Visiontek gone ATI?

[Waccoon]

HereWeGoAgain:  if you want to run your system with a gazillion fans just to insure it doesnt over heat.

This is one thing I REALLY can't stand about AMD.  They refuse to rework their cooling designs.  The trick is to get a 3rd party copper heatsink with a thermal regulator.  The AMD retail fan is rediculous.  I have the Thermaltake Volcano9 and it is pretty quiet.  Not as quiet as my dad's P4, but close.

I'm replacing my VIA 266a with an nForce2 tomorrow.  The VIA chipset I have now is a pile of crap!  Lousy drivers, awful studdering problems...  the nForce2 is supposed to be a real killer.

As for the GeForceFX, it's a Voodoo5 all over again.  Copper heatsinks on BOTH sides, clocked so fast it's amazing it doesn't explode...  I don't think it matters how fast it is.  Haphazard hardware design just can't survive in the market.

I'm really anxious to see what kind of cooling solution they have in mind for the lower-end FX card.  The QuadroFX 1000 has a much smaller fan assembly.  I guess the QuadroFX 2000 has the same leafblower as the GeForceFX card, though they haven't published a picture of the QFX2K, yet.

For those with Flash, see the QuadroFX 1000 here

I think I'm still going to get ATI's R350 card.  The reason I hate the FX is not because of the performance specs (I did almost get a Parhelia, after all).  My beef is that the form factor is just unacceptable.  Even a reference card shouldn't have the kind of cooler they have now.[

I really didnt think much of AMD(these days) till I picked up an EPoX 8RDA+ with NForce2... its quite a good chipset... very zippy...and contrary to populer belief it dosent have onboard video... its got AGP 8X... awesome board....

I agree AMD's cooling sucks...but I'll go one better and say AMD's cpu layout sucks aswell... had they capped the Athlon they would have probably gotten alot more OEM action... I read somewhere that not-capping the cores was one of the major reasons big OEM's didnt adopt AMD in massive numbers...

putting a headsink on a P3 wasnt nearly as dodgy...and the P4 is complete pie... I prefer vantec and I used a vantec HSF on my XP1800/Nforce2 rig...Vantec's clip design is pretty easy ... I've personally never cracked an athlon core ... but I always use shims... I know a good deal of people have cracked them... 5 personally and I've seen alot more in forums then I can remember....
P4's are in the lead now and with good reason..with a heatsink attachment system like they have... good retail cooling..and a capped core I think their just plain better all around...even if they where 20% slower I'd still use P4's as workstations... their cheap now...their fast enough...and their STABLE as a rock.... I use an Asus P4B533-E/Lan  board in my main system now... and its a very sturdy rig...