imo opinion it goes back to ati doing another paper launch of their "flagship" product... ati releases cards for reviews, all kinds of hoopla is made about how great, how fast... then it's followed by the disclaimer, "they'll be available in about a month..."
so why not review them in a month when they're available?
and how easily do some forget last year's launch? same thing.. the slower card comes out a bit after the "launch", supposedly followed in a "few weeks" by the xtpe - which for the most part certainly available. took them until refresh (x850) to make it to market with a decent amount of cards... so again people are arguing for (at least) a month over hardware that doesn't exist in the consumer channel, and now a driver that's also not public...
ackmed, there are plenty of reviews stating the the cooling on the cards (not only the xt, but the xl as well) are quite loud, so it's hardly a surprise CGW says something similar; it's common knowledge. not sure what you're arguing about...
"The cooler is a single slot cooler with an adjustable speed centrifugal fan. In its current state, the fan operates at its higher speed setting more often than its at the lower speed, meaning that the card is often loud. When gaming, the card operates at full speed all of the time and it was clearly louder than the cooler on both the GeForce 7800 GT and GTX. During 2D mode, there are several occasions when the fan changed from the lower speed up to the higher speed setting. One rather bizarre incident of adjustable fan craziness was when our monitor went in to stand by mode - seconds later the fan would switch to its full operating speed creating unnecessary and unacceptable noise. Without doubt, we feel that the adjustable fan speed thresholds need a little reworking in the VGA BIOS, as we found this card is unexpectedly loud for an ATI video card." ~ bit-tech
"The fan, however, is very small. In operation, there are two fan speeds, a slower speed, which is not very loud, and a higher speed, which is very loud. In fact, the fan speeds up and speeds down between these two speeds frequently, even when the card is in idle 2D mode. ~ HOCP
so while certainly not a "showstopper", it seems a valid point.
like it's competition, it has it's strenght and weaknesses, and it certainly seems to me that it would be (or will be?) a viable alternative if (when?) price drops to GT levels... would have been much less an issue had the card came out 4-5 months ago as ati originally indicated.
so why not review them in a month when they're available?
and how easily do some forget last year's launch? same thing.. the slower card comes out a bit after the "launch", supposedly followed in a "few weeks" by the xtpe - which for the most part certainly available. took them until refresh (x850) to make it to market with a decent amount of cards... so again people are arguing for (at least) a month over hardware that doesn't exist in the consumer channel, and now a driver that's also not public...
ackmed, there are plenty of reviews stating the the cooling on the cards (not only the xt, but the xl as well) are quite loud, so it's hardly a surprise CGW says something similar; it's common knowledge. not sure what you're arguing about...
"The cooler is a single slot cooler with an adjustable speed centrifugal fan. In its current state, the fan operates at its higher speed setting more often than its at the lower speed, meaning that the card is often loud. When gaming, the card operates at full speed all of the time and it was clearly louder than the cooler on both the GeForce 7800 GT and GTX. During 2D mode, there are several occasions when the fan changed from the lower speed up to the higher speed setting. One rather bizarre incident of adjustable fan craziness was when our monitor went in to stand by mode - seconds later the fan would switch to its full operating speed creating unnecessary and unacceptable noise. Without doubt, we feel that the adjustable fan speed thresholds need a little reworking in the VGA BIOS, as we found this card is unexpectedly loud for an ATI video card." ~ bit-tech
"The fan, however, is very small. In operation, there are two fan speeds, a slower speed, which is not very loud, and a higher speed, which is very loud. In fact, the fan speeds up and speeds down between these two speeds frequently, even when the card is in idle 2D mode. ~ HOCP
so while certainly not a "showstopper", it seems a valid point.
like it's competition, it has it's strenght and weaknesses, and it certainly seems to me that it would be (or will be?) a viable alternative if (when?) price drops to GT levels... would have been much less an issue had the card came out 4-5 months ago as ati originally indicated.
