NVIDIA GeForce4 - NV17 and NV25 Come to Life

[[GDI]Raptor]

Yes, it obuisly that the time starts to run out for Matrox if they want to re enter the high end market!

[KeiFront]

Originally posted by Novdid
I read in both Hardocp's and Digit-life's previews that the 2D was very good. Hardocp said that it was better than the Radeon 8500 and that he would keep the Ti 4600 in his box, and Digit-Life said that the quality is comparable to G400/G450(!).

I guess those ex-matrox (2D and nView) and ex-3dfx (the improved AA) engineers know how to improve a graphics card.

[GT98]

I'm not that impressed with the card...doesnt really offer anything new, just seems like a refresh of a refresh..maybe their six month cycle is starting to get the best of them...finally.

Scott

[rubank]

I don´t know if there is call for that many new features, I think the downside is bad anisotropic performance and possibly inferior TV/video handling, plus of course the cost of it.

rubank

[Pace]

From my quick glance at the benchmarks it seems that it ain't that much faster than Ti500. Me wants new Matrox card. Me want now.

P.

[Ali]

Originally posted by Wombat
Gah!!!!! I get tired of saying this: Fans are NOT ACTIVE COOLING!!!!!!!

What are you talking about? Fans ARE active cooling.

A heat sink by itself (eg, G400, non MAX) uses a heatsink and no fan, its therefore pasive cooling.

A G400MAX uses a heatsink and a fan, its therefore active cooling.

Active means that some work is being done to cool the chip. The fan spinning is work, therefore its active.

A TEC is also active.

Water cooling is also active.

Sorry to go off topic guys, but felt I needed to state this.

Ail

PS, interesting link to that 2 fan card, bet thats loud.

[Jon P. Inghram]

Not to mention heavy... next AGP spec will define how many pounds the video card can weigh probably

[Greebe]

Water cooling is passive as are fans. Refridgeration type evaporative and TEC type coolers are active in that they reduce the temperature by inducing a colder than ambient medium to draw the thermal energy away. About three years ago clueless hardware review site newbies started claiming that fans were and it has ever since become gospel for those thinking that anything that does more than simple convection cooling is active... this is incorrect.

Here is a search link to Google on "Passive Cooling Techniques".

[rubank]

Whether or not water cooling is active would depend on the temperature of the cooling water; it may very well be under ambient temp.

rubank

[Ali]

Greebe, going through a few of your links from Google. Most of them are rubbish, but found this on my 4th try

Quote from http://idh.vita.org/pubs/docs/upc.html

Passive cooling methods use simple mechanisms and require no input of electrical energy or conventional fuels.

end quote.

Therefore fans, which use electrical energy can not be passive.

As an aside, I spent 5 years doing Mechanical engineering, 2 years of which were mainly thermal dynamics. I dont have my text books anymore, and it was a few years ago that I did it, but Im about 90-95% sure that the definition of active cooling was cooling that used energy.

If we want to continue this, we should start up a Soap Box thread.

Im off for the weekend now (and my stag night tomorrow!) so Ill be back online in 2 days.

Have fun

Ali

edit:
Water cooling is active because the water pump used power, not to mention the fans on the radiator.