extensive modding was a lot of dremel work, cardboard ducts and duct tape.
I'm not aware of any clear thermal specs for AMD but I've seen it estimated in the mid 50 watt range. That makes them a much better candidate for server rooms with high cooling costs.
And don't overestimate me getting hooked on the upgrade- I think its an excellent design, should have great potential for extremely quiet air cooled systems without too much mod work. The key difference being price and effort; there are SPCR rigs on ATX that are already completely silent, you can't get any quieter so a new form factor is not needed. But I'm going for watercooling; I don't care how they've got the board layout in my systems. I'm using a GeForce3 Ti200 I bought a year ago and I'm still satisfied with its performance. I'll probably fit in one upgrade mid next year before AGP is phased out completely. I'm going to get a Yeong Yang cube case next month; a day of mod work and it will fit a BTX mobo just fine
Not that they've got me with the upgrade thing there, its just that I keep damaging my motherboards.
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