Nv30 Physical Size Issues ??

[jjayb]

Little correction there. 3dfx only had high compatibility because their cards were popular.

Sounds pretty familiar to me. Almost like another company you may have heard of? Starts with an N ends with an A. Surprising statement coming from someone who loves to complain about Ati's drivers. Could this be part of the reason for their so called "crappy drivers"?

 

[Joe DeFuria]

Little correction there. 3dfx only had high compatibility because their cards were popular.

To an extent, the same can be said of nVidia's drivers. While I'd agree they are more "developer friendly" than 3dfx's, I think too much credit is given to nVidia's drivers, when the fact that nVidia's popular architecture the past few years has just as large a role in terms of "end user observed compatibility."

 

[Andrew]

To an extent, the same can be said of nVidia's drivers. While I'd agree they are more "developer friendly" than 3dfx's, I think too much credit is given to nVidia's drivers, when the fact that nVidia's popular architecture the past few years has just as large a role in terms of "end user observed compatibility."

Stuttering graphics, super low low-end FPS with super high high-end FPS, and other issues are definately related to ATI's immature drivers with the R300. Look how far the 8500 came over the past year in performance once ATI got going with better drivers. It seems as if they spend all their time on hardware and have one guy working on the driver. Every nVidia product ive owned worked flawlessly right out of the box. I cannot say that from my personal experiance with ATI cards.

 

[jvd]

yes in yours .

tnt - allways had problems with the drivers the first 3 months I owned the card

geforce 1 sdr - had tons of problems . Mostly quake 3 wouldn't play.

gerforce 2 - no problems

radeon - problems with the vivo , return to castle wolf , counter strike , quake 3

geforce 2 ultra - no problems

geforce 3 - slower across the board than my geforce 2 ultra

radeon 8500 - problems in most games no fsaa for about 4 months then 95% of my problems went away

geforce 4 ti 4600 - no problems (normal game glitches nothing to right home about)

radeon 9700 - no problems (same as above)

kyro 1 @ 2 - problems with games not supporting the cards , fixed through patches or work arounds

3dfx - no big problems just some minor ones esp with the voodoo 3.


Every card I have owned have had problems . Some more than others.

Think of it this way. If your first tnt based card was a tnt 2 you should not have seen any problems. Why ... well its just a faster tnt , they should have fixed 90% of driver problems. If you owned a geforce ddr ... well that had 4 months of drivers with the geforce sdr , geforce 2 , well if you owned the 64 meg verson , the pro or the ultra guess what there was someone with a geforce 2 for a vew months before you bought that new card. Geforce 3 ti and 4 ti owners .. guess what all those poor soles got to beta test those drivers on the geforce 3 .

how about ati. Well they put out the radeon then 4 months later have good drivers for it , wait a year , 8500 ... 4 months after that good drivers and of course they finally hit it right a year after that the 9700 pro and it has good drivers already.


piece it together and you will see it takes both nvidia and ati the same amount of time to put good drivers together . The diffrence is ati put out a new card every year , nvidia keeps rehashing the same card a few times in a row covering up the problems .


Am I wrong ?

 

[Bigus Dickus]

3dfx only had high compatibility because their cards were popular.

Yep, there's an dead ringer for "ironic statement of the Century."

 

[KimB]

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.

...image...

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

I just have to say that it looks like that Z80 is bending your video card...damn that thing's heavy-looking. Whatever faults it might have, I'm willing to bet that filling the second slot will keep the GeForce FX from bending due to the weight of the heatsink...

Regardless, I'm still hoping that some versions of the GeForce FX will be available with a more sane heatsink configuration. While it may be on all the high-end versions, I want a normal heatsink on, say, a GeForce FX at 400MHz.

 

[KimB]

how about ati. Well they put out the radeon then 4 months later have good drivers for it , wait a year , 8500 ... 4 months after that good drivers and of course they finally hit it right a year after that the 9700 pro and it has good drivers already.

piece it together and you will see it takes both nvidia and ati the same amount of time to put good drivers together . The diffrence is ati put out a new card every year , nvidia keeps rehashing the same card a few times in a row covering up the problems .

Am I wrong ?

Well, I think the TNT had driver problems for longer than that. One thing that was interesting was that back when I had my TNT 16MB, it had problems pretty much only in OpenGL games. Yes, once upon a time, nVidia's D3D drivers were far superior to their OpenGL drivers.

Anyway, as for the four month timespan, the Radeon 9700 still has driver issues after about five months (One in particular that I've seen: z-buffer errors in Morrowind, though there are others that I've noticed but not isolated). I'm really hoping that I'll be able to test an NV30 ASAP for a good comparison in driver quality.

Update: Heh, just checked ATI's site, and they just released the 2.5 version Catalyst drivers. I'll have to check 'em out.

 

[Mulciber]

Regardless, I'm still hoping that some versions of the GeForce FX will be available with a more sane heatsink configuration. While it may be on all the high-end versions, I want a normal heatsink on, say, a GeForce FX at 400MHz.

I think that will be the "sweet spot" for me when I look to ugrade my video card next spring (after tax returns )

 

[jvd]

Chalnoth I don't have morrowind but i'm told the 2.5's fix them . I have not had any problems with my 9700. Nothing major or wasn't fixed with the next driver update or leaked. All the cards I listed I have owned. They are all imo .

 

[flf]

I just have to say that it looks like that Z80 is bending your video card...damn that thing's heavy-looking. Whatever faults it might have, I'm willing to bet that filling the second slot will keep the GeForce FX from bending due to the weight of the heatsink...

That picture was taken with the mid-tower lying on it's side, so all the weight is straight down. I would venture that what you're seeing is the fact that the camera is not directly over the card (perspective angle) and the camera is not square to the case (camera angle) making it look wacky.

EDIT: Also, I'm holding the camera pretty close, so you may be seeing some curvature due to the FOV of the camera.

The heatsink assembly is like 400g, I think. However, the card is a lot stiffer than you'd imagine, and the pcb is very resistant to flexing. Certainly, I'd be more worried about a Megaraid 1300 SCSI controller bending than the graphics card. The AGP retaining clip on the slot does help, and remember that the weight is centered on the chip area of the pcb, which is held quite firmly rigid by the slot.

 

[sas_simon]

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...

Where does it give the 54dba figure? It does imply that it is as loud as a delta fan, but that could be 45db like with my 60mm delta fan. I will also repeat here what I said in the "nv30 fan is too loud" thread, that is a prototype board, the final release board will most probably be running quieter.

As for the comments about physical conflicts between motherboard components and graphics cards, i would put the blame squarely at the feet of the motherboard manufacturers and no one else.

 

[Andrew]

Yeah. Ive got a 1U Dynatron HSF glued to the core of my ti4400 weighing in around 300g and it doesnt bend a bit. *crosses fingers*

 

[KimB]

Chalnoth I don't have morrowind but i'm told the 2.5's fix them . I have not had any problems with my 9700. Nothing major or wasn't fixed with the next driver update or leaked. All the cards I listed I have owned. They are all imo .

I just checked, they don't.

 

[KimB]

The heatsink assembly is like 400g, I think. However, the card is a lot stiffer than you'd imagine, and the pcb is very resistant to flexing. Certainly, I'd be more worried about a Megaraid 1300 SCSI controller bending than the graphics card. The AGP retaining clip on the slot does help, and remember that the weight is centered on the chip area of the pcb, which is held quite firmly rigid by the slot.

Well, it sounds about as heavy as my Swiftech MC462 heatsink (that I'm not using right now...it can be just such a hassle...though since the stock HSF is keeping my core at about 56 degrees C, I may put it back in...). That thing definitely bent my motherboard if I didn't mount it through the case. It didn't bend it by a huge amount, but it was noticeable, and I always took the heat sink out when moving. Maybe I'll drill some new holes in my case when I get back home next week so I can mount it through the case again...though this time I'll have to be more careful putting the heatsink on this way. Last time I knocked off a resistor

 

[jvd]

Chalnoth - u sure , they are reporting it fixed over at rage 3d . many users have said this . I don't want to insult u but did you do a full reinstall of the drivers and even clean out the registery ?

 

[Nagorak]

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"

Me too! Actually I would upgrade my old CRT TV to a projection TV, if they didn't totally suck... Plasma on the other hand... erm, but back on topic...

 

[Ollo]

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...

Isn't 9700 an 8 layer board and the 4600 6 layer? That could explain the size difference. What about GFFX?

 

[Richthofen]

"
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...
"

well i would consider it as a matter of cost and price for both GF4Ti cards and NV30 cards.
I think a huge board layout is cheaper than a small one. notebooks are more expensive than desktops. PDAs and small mobile fones are expensive too. If you have nearly the same complexity it is definitely more epxensive to put that on a small PCB than on a large one.
So if Nvidia safes money with that it's just fine with me. Its all about business and making money nothing more.
I always liked lower cost for the company and higher price for the consumer.

 

[Doomtrooper]

I disagree about Motherboard layout (as if the Motherboard companies don't have the same issues as the cards people )..they only have so much realestate also, and modern mother boards with very high bus speeds, integrated lan, audio etc are in the same boat as the card companies...

Professional cards that Utilize 256 megs of ram I can see....but desktop solutions should be and could be similar to 9700 sizes.

Example the Firegl X1

If the Nv30 pictured in the Tweaktown article is indeed a 256 meg card then I could possibly understand it, but if its 128 meg...well.

This card will cause problems due to its physical size, the entire point to this thread. I will be honest here, the fan noise is the another issue I would be concerned about, especially with so much emphasis put on 'quiet Pc's'..I personally Use a thermalright SK6 with a 60 mm fan with 26dB, I tried a Delta and I was ready to start smashing things after a hour

 

[Randell]

I always liked lower cost for the company and higher price for the consumer.

as a shareholder/employee/director - yes

as a fanboi - yes

as a consumer - no


which one are you?

edit - f a n b o y