Nv30 Physical Size Issues ??

[Doomtrooper]

I would agree Randell, strange statement to make if you are on the recieving end of a companies decision to cut corners (it will always come back and haunt the company later)..consumers are not stupid...unless of course you own 10,000 Nvidia stocks

 

[RussSchultz]

I'm glad to see all the armchair ASIC designers have moved from their temporary positions of armchair thermal engineers and are now providing their services as armchair layout experts.

Is there nothing you people don't know? (or think you know?)

 

[Doomtrooper]

Funny since Engineering was the department that I spend most of my time in for a major manufacturing company if you really need to know No its not electrical engineering, mechanical.
All of a sudden you have to be a electrical engineer to post a opinion on this forum..I don't think so Russ...the usual suspects with their overated ego and fat heads...legends in their own mind.
Armchair experts ??

 

[Joe DeFuria]

I'm glad to see all the armchair ASIC designers have moved from their temporary positions of armchair thermal engineers and are now providing their services as armchair layout experts.

And once again the forum is graced by the armchair moderator...

 

[nAo]

And once again the forum is graced by the armchair moderator...

You don't need a degree to moderate, so the armchair moderator could be as good as the real one..or who knows, even better..

ciao,
Marco

 

[flf]

I'm glad to see all the armchair ASIC designers have moved from their temporary positions of armchair thermal engineers and are now providing their services as armchair layout experts.

And once again the forum is graced by the armchair moderator...

And, pray tell, who are these moderators that are not in armchairs?

 

[RussSchultz]

Don't accuse me of moderating.

I'm calling the collective you out for talking out of your asses on topics you don't know dick about.

And yes, you do have to have layout experience to talk smack about the quality of a layout. Saying "its bigger so it must be worse" is simple minded and wrong.

 

[Tagrineth]

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...

Projection TV's hardly suck.

Oh, and 3dfx's drivers?

3dfx worked toward compatibility, not pure speed.

They were also pretty damn lazy, the last official OpenGL and Direct3D drivers are still both 97% GLide wrappers... despite a decent number of calls being supported natively in Avenger and Napalm. In fact, both of these cores are OpenGL 1.2 compliant, but the drivers don't show this at all That's why 3dhq is able to do so much.

Also the GLide driver was "finalised" way too early, there were a lot of improvements to be made, especially considering Voodoo4/5's drivers were based around early-Voodoo3 GLide runtimes.

So quite frankly, outside of compatibility, 3dfx's drivers sucked completely.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

Don't accuse me of moderating.

I'm not. I'm accusing you of armchair moderating. Or is your post not intended to dissuade or prevent people from making certain types of posts?

I'm calling the collective you out for talking out of your asses on topics you don't know dick about.

Yes, I agree that quite a few of the comments here do not have much of a basis. That being said, there are also quite a few comments that don't require a "degree" to be relevant. (Large board size can be a hindrance to some motherborads, etc.)

It is the duty of the "informed" to educate the poor, hapless, collective. So instead of just posting flame bait, (at people who did not first insult you), is perhaps not the best way to get your point across.

Saying "its bigger so it must be worse" is simple minded and wrong.

From a "product quality" perspective, I agree. From a consumer perspective, bigger is worse.

In the end though, one does have to wonder why nVidia consistently puts out larger PCBs for their products than ATI does. (My guess, nVidia doesn't spend as much R&D effort on PCBs than ATI does.) Before we have seen the size of these cards, which one would you have GUESSED to be on a larger PCB...the 9700 or the NV30, based on specs alone?

 

[Dave Baumann]

Don't accuse me of moderating.

I'm calling the collective you out for talking out of your asses on topics you don't know dick about.

And yes, you do have to have layout experience to talk smack about the quality of a layout. Saying "its bigger so it must be worse" is simple minded and wrong.

Sorry, but until you offer some reasoning then you are not calling people out.

I'm relatively disgusted by this thread on so many levels - DM's trail of thought appears to be fairly transparent, but until people actually offer coherant arguments rather then whining and really rather snide comments (DC) then you are no better. For gods sake, this board is about learning as well "civilised" discussion, so lets actually educate a little as well and crawl out from the pit this thread is in.

 

[RussSchultz]

In the end though, one does have to wonder why nVidia consistently puts out larger PCBs for their products than ATI does.

Hypothesis: Maybe its because NVIDIA doesn't skimp too save a few
pennies on board size and properly lays out the board?

Of course, thats an equally baseless statement, because you can't tell diddly about the layout without the cad files in front of you. There's 4-6 other layers you just can't see, so you have no idea if the ground plane is adequate, or if they're running lines in parallel for too long, or if high frequency lines have too many bends or are too close together, or if the right components are next to each other, etc. ad nauseum.

Board size doesn't matter one bit, except if it causes obstructions. If it does, then somebody's an idiot because those keep out zones are well published and everybody in the business should know what they can and can't do.

Perhaps I should have immediately come out and said: "Hey, Doomtrooper: shut your pie hole, you don't know what you're talking about". Would that have been less provoking?

 

[Joe DeFuria]

Actually, my real hypothesis is that it would make sense for ATI to traditionally spent more effort on quality PCB design, because ATI sells products directly to the end user. (This is of course, changing...)

Board size doesn't matter one bit, except if it causes obstructions. If it does, then somebody's an idiot...

Right...just like it doesn't matter if an AGP 8X card doesn't work in an AGP 8X motherboard. Someone's an "idiot" for not adhering to specs, or someone's an idiot for not making 100% concise specs to begin with. This doesn't help the consumer who just has a problem getting it to work (9700 on some 8X mobos, GeForce256 on som 4X mobos, GeForce4 on some mobos due to obstruction issues.)

Perhaps I should have immediately come out and said: "Hey, Doomtrooper: shut your pie hole, you don't know what you're talking about". Would that have been less provoking?

No, what you should have done immediately is come out and made the comments about design that you only did right now with your last post.
Do THAT first. (Insults come later... )

 

[sas_simon]

I am not 100% sure about this argument but doesn't nvidia boards generally consume more power then ati boards, meaning more room has to be taken up by resistors and capacitors to restrict and clean the flow of power through the card?




*looks at russ and thinks if he should tell him about my experience at designing layouts on pcbs*

 

[RussSchultz]

I am not 100% sure about this argument but doesn't nvidia boards generally consume more power then ati boards, meaning more room has to be taken up by resistors and capacitors to restrict and clean the flow of power through the card?

And how does this relate to the layout being better or worse?

 

[Joe DeFuria]

It relates to the size of the card, and larger size = worse for the conusmer.

Let's "decouple" the two ideas concerning "board layout:"

1) better or worse quality PCB design
2) better or worse PCB for the conumer.

A layout that has a larger footprint is generally worse for the consumer. At the same time, one cannot infer a larger footprint means an inferior quality design. OK?

 

[jvd]

I'm sure we can all agree that we would rather have an nv30 and an r350 that is the same size as the current 9700 and use a small passive heatsink and still run at insane speeds 400+ . Can we not ?

 

[RussSchultz]

I'll certainly agree that a PCB that violates keep outs is bad for the consumer, and generally, smaller is better for the fit, but not necessarily for function.

Regardless, a few inches in length means about as much as red vs. blue coloring of the PCB.

 

[Mariner]

Regardless, a few inches in length means about as much as red vs. blue coloring of the PCB.

Well, not completely, as I expect the size of a card could affect the airflow inside the case and therefore the cooling.

A very minor problem in most cases though, I agree. It's only really relevant when thinking about what will fit in a small form factor PC. Personally, I've got my eye on one of Shuttle's little systems when I next upgrade as I'm sick to death of big, ugly, noisy boxes. My next graphics card is going to be passively cooled, I reckon and as long as it fits in the box, I don't mind what it looks like.

 

[Doomtrooper]

Russ,

If you want to talk kiddy cheapshots then do it it PM's.

Now back to the topic, the reference to width of the card and cooling solution also leaves alot to be desired..if the there is two PCI slots covered..its is not just the length.

1) Not everyone is running full size towers
2) Not everyone has hardware that was designed around full size cards
3) Not everyone likes Jet engine level noise coming from their PC

That is reality and bigger IMO does cause issues, valid issues.

 

[incandescent]

thanks for picking up the struggle of us brothers with small cases! you speak for everyone with impotent cases! fight on!