Radeon - Nomenclature

Nomenclature

Currently, ATI names each card by generation, series, and by performance. The first number is the generation number (e.g. 5000) and is related to the chipset used by the video card. The second number indicates the series quality in the generation. Currently, a 7970 would be a high-end card, whereas a 7570 would be a budget card. The charts below describe this in further depth, as well as how it has changed over time. The third digit is the relative quality within a series; for example, a 5850 is less powerful than a 5870. Typically, a card of a higher series will always have more processing power than a card in a lower series, even if the relative quality is better (a 5770 will be outperformed by a 5850). Originally, suffixes were used to determine relative quality.

Since ATI's first DirectX 9-class GPU, the company has followed a naming scheme that relates each product to a market segment. The original naming scheme is shown below:

• ^1 Stream processors only applicable to Radeon HD 2000 series video cards.

ATI had re-branded its products midway in 2001, intending the 7xxx series to indicate DirectX 7.0 capabilities, 8xxx for DirectX 8.0, and so on. However in 2002, when naming the Radeon 9000/9200 which only had DirectX 8.0 rendering features, ATI advertised them as "DirectX 9.0 compatible" while the truly DirectX 9.0-spec Radeon 9700 was "DirectX 9.0 compliant".

Since the release of the Radeon HD 3000 series products, previous PRO, XT, GT, and XTX suffixes were eliminated, products will be differentiated by changing the last two digits of the product model number (for instance, HD 3850 and HD 3870, giving the impression that the HD 3870 model having higher performance than HD 3850). Similar changes to the integrated graphics processor (IGP) naming were spotted as well, for the previously launched AMD M690T chipset with side-port memory, the IGP is named Radeon X1270, while for the AMD 690G chipset, the IGP is named Radeon X1250, as for AMD 690V chipset, the IGP is clocked lower and having fewer functions and thus named Radeon X1200.

ATI's next numbering scheme of video products is shown below:

• ^1 The last two digits denotes variant, similar to the previous suffixes, which 70 is in essence the XT variant while 50 is actually the Pro variant.
• ^2 Stream processors only applicable to Direct3D 10-class video components and above (Radeon HD 2000/3000/4000/5000 series).

With the release of AMD Fusion SoC products in late 2010, the naming conventions have taken another shift. The chart below shows the current naming conventions used by AMD for their video products.