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A Closer Look
Just
a quick look is enough to tell you that the GeForce
FX is a serious piece of kit. The combination of shiny
copper or clear plexi have formed the basis of many
a classy cooler or case mod so why has there been
such a negative response to NVIDIA's use of it? I'll
try to look a little closer at this issue on the next
page when we take a specific look at the whole cooling
setup but first let's take a hover over the other
features.
First
thing that strikes you is that this card is big!.
Length is something similar to that of the GeForce4
Ti 8 layer boards but obviously the new cooling means
it's now deeper than usual too. Compared to the FX
the Radeon 9700 Pro looks decidedly anorexic.
And
if for some reason you've decided that monster cooling
setup has been added purely for cosmetic reasons,
the size of that passive sink on the rear of the card
should confirm that the FX really does need all the
thermal help it can get.
Clickable
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A
lot has been made of the fact that the FX takes up
two expansion slots but other than losing a space
to bolt on something like a USB, Firewire or audio
expansion bracket I think it's fair to say most enthusiasts
avoid installing any cards in the first PCI slot due
to IRQ sharing difficulties so this isn't a big deal.
If you're wondering what the additional threaded collat.
to the right of the air intake grill is for I can
say with my hand on my heart...I have no idea!
Taking
a look from the side gives an idea just how complex
a construction the FX is. If you add the complex arrangement
of fasteners, shroud and the like to the necessity
for a challenging twelve layer PCB design it's little
wonder NVIDIA have decided to tackle the card manufacture
themselves to give partners a chance to gear up, in
fact as a manufacturer I'd be very wary about investing
the kind of money required to set up manufacturing
facilities for this card at all and this may mean
we see a very limited production run for the FX.
Along
with the rather complex arrangement of screws and
spring loaded retainers keeping the cooling in place,
NVIDIA have used some kind of thermal interface between
the copper base plate and the RAM chips. I'm not quite
sure what this TIM is but it's almost putty like in
texture and seemed to contain fine stands of something
or other, almost like fiberglass.
Much
like the Radeon 9700 Pro the FX requires an additional
power feed though unlike the 9700 Pro NVIDIA opted
to use a regular four pin Molex rather than a floppy
connector. Most power supplies I've seen feature two
floppy connectors so at a guess I'd say most drive
and fan laden systems are more likely to have a free
floppy connector than a four pin Molex but I suppose
you could always get a "Y" splitter.
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