Carmack on NV30 vs R300

[gmat]

Seen on Slashdot:
"John Carmack has posted his thoughts on the NV30 vs R300 (featured via www.bluesnews.com).
Highlights some of the shortcomings of Nvidia's next step as well as pointing out what they've done right.
[...]"

Here:
http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/user.pl

[bigben2k]

I caught that yesterday.

It's going to make VC tests a lot more complicated, if the cards can't be tested on an equal par. The accuracy of the reviews will need to increase tenfold!

[gmat]

Indeed.
Also seen on a French news site, Gainward will release a "low-noise" FX, rates @7dBA (no there's no typo, *seven* dbA).
Nothing has been said on "how" they did it. Watercooling ? heatpipes ? huge ass heatsink ?
Prices aren't lower though.
Gainward Ultra/1000 Plus "Golden Sample" : GeForce FX Ultra 500 MHz (core) / 1 GHz -> 649 EUR
Gainward Ultra/800 Plus "Golden Sample" : GeForce FX 400 MHz (core) / 800 MHz -> 499 EUR
Currently the Euro is higher than the dollar (1 EUR ~= $1.077) but that does not justify the $100 price difference with the U.S. ...
Once again because we're in EU we're being ripped :(

[pHaestus]

You are getting ripped on more than exchange rate if you purchase a video card that expensive.

[bigben2k]

I caught that too, in The Inquirer (http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=7516).

It would have to be a heat pipe, there's no way around it. It would be nice to see a working heatpipe first...

[gmat]

Originally posted by bigben2k
It would be nice to see a working heatpipe first...

They already put P4's @3.06GHz in those heatpipe-cooled mini-PCs...
And laptops have been using heatpipes (from CPU to keyboard, the keyboard acts as an heatsink) for a long time.