Topic: 260 65nm 55nm

[LC0g]

yeah EVGA rocks. still very handy for a company to release a voltage tuner when every other company see volt mods as pest. 

with voltage at max I get around 25-30 MHz more on the core.

you got a 55nm GTX 260? maybe the 55nm will help though. in the Voltage tuner show, the GTX 295 (55nm of course) was able to do 738MHz core if I remember right. that is very impressive. so maybe when other 55nm cards are supported you will get an higher overclock than me (I have 65nm cards).

you can also patch your program so that the limitation goes up to 2.0V  (I won't go past 1.18V)

[anomaly]

i have the 65nm 260 core 216. personally from what ive been reading the 55nm arent all that great in comparison to the 65nm. stock vs stock anyway. they skimped on the 55nm heatsink, the result made it run hotter than the 65nm, not to mention i think they run on less voltage to be more power efficient and as a result... yea... less OCage.

sad part is they dont have any more 65nm in stock... so i guess im not going to go SLI with the 200 series which sucks!  cuz i really like this card... unless i find one on B-stock or something.

[LC0g]

yeah basically I think 55nm as a lot of downsides. smaller die, cheaper heatsink... (all of that for a higher price??  )

maybe you can check out ebay. I saw 65nm GTX 260 (vanilla though, not 216 core) on ncix.com.
 

[anomaly]

well to my understanding a smaller die is better... but they just skimped on everything else to save $$$. normally a die shrink is good for everyone but the retailers (if they still have old stock).

the chip company saves money because normally the smaller die size means they can yield more stable chips per wafer. not to mention they normally clock higher too (assuming the same PCB, voltage and heatsink are used) which means a faster card for less money....but Nvidia didn't do that this time. they skimped in every area they could. even the PCB is different so all the RAM is on one side so they could ditch the back side heatsink.

the way they did things this time around, you just have basically the same performance for the basically same price. this made a LOT of power users angry. power user love die shrinks, sometimes they even hold out for them because they know 6 months down the road they can get the second revision for cheaper and OC it even more than the first rev. leaving the dudes that paid extra for early adoption in the dust on the bench marks.

i don't know if they did this to keep their head above water during this slow economy or what. last time i checked Nvidia doesn't have a strong grip on the mainstream graphics market. but with this move they sure did hurt the the feelings of the market they probably need pretty badly, "power users". as we all know the majority of people that are going to pay over $250 for a graphics card are more than likely power users.

[aldog]

I'll let you know if my power user sensibilities are offended since I just took delivery of my new 260 GTX Superclocked 55nm card.

[anomaly]

don't get me wrong, its a great chip and i am in love with mine. just dont expect much improvement over the 65nm core 216.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/13533-evga-gtx-260-core-216-55nm-superclocked-edition-video-card-review-23.html

[LC0g]

yeah 65nm is basically the same as 55nm

BUT

we can say that when you pay 400$ for a graphics card, you just slap a watercooling setup on that 55nm core, over volt it, and you got a beast.

it's just sad that nvidia is going cheap. basically, to take dvantage of the new 55nm core. you need 3rd party cooling or something to cool better than the stock cooling.

[mephisto_kur]

Nvidia does not make cards.

Nvidia provides the minimum requirements to support each chip, along with schematics and license to use them.  The only hardware provided by Nvidia is the chip itself.  Nvidia is not being cheap.  The board manufacturers are.  The fan most companies are using is the bare minimum for that chip as stated in the Nvidia specs.

[anomaly]

who makes the boards? Foxcon?

just wondering cuz the reference is almost identical (aside from color) across the board excluding 2 or 3 names.

[mephisto_kur]

The company that rents the license (XFX, evga, PNY...) farms out the manufacture of the boards.  Most companies stick to the reference design by Nvidia.  This is why the boards all look very similar.

[anomaly]

not trying to argue, just trying to understand....

why do the board partners that share the same reference PCB/HSF come with plastic shrouds have the Nvidia logo on them (underneath the board partners sticker)? it would seem to me that painting the Nvidia logo on the fan shroud would be pointless and not very cost efficient considering 99% of the reference board partners use their own sticker over it, its adds a extra few steps and materials to the manufacturing process... which would cost more money vs just leaving it unpainted.

do you think evga ,XFX, etc just use the same exact company to make their heatsink/fan/shroud/PCB as used in making the Nvidia engineering samples?

[mephisto_kur]

No they do not use the same company.  Well, some of them probably do, there is actually not that many companies in the world that produce the parts to the quality control required by the license agreement.

Why does Dell have a Made For Windows logo on all their machines?  Doesn't it add cost and time to the build to pain that on their machines?

Licensing.  The companies that sell Nvidia chips are required by the licensing agreement to brand the parts in specific ways and to not cover up those logos unless the agreement allows for moving it.

[Smoke]

man that msi 260ocv2 on newegg is looking like a sweet deal.$30 rebate and free farcry2.soooooo tempted.

[LC0g]

and you got a SLI motherboard.

go for it