Nvidia And How To Get Away With Poor Naming

Recently, Nvidia launched the GTX 1660 Graphics Card, designed for mid range buyers. Now that doesn't sound so bad but given that the previous releases were the 10 series (1050, 1060, 1070, etc.) followed by the 20 series, this name makes no sense. But in spite of it not making sense, I think Nvidia can get away with it, and here's the scoop as to how.

Now, I'm a big PC Gamer, I emulate the old console games I own, and if there's a PC version availible I buy it on PC. When I hopped into PC Gaming I, like many, started with an Nvidia Card, the 750ti. It was decent and could run something like DOOM just fine. But I eventually wanted to get into better games and realized that I wanted something better,  so I picked up a GTX 1070. Now on second though, given I was only running 1080p and 60 frames per second, I should have gone for the GTX 1060 or 1050, but it ran well and that's all I needed. I only recently upgraded to the Vega 64 from AMD, so I have supported the green team for years. I write this so when I criticize them I don't want to seem like an Nvidia hater.

 

Now I skipped the RTX line of cards (2080, 2070, 2060) but I heard down the grapevine that a 11 series card would be coming to satiate those not turned on by the fancy ray-tracing ability. Now this naming seemed logical, if it's following the 10 series, and the 20 name was taken, the 11 series makes sense. So imagine my shock and bewilderment when they announced the GTX 1660ti. My first thought being, ""What kind of stupid name is that?" This name feels like Nvidia didn't want to put out a non-Ray Traced card, realized AMD was making bank on their non Ray Traced RX-500 series, and threw the first name they could think of out there to compete.

I mean, if this was the deal you were looking for, $280 for GTX 1070 level performance that's fine, but the name makes no sense. And to make matters worse, Nvidia recently put out the 1660 card, which is odd because the non-ti card usually comes before the ti model. What I'm saying is, if I were Nvidia's CEO (sadly I cannot rock a leather jacket like him) I'd look into firing my naming team because they suck.

 

But enough complaining, how do I think Nvidia might get away with terrible naming? Well it depends on one thing, can Nvidia's GTX 1660 out perform the AMD's RX 580? Right now AMD sits upon a golden throne for mid-tier PC's since, for a bevy of reasons, Nvidia priced themselves out of that market. But if the 1660 can dethrone the RX 580, the name won't matter.

Now this is entirely different to the disaster that was the Nintendo Wii U console where, yeah, the lack of other developers helped kill it, but the most fatal flaw was the name. It made casual players confused as they thought it was just another add-on for the Wii, something they didn't need. This made the Wii U fail at launch, which made devs not support it, which meant there were no games, which meant no one bought it, and vicious cycle from there.

 

One might assume that this would kill the 1660 but in actuality it might not be a problem, because in order to build a PC, one must know what parts to buy, so they would understand what the 1660 is better than casual gamers would with the Wii U. Also PC builders like NZXT or CyberPower would also understand what they're selling too, and given that people who buy prebuilds do it so that way they don't have to worry about components, it's not that bad for Nvidia. But this is all assuming that the 1660 and 1660ti can dethrone AMD as the mid-range king, which is a case of giving it time.

Now do I think all creators should pursue abstract naming? Hell no, that almost killed Nintendo with the Wii U and hurt Microsoft hard with the Xbox One. If you want abstract naming, you have to appeal to a niche that people have to learn, like the PC market where things like reddit's buildapcforme and youtube's thousands of build guides can help. But it's probably best not to continue like this next time, either stick with the old naming or come up with something new.