VRAM in Applications

At least both companies were consistent in having the SE and LE suffixes denote gimped versions. I think the joke used to be LE meant Light Edition?

But it's funny how 6800 GT > 6800 GTO, but 7900 GTO > 7900 GT. Goddamn was it confusing back in the old days.

 

LE = Lame Edition

 

SE must be Sucky Edition then

 

Exactly ^_^

On a serious note though, the reason naming schemes were such a minefield was because of how cutthroat the GPU wars between Nvidia and AMD were. As hard as it is to believe nowadays, they had nearly equal market share back then. The extreme segmentation (there was basically another card every $5-10 up and down Nvidia and AMD's lineups) was a result of that.

 

Was going to say the same about the segmentation, you had almost every possible variation under the sun. Didn't see it as a bad thing though, because it meant more choices and less compromises.

 

To be fair though, the abundance of choices didn't mean they made a ton of different GPUs.

For example, the only differences between 7900 GT, GTO, GTX, and 7950 GT were clock speeds and VRAM amount. Otherwise they were the exact same fully enabled G71 chip.

 

I know, just saying if people wanted to pay a bit more for guaranteed clockspeeds as well as more vram, they had the choice, and the choices were abundant.

I mean we still have some choices these days, but not nearly as abundant, and certainly can't say the same for vram. Though the lineups are less fragmented and confusing that's true.