clanman

hey whatever bolletje is smoking, ill have some.

Awesome looking card, and the 4870 X2 before it was awesome too. The cooling was also shockingly inadequate. those wee red fans are great on low end cards, but I fail to see any relevance to the forthcoming 5970.

I will wait and see the DH review but I am not making the mistake of buying one unless there is something seriously better under the hood of this cooler because I had to put a cooler on my 4870 as the reference one was rubbish. I don't see why I should do that. I don't buy a powersupply and start modding it to get it to work right. Should work perfectly out of the box, its 2009 - no excuse for noisy, small fans.

Bolletje

I was just giving an example that low-end cards have decent cooling.

It's far more the delta that's killing them; switching from a high temperature to a low one and vice versa. You also see this with the G80's.



I said 'if'. As far as I can see engineers from ATI and NVIDIA agree. If the cooling wasn't sufficient they would have changed it.


I don't know a lot of people that don't know some sort of information about the card before they buy a high-end one like the HD4870X2. If they don't have the info they will register at a forum or ask the shop.


I'm not saying that's a 'reference' or 'stock' cooler. I'm justing saying that some brand have decent cooler, so if you want decent cooling and don't want to mount a 3rd party cooler yourself, you can go for one of those.

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It has come to my attention from sources apart from yourself, that you enjoy the water pokemon mudkip in some manner or form.

clanman

Ah come on man, you are an intelligent chap, but this is such a niave remark, seriously. ATI or Nvidia don't admit mistakes - we all expect that, but to keep making them time and time again so they can shift stocks of 50,000,000 70mm fans is just not acceptable. The fail rates on the last high end ATI boards was high - check out most tech forums. Its nothing wrong with the cores, nothing wrong with the hardware - its the cooling solutions which are little more than the same coolers from mid range cards moved onto high end cards.

If you think it is sufficient, then thats great, but I won't be agreeing with you. Perhaps you have shares in Arctic Cooling, would make a lot more sense.

brutusmaximus

specs look good - should be mega. How they will cool two cards with that crappy fan and cooler however?

Looks like a major fail to me. X2, just faster and a year later and more than likely over 90c most of the time when gaming or loud as f(*k to stop it melting.

Why not put two of the shitty little fans on the card? or even 3, spin them slower - less noise, better surface coverage?

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Bolletje

The brands of ATI and NVIDIA will complain if they get a lot of dead cards. They are the persons that need to give a new one back.

I completely understand your points guys, don't get me wrong. But I'm also seeing it from a different perspective.

Stock cooling isn't good these days: noisy when you want low temps and overheat problems with low RPM.

If I was chief of ATI, I woul already have changed the cooling, but I'm not. I'm just trying to see why they do this. Then you can relate it with the circumstances in the market.

G80's have something wrong with the soldering, like the G84 and G86 which some are located in laptops.

In a matter of fact, I have.


Nah, j/k :P

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It has come to my attention from sources apart from yourself, that you enjoy the water pokemon mudkip in some manner or form.

Judas

if they want to clear out those terrible fans..

they could easily implement a dual fan solution...

bad enough that the design of the cards still produces the first chip closest to the fan getting cooled. and the 2nd getting blasted by the first chips radiant heat due to the design...

split the exhaust and pump 2 seperate sets of air over each chip... lower rpms..... more air, better results.. happier people.. and less stock on fans.

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brutusmaximus

You know I don't often agree with you, but you are 110% correct. If only they would listen.....

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kris23

that thing is beautiful...... but its cooling isnt....

if it was mine, i'd do whatever it takes to make it not overheat...... apply the best thermal compound i can get my hands on...

remove the shroud and line the top of the card with multiple low profile fans.... then get waterblocks for it as soon as it is supported.....

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blibbax

13.5" ???

As for performance, we can pretty much guess where it's at. That's similar to 5870 crossfire and faster than GTX295 quad SLI. Presumably these 5970s will be CF ready...

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OldBuzzard

Same here. I've been happy with my X2, but dang, these cards keep getting longer, and longer. Dual/Triple/Quad core GPUs, whould help in getting them back to more manageable lengths.

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When looking for a reason as to why things go wrong, never rule out sheer STUPIDITY

Judas

I wouldn't deny or scoff at ATI attempting a limited eddition Quad GPU solution like Nvidia did....

release like 500 of them or something... or less....

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