Can someone explain the nomenclature used with GPU’s? (RX, RT, RTX, GTX, super, 2060, 1070, etc)

[sheldoncooper]

What do the letters (RX, RT, RTX etc) represent? What does the number mean? (2060 for example). What makes a “super” version? What’s GeForce

Also, why do so many companies seem the make the same GPU’s? Are they just buying the design from the original company and making their own with different specs? AMD, Nvidia, MSI, Asus, EVGA may all make a model of what seems to be the same GPU, even sharing the letters and numerological, like MSI GeForce GTX 1070. Asus or Nvidia might make a card with the same name.

What is the hierarchy of those letters and numbers? What’s better RTX, GTX, RX, etc?

 

[SpyderTracks]

So in general you have 2 companies that DESIGN the GPUs, AMD and nVidia. They make their own core design and license it to all their board partners. Then their board partners (evga, ASUS, gigabyte, etc) can customise their design with their own cooling and overclocked chips.

So generally you get founders edition cards (FE) which are designs made by AMD or nvidia, and then you get “Aftermarket cards” from all the board partners. Generally aftermarket cards are considered better designs, certainly related to cooling.

Nomenclature wise, if we take nvidia, you have the letters at the front of the card which is the series:

GT - very basic card, not powerful enough for anything other than display output

GTX - The lower tier gaming card but without tensor cores used for Ray Tracing

RTX - Top tier cards with tensor cores which enable full Ray Tracing capabilities.

Then you have two parts to the number:

RTX2080 - the first 20 is the series if you like, so these are the 2000 series cards. Then you have the 80 which is the model number within that series, 60 being lowest, 80ti being highest.

All the “super”, “refresh” “ultra” bits in between are just additional improved models they’ve released later n in the cycle to cash in a bit more. Generally “supers” are the ones to go for.

I’m not even going to bother with AMD cards because they’re incredibly confusing.