DaedalusHelios, if I didn't catch your tone I'll apologize for that. But it was still a silly thing to say (or maybe just a bad joke). re: the pcb thing as I remember it they made the GTs in a way that the margins on it were too small and the cost cutting was a reactionary measure not proactive and it didn't make the partners very happy. I wouldn't credit their success on cost effectiveness so much as good marketing & positioning combined with steady performance.
On ATIs side it's harder to comment.. I'd be interested to see how they're actually doing (ie: apart from AMD as a whole). It does sound like after the intial merger mess they're doing a lot better. They margins on the 3000 series cards were supposedly pretty good (and they seem to have room to play with the prices still looking at the recent price cuts) and they seem to be poised to get ahead of Nv this spring/summer.
Regarding AMDs situation I'm not completely sure what you're arguing... I did not say AMD is not in a bad situation but that your comment "No one in the right mind would buy AMD stock right now" may not be the most accurate assement. Yes AMD is currently in the shitter but that's part of the appeal of buying into them atm. Like I said, if you bought them at their worst 2 months ago when people were crapping on them the most you would currently be up 30% on your investment today. And given AMD/ATI's potential, what they are to a few companies, and how low they currently are it just seems to me like it's most likely to go up for them (and like the saying goes, you're supposed to buy low). If nothing else I have a hard time believing someone won't buy them out before they go bankrupt, which (again I'm not a big finance guy) I would imagine would drive the price up since there's not much room to currently fall before it gets to that point and there are probably a few companies that would have a stake in acquiring them.
With the side deals thing I don't think you can say they obviously won't help b/c they're currently still in debt when the pay off is still be a ways away. The EUV thing for example is expect to not be needed for at least another 3 years I think it was (yes that seems like a long time but Intels already been waiting at least 1 year - as in that's how long it takes to disassemble, ship, & reassemble the stuff they're waiting for - just to get a tool from Nokia I think it was so they could do some R&D on the tech AMD+IBM are playing around with).
And I read the same article from Tom's a while ago. I also read one from them a month or so ago as well that the new one contracdicts on a lcouple of points. When they write a new one that offers further speculation I'll probably read that as well. I'll probably take that with a grain of salt though rather than convincing myself that reading an article on Tom's equates to working knowledge of business and finance.
Don't you think companies will create a cooler for it easily. Making one by hand fits into your assumption. But the ones that will be made and manufactured by Danger Den(liquid cooling), or others, of course wouldn't be hard. First, you would check your fittings, apply your thermal compound. Then, you would put it in, match up the holes, and tighten the screws with a screwdriver.
We are talking about cutting edge GPU's and you're wondering if a company can make a piece of metal hollow with flat sides?
It could be engineered to even use the reference design fastener if they wanted to.
1) I'm not trying to argue.. someone said something, I'm not completely familiar with water cooling but I understand the principals so I was curious how it would actually work b/c it sounded like what he was saying had a flaw in the idea. If you don't have anything worthwhile to add feel free to save some gas.
2) I'm sure if a company really wanted to they could figure something out ... whether they would actually do so would depend on the success of the card and the likelyhood of selling their cooling solution (talking particularly of aftermarking - I'd imagine Nv partners will design their own cooling on their versions of the card). No matter how smart the design of an aftermarket cooler may be, it's worthless if the end user won't be able to install it.
But here's what I'm asking as it relates to what you said.. using your assumptions it sounds like you think the case will be removable and that there should be enough space between the 2 cards to just slide the block in. The block if it's like Newtekie was saying would have to be connected to/between both chips (for anyone else - keep in mind this was all originally directed to him so that's why I'm referring to this design) so both sides would have to be connected to both boards to secure a tight fit after it's in no?
Now try this, take 2 pencils.. lay one against your palm across the top of your thumb and pinky. Take the other one and cross across the first between your index and middile finger and hold the two tight in a fist so they stay together. Imagine the one across your pinky and thumb is the top card and the vertical pencil is the water block that is already tight/secured against the top chip/pcb. When you tighten the block to the bottom core it should pull the block down towards it.. if you pull on the bottom of the vertical pencil maybe you'll get what I was getting at.
When you screw a block or fan down to 1 PCB the block moves not the PCB. But if you do it to 2 it's different. If there's any space between them and you go to tighten the blocks down to both, one or both of the cards will have to bend to make up the difference (the space that allowed easy installation) which I'd imagine would normally be considered a bad thing. If you remove the space from the equation before that point you have to deal with the possability of a bad fit/forcing it in, thermal paste scrapping off (more annoying than anything) etc. The only way I can think of that design Newtekie was suggesting working would be is if it's designed for no space and it's possible to disassemble the 2 cards so you can put the block in first and then the top card. But I have a hard time buying that that would be possible.
Aftermarket cooling for this just seems like it would be impractical.. especially if it's success and Nvidia's commitment to the design ends up being questionable.
! Me like it! 
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