulting in a card that's roughly 95% as fast as the original.

But what makes this situation worse is that these alternate versions of cards exist without any clear indication that they're not the same thing. The names are meant to be confusing and misleading, leaving consumers to navigate a complex web of specifications and performance differences.

So, why do these alternate versions of cards exist? In some cases, it's done to salvage higher-end designs that didn't make the cut for mainstream release. These designs are then scaled down to create lower-end products that still retain some of their original features. However, this process often results in a product that's not quite what you'd expect.

In other cases, the situation is more egregious. Take the case of laptop GPUs, where NVIDIA seems to use the same names as their desktop counterparts, but with significant differences in performance and specifications. The mobile RTX 4090 is actually more like a 4080, and the memory configuration can be much slower than expected.

The problem lies not just in the naming conventions, but also in the way NVIDIA implements a performance limiter that varies from one laptop design to another. This limiter can drop performance on these chips by an entire product tier, depending on the manufacturer's cooling and power solution. It's this kind of arbitrary decision-making that leaves consumers with little choice but to accept less than optimal performance.

So, what does it all mean? If the name of the product doesn't mean anything about the GPU you're buying, including the performance, then what does it represent? In many cases, it seems like a marketing gimmick designed to sell more products. The focus is on bigger numbers and flashier names rather than actual performance or value.

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"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enTwo years ago, graphics giant Nvidiacaused a wave of outrage when they announcedtwo gaming GPUs that had the same name,but seriously different performance.Thankfully though, they learned their lessonfrom that response and they never did it again.Sorry, they did do it again.They did it again less than a month laterand they're still doing it today.The only difference, the only differenceis that they're keeping this behavior out of the headlinesby doing it on the budget GPUsthat the media usually ignores.For example, the RTX 3050 6GIG.Did you even notice when this thing was released?I don't blame you.Rather than creating a product guideand sending samples to reviewers for testing,Nvidia announced this thing by writing a short blog postabout it like it was 2009.As a result, very few reviews were madeand even fewer people watched them.Now you could say, well, Nvidia probably did thatbecause they knew that no one was gonna be excitedabout a relaunch of the same GPU from two years ago anyway,but I think they did it that waybecause they didn't want anyone to noticethat it is not the same GPU from two years ago.How do they think that this is okay?It isn't okay.And to show you just how not okay it is,we are finally gonna be looking not just at the 3050 6GIG,but we're also gonna be putting a spotlighton the many times in the pastthat Nvidia has pulled this dirty move,stretching all the way back to the beginning.And we're also gonna put a spotlight on our sponsor.Ugreen, their Nexo 20,000 milliamp hour,130 watt portable charger is packed to the brimwith both power and capacity,meaning your devices can stay powered onand connected for even longer.So check it out at the link down in the description.Cuda cores and memory buses don't mean much to you.Don't worry because all you really need to knowis that when we compared the new 3050 6GIGto the original 8GIG model,we found that in both real games and in benchmark apps,there was a big enough differencethat a more appropriate name for this new cardwould have been RTX 3040 or even 3030.This calls into question,what even makes a 3050 a 3050 in the first place?It clearly doesn't mean the specificationsand it doesn't even mean the performance.And what's really frustrating for meis that by drawing this comparisonto the original 3050,it makes us think, oh, this is a really bad card,but it's not.It's actually the best GPU on the marketthat doesn't need extra power cables.So if I were, say, upgrading a Dell Optiplexfor some serious gaming business,it could actually be a really great option.It just isn't an RTX 3050 optionand calling it that is misleading.All Nvidia had to do to avoid this video ever being madeis give it an appropriate name.Let's talk about why they didn't.And fair warning, you might not like what you hear.The thing is, budget GPU shoppersare much less likely to read or watch a reviewbefore they click checkout.I know this from my experience working retail,but even if you don't believe me, look at the numbers.The original RTX 3050got the full launch treatment from Nvidia.And if we look at the Steam hardware survey,we can see that that card sold extremely well,more than the high-end RTX 3080.And yet the 3050 got fewer views across the boardfor the media that covered both cards.And that kind of makes sense.I mean, anybody would put the extra researchinto a $700 purchase,but wouldn't necessarily on a couple hundred dollar purchase.So mainstream shoppers tend to rely more on salespeopleat big box stores for help choosing the right product.And if you've ever tried to do that,you know that having someone read the labelon the shelf to you is often the best you can hope for.And I don't even blame those sales reps.They're paid to sell things,not to be experts on all of the stuff in their spare time.And there's a lot of stuff that they're expected to sell.So I think that by reusing the RTX 3050's nameon an inferior product,Nvidia has made it confusing on purpose.They've created a situationwhere even a tech savvy sales rep that is tryingcould think that, well, hey,as long as you don't need that extra memory,say to game at a higher resolution,this version with less memory should perform the sameand save you a buck.And it gets even worse.Even for the folks who attempt to do their own research.By reusing the same name,Nvidia ends up confusing them too.Look at these results on YouTube.Sponsored junk, this is fine.This is also the right card, sponsored junk.Wait, that's a video about the original 3050.So I could search for the exact correct product name,pick the first highly viewed video I see,and I could think the card I'm buying is, I don't know,basically that, but with less memory.Now, if this was the first time it happened,I might say, oh Nvidia, you made it silly.But as I've already said,this is part of a pattern of shady behavior.Let's pivot to the RTX 3060 8 gig,which is another example that happened less than a monthafter the 4080 12 gig scandal.On first glance, this one doesn't seem that bad.Then you notice that when they cut offa third of the memory,they also cut off a third of the memory bus,which slows all of it down.So in both games and benchmark apps,even ones that didn't need the extra video memory,we measured a big performance difference.Now, the saying goes that there's no such thingas a bad product, only a bad price.So this one would have been more okayif Nvidia had also provided a discount,except that they didn't.The cut down RTX 3060 launched at the same MSRPas the full fat card.Why?Well, because it was during the GPU shortageand Nvidia thought they could get away with it.Unfortunately for them and good for everyone else,the shortage was ending around this timeand regular RTX 3060s soon came back downto their normal pricing.So thankfully there aren't that manyof these manufactured U-Waste cards out there.Now to be clear, lots of other companieshave misleading names for their products.We just finished calling out Nvidia's rival AMDfor a similar behavior.But as the leader in the market,I feel that Nvidia has a responsibilityto set a good example, to put the bar high.And instead they've done the opposite.Basically at every turn, basically forever.And this is a real problemwith real world consequences for the consumer.I personally have been bamboozled once by Nvidia.I bought an N-Force motherboard for my AMD CPU.This was back in the early 2000s.And a big part of the reasonwas that it had GeForce 4 graphics.Well, imagine my surprise when I learnedthat GeForce 4 MX is not in fact GeForce 4.GeForce 4 MX was more like a GeForce 2 than a GeForce 4.Now we're not gonna have labs actually benchmarka 20 year old motherboard to show you the exact differencesbecause why would wewhen we can pick out more recent examples?Let's look at the GTX 660 from 12 years ago.This one was a mess or rather these two are messes.Both of those cards are called GTX 660but under their coolers are completely different chips.Plot twist, their performanceit's not nearly as different this time,less than 10% in Tomb Raider 2013.And we see the same in our benchmark apps.But here's the thing.If I expect 10 donutsand I get nine donuts and a half eaten donuts,I'm still pretty ticked off.And depending on which GTX 660 you get,it could be even further off than that.On TechPowerUps list,we found a whopping four versions of this GPUbut then none of them matched this cardwhich has more memory than any of them.And it's hopeless to find a pattern in this.Sometimes NVIDIA seems to make an honest effortto match the performancebetween their dissimilar but same named cards.As we were writing this video,an early sample of an RTX 4070with just 10 gigs of memory was found.And in this case, NVIDIA boosted other specsin order to make up for the lack of memory.And they've done that sort of thing before.And since, as we're finishing this video,they did it again.And this time it's both better and worse.A new RTX 4070 just came out with a slightly slowerand cheaper GDDR6 memoryinstead of the GDDR6X the 4070 is supposed to have.Now that's about 95% as fast as the original.So to be fair, it's not too far offbut what makes it badis that the cards aren't gonna have a different labelto let you know,hey, you're buying a slower card.Why do these alternate versions of cards exist?Now the obvious answer is corporate greedand sometimes Occam's razor does hold true here.But other times their product strategyis actually pretty reasonableeven if I don't agree with the way they present it.The 660 chip change, for example,was done to salvage higher end diesthat didn't make the cutand otherwise would have been wasted.So they were cut down a bit moreand turned into a lower end product.All right, no problem.But hey, if they were all reasonable and clearly labeled,we wouldn't have had to make this videoand this is where things get ugly.We've complained beforeabout the way Nvidia sells their laptop GPUs.Not only do they use the same namesas their desktop counterparts,even though the mobile RTX 4090 is more like a 4080but there's also the problemsof them using much slower memoryand a performance limiter based on the cooling and power.A limiter that varies from one laptop design to the nextdepending on the manufacturer.As we've seen, this limiter can drop performanceon these chips by an entire product tier.All of which leaves uswith the most important question of all.If the name of the product doesn't mean anythingabout the GPU you're buying, including the performance,then what the ever loving bum does it mean?As of 2024, it seems like it just meansyou pay us this muchand if you're not obsessed with tech news,you'll get, well, whatever you get.Oh, hey, I got a message from our sponsor.Ugreen, sometimes having your devices pluggedinto the wall might not be the most convenient thing.Imagine you're at a conferencewith let's say 5,000 people attending.There's no way your phone, laptopand any other device can stay topped up the whole time.That's where Ugreen can helpwith their Nexo 20,000 milliamp hour, 130 watt power banks.It's got three output portswith the big one able to supply a hundred watts of powercharging a 16 inch MacBook Proby 43% in 30 minutes according to their testing.It also has a built-in displaywith useful real-time informationlike the battery banks remaining capacityand even the amount of juice it's outputting.Best of all, it's airline safe.So you can take it with youwherever you may be heading next.So go check out this powerful portable power bank palfrom Ugreen using our link down below.If you enjoyed this video,go check out the one we did recentlyabout the confusing nature of these namesin the first place.Something that the whole industryhas been doing a really bad job ofbecause bigger numbers sell bettereven if it's not actually better.\n"