Nv30 Physical Size Issues ??

[Doomtrooper]

Not sure if anyone has been paying attention but I've been following leaks on the Nv30 with eagerness, and it appears this card would have issues for sure in certain towers and motherboards due to its physical size...also mentioned in the tweaktown review with pics...They are stating it takes up TWO PCI slots due to its cooling solution ?? I would hope thats a TYPO.


Right now on my MSI board the 8500 is touching DDR Ram #1..so basically my current card just fits..and the 8500 is not that long.

http://forums.tweaktown.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6811

 

[jvd]

what in gods name is on the ass of your card ?

Anyway It takes up one slot. The cooling heatsink takes up another. At least thats what I've been lead to believe. Just get a 9700 pro. I think its actually smaller than my 8500 and its def smaller than my old geforce 4600

 

[CarstenS]

To me it looks about the same size of a Ti4400+ well within Spec for a full length card. But surely there'll be small cases which will have a hard time fitting one of these into their guts, especially if HDDs are mounted directly in line with the AGP-Slot.

2 PCI-slots is definitely a typo. Two slots is all it takes, as can be seen by it's secondary mounting bracket.

 

[Philibob]

It doesn't bother me cos I'd be leaving the adjacent slot anyway for airflow

 

[Mulciber]

hehe, that looks sweet. i think the problem is that guy has a fugly setup with poor airflow. you wouldnt see the inside of my case with wires and cables all over the place like that.

 

[Doomtrooper]

Well it bothers me, the design is poor IMO..no need for a card that size today and would force me to Upgrade a motherboard, I also have been doing some research and looking at this shot I can see that the cooling solution would be very close to this setup here without the fan (just the width of the heatsink)..which would be in the two PCI slot range.

The card would hit my DDR slots as I have .030 " right now from the 8500 and DDR Clip.

This shot also shows that two pci slots could be used NP, the width of the heatsink (without the fan on this CPU cooler) is very close to the width of the Nv30 solution..of course estimates.

There was also concern of the noise being produced in this review..that would make three so far, close to Delta fan levels or 54 dBA...not ideal at all...

So far without looking at peformance numbers, the choice is easy for the next high end card...9700/R350.

 

[noko]

Cool, glass paks .

 

[flf]

Here's the Zalman Z80 heatpipe jobbie, without the large (but whisper quiet) fan that mounts over the top of the cards. This is on a GF4-4200.

What can I say... I really like it.

 

[Oompa Loompa]

Well it bothers me, the design is poor IMO..no need for a card that size today

What is your basis for that statement? Have you measured the trace lengths and examined the surface mounting? I'd be interested to know which components you feel have been poorly laid out.

 

[RussSchultz]

So, if I read this correctly, you'd be buying a NV30 except it would force you to upgrade your motherboard?

That is suprising news.

 

[DemoCoder]

He'd never be buying an NV30, hell, he hasn't even bought a R9700 PRO yet. Just more childish digs. "Hey, I'd upgrade my Honda Civic to a Ferrari, if it wasn't for their poor design"

 

[archie4oz]

The card would hit my DDR slots as I have .030 " right now from the 8500 and DDR Clip.

That's not the card's fault, it's the motherboard designer's fault for not allowing proper clearance for a full-length AGP card. In fact it's been a problem with a lot of motherboards lately.

Well it bothers me, the design is poor IMO..no need for a card that size today

"Cards of that size" have been around for ages, just not much in the consumer space. Considering that professional (or at least pro hardware based off of consumer hardware) and consumer end hardware has been slowly converging it's inevitable that these problems are going to occur.

I'd say again that the blame falls more on the motherboard manufacturers for not allowing proper clearances. Look how power requirements for AGP devices are climbing, yet so few motherboards are released with AGP Pro 50 or 110 slots (granted AGP Pro does make the board more complex and expensive to manufacture). IMO motherboard design has always been a problem and finding a good motherboard that's well layed out has always been a pain (not to mention cases to compliment said motherboards, but that's another topic entirely). Invariably that's the real crux of the problem is cost. Demand for low cost solutions means too many shortcuts...

 

[Reverend]

DemoCoder, say, didn't you once said people should post less flamebaits?

 

[SirPauly]

It doesn't bother me( The size) because it didn't bother me with the Voodoo5. Same with the power connector views offered by some on the power connector on the 9700 Pro when first launched. The cooling on the GeForce Fx doesn't bother me as well and have faith in the engineers that kinda know what they're doing and have much more data than a few crumbs of information offered so far. These are high-end 3d products targeted for the high-end enthusiast market -- not a small office machine or budget gamer. What matters in my mind is over-all performance and quality when the subject is 3d.

 

[Doomtrooper]

What is your basis for that statement? Have you measured the trace lengths and examined the surface mounting? I'd be interested to know which components you feel have been poorly laid out.

Huh ?? We have a 256 bit bus card on the market already and you think they could at least keep the PCB size down close to 9700 size...trace complexity is certainly more advanced on the 9700 memory interface ??

 

[Doomtrooper]

So, if I read this correctly, you'd be buying a NV30 except it would force you to upgrade your motherboard?

That is suprising news.

My motherboard is about 8 months old, and I have lots of toys Russ..I see no reason to upgrade to a Kt400 as the memory bandwidth isn't that great over my KT 266a Overclocked...making the card smaller eliminates these variables...so stating having to uprgade a modern motherboard for a card is not..lets say realistic...

 

[Doomtrooper]

He'd never be buying an NV30, hell, he hasn't even bought a R9700 PRO yet. Just more childish digs. "Hey, I'd upgrade my Honda Civic to a Ferrari, if it wasn't for their poor design"

I've always preferred ATI cards for IQ, 3DFX for overall driver support and issues and Nvidia for releasing tech that was interesting, but not flawless...
If the Nv30 was a contendor and priced affordable for a high end card where I live, I'd buy it...after all I have bought many Nvidia products prior but was never that impressed (TNT, Geforce 2 MX, Geforce 2 GTS..)

Your comments are the childish ones coder..as are insults.

 

[KimB]

Huh ?? We have a 256 bit bus card on the market already and you think they could at least keep the PCB size down close to 9700 size...trace complexity is certainly more advanced on the 9700 memory interface ??

And the GeForce FX is also running at much higher clock speeds. Believe it or not, this makes a difference.

 

[KimB]

I've always preferred ATI cards for IQ, 3DFX for overall driver support and issues and Nvidia for releasing tech that was interesting, but not flawless...
If the Nv30 was a contendor and priced affordable for a high end card where I live, I'd buy it...after all I have bought many Nvidia products prior but was never that impressed (TNT, Geforce 2 MX, Geforce 2 GTS..)

Your comments are the childish ones coder..as are insults.

Little correction there. 3dfx only had high compatibility because their cards were popular. According to developer statements, their drivers really sucked. How else could a third party produce a better OpenGL ICD?

 

[Joe DeFuria]

And the GeForce FX is also running at much higher clock speeds. Believe it or not, this makes a difference.

True, but then how do you explain the relative size of even the GeForce4 Ti 44/4600 to the 9700?

4600 has roughly the same clocks (core and mem) as the 9700 Pro, but also only half the memory bus width, and about 1/3 less transistor count. Yet, the 4600 PCB is still significantly larger than the 9700 Pro...