Several weeks ago, NVIDIA launched the “crown jewel” of the GeForce line, GTX 1080 Ti(tanium) in the “Founders Edition” variant. As promised, custom boards were to follow over the “next couple of weeks”. MSI, known Taiwanese vendor of graphics cards unveiled custom versions of the 1080 Ti, featuring not just a custom heatsink option, but a custom PCB as such. The line-up consists out of several cards, starting with the Aero card, which comes with a simpler heatsink and the PCB. The MSI 1080 Ti Aero card comes with a blower-style cooler to bring its price as close to MSRP as possible. Second one is
ASUS kills PATA and PCI standards!
Back on the INQ, I wrote about dangers lying ahead for AGEIA, Creative Labs and Bigfoot Networks, representatives of these respected companies just told me that their business model is solid and that they are indeed, future-proof. Well, that turned out nicely – AGEIA never took off because of $250 charge for a PCI card, Creative now exists almost solely on patent charges and selling off its own property, while Bigfoot networks made the greatest network card on the planet – and failed to pack it up in an attractive and future-proof package. The reason for this rant is a story on Xfastest.com, introducing ASUS
AMD and Celsia sign agreement for next-gen GPU cooling
I’ve just read a piece on X-Bit Labs about agreement between AMD GPG and Celsia Technologies. The two companies are developing new generation of coolers for future ATI Radeon graphics cards. After Sapphire successfully used vapor chamber cooling on their Atomic 3870 card (with a certain glitch, described here), ATI took a limited risk and introduced vapor chamber on Radeon 4870X2. As you can see on picture above, GPU0 on 4870X2 is cooled by vapor-chamber cooler, while GPU1 is cooled by the same copper cooler present on 3870X2. Now, Celsia Technologies is developing new coolers that will send conventional heat-pipe technology into oblivion. On paper,
Single slot cooling is a dream…or a nightmare?
In the world of graphics cards, one of most debated arguments is just how the fat cooler is. In almost every debate I saw, single-slot was touted as “the” cooling to go for. In arguments between X800 and 6800, X1800/1900 vs. 7800/7900, 3870 vs. 8800GT – every time I saw discussions about how great the single-slot cooling is, how that means that the chip is cooler etc. However, there is also a question of maintenance. Single slot boards are more prone to accidental deaths (overheating “accidents”), thus those boards have to be kept clean, or spew or RMAs is ahead (GeForce 7800GTX, 8800GT). Fast forward
