Video Card Length Discussion, Evergreen and Fermi Edition

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pc1x1

[H]ard|Gawd
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With the 5970 finally released, and at around 12 inches (thankfully not the rumored 13.5!), What do you guys think its acceptable in terms of graphic card size? Do you think its a natural evolution, or do you think they need to get their engineering in gear and keep the cards under 11 inches?

Personally I think anything over 12 inches is to much. You can make the argument for larger computer cases, but even my PC-343B which is one of the largest retail cases available can't go further without modding. Granted its really only as long as a mid tower, its mostly just very wide, I don't think graphics cards should really get further than mid tower size. Because we still need bay hardware in there, so even if its a full tower, passing 12 inches is going to limit bay options regardless, and its making us compromise the design of our cases, in having to mod it. So I am hoping this is a one time deal, and they stay under 12 inches. Also this is a big problem for major OEM's, like Dell, HP, etc.

Anyhow personally anyone who has a 5970 is they could answer this, would be nice. I water cool my stuff. I heard that the pcb is actually only 11.5 inches long. I wonder if and when the water blocks come out, it makes the card 11.5 inches long total? That way it fits on my case fine, as well as everyone else. I think its time retailers and reviewers need to address this, because card sizes are literally maxing out.

On my PC-343B, I can only go as far as 12 inches, and has to be under that to fit. I would imagine most people are on the same boat. Even with newer cases.

I am hoping Fermi is 11 inches, from the photo released, I can't really tell, but doesn't seem 12+.

Does the card's size influence your decision? Personally for me it does.
 
jeremyshaw said:
There are more transistors, more bits of RAM, and more bits of VRM in it.
Click to expand...

I understand that, and seen it on the pictures, but just like how they keep making the chippies smaller, I am sure some things can be compressed to fit. Anyhow thats their job, if we apply that logic, then all new proccesors are going to be twice the size of the 2 generation counterparts, and they aren't, they are the same size.

So in my humble opinion adding stuff to it, doesn't justify it. I need to be impressed by adding stuff to it, and making it smaller and cooler heh! :)
 
455olds said:
I think someone posted the ATX case standard is 12" for graphics cards.
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12" from the beginning of the slot, so more like 13 inches. That's in the PCI-e standard I think, not ATX.

Edit: Guess I'm wrong, it's only 12.28"
 
I can't fit anything longer than 9.5" or so in my Lian-Li case unless I take out the hard drive cage and relocate my drives to the external 3.5" bays. :(
 
I prefer short cards, but then again I'm on a matx rig. I think cooling is probably the biggest factor in gpu length. If you look at the 9800GT for example, Gigabyte came out with some cards with Zalman coolers that were significantly shorter than the reference single slot cards. Having a huge cooler limits where you can place the capacitors and other components on the PCB.
 
I am in total agreement that they should try to minimize card length if at all possible. I already had to move a hard drive in order to get a 4890 in my case. Also, on a some motherboards a large video card can limit your access to Sata ports. You can blame that on poor MB design but still, if you use multiple hard drives you might have a problem with both space and available ports.
 
Seeing that the Nivida card will have more on the PCB than ATI, it's safe to say that they will match ATI in length. Doesn't make sense to shorten a card when you can add more to the extra available PCB. The lengths matched in the GT200 and 4000 series.

I hope that card lengths stay under 13 inches.
 
OEMs are limited in what cases they can install the larger cards in also.

I'm sure they are trying to keep the length down. We ask for more performance and so far, larger cards seem to be what's needed to deliver that increase.
 
I seem to remember some isa or extended isa video cards from back in the day that were very long, and they were only 2d.
 
I hate having to use an oversized case just to fit a graphics card, I've more or less decided to replace my gtx295 with two 5850s so that I can finally go back to using my antec solo case.
 
Shouldn't this also be something for the case manufacturers to take into account though? Maybe they can try to make smarter case solutions, though that might also require new motherboard designs.

It would be kinda sad if the GPU companies had to limit their cards performance and features just to keep down the length.
 
I don't think there is a problem here. There are many graphics card options available that will fit in small cases. The mega-cards are just a bonus option for the people with huge cases that can fit them. You are not being neglected.

You can't miniaturize cooling like you can miniaturize a graphics chip. Perhaps in quite minor ways, but that's all. If a high-end chip is outputting 300W of heat then you have to have a big robust cooling solution to handle it. The only other option is to miniaturize the chip so that it has a lower heat output... but when you do that, someone will say "why don't they push the boundaries a bit and clock this new miniaturized chip higher? I have a case that can fit the huge graphics card cooler that would be required as a consequence".

But if some master engineer did, somehow, come up with a smaller way to achieve the same amount of cooling what do you think would happen? They'd apply that to ALL of their graphics cards. You'd get somewhat-faster cards with the same size as a 5850 and you'd get superfast cards with the same size as a 5970. And so on.

So what are you actually asking for here? For graphics card makers not to push the bleeding edge? For them to say "some people have big cases and would find a mega-card useful but let's not make that card because it might offend people with smaller cases"? You are not *obliged* to buy the biggest, fastest card if it doesn't suit you for whatever reason.
 
I'd have to agree with MartinX. I'd rather not have to use excessively large cases unless it's really necessary. I tend to run fairly minimal systems ( in terms of number of drives and so forth) so a lot of the space offered by full tower cases is just wasted on me. I guess there's always very deep mid-tower cases (more front to back room).

The whole thing reminds me of that old classic video card picture . . .
 
GHarris said:
I don't think there is a problem here. There are many graphics card options available that will fit in small cases. The mega-cards are just a bonus option for the people with huge cases that can fit them. You are not being neglected.

You can't miniaturize cooling like you can miniaturize a graphics chip. Perhaps in quite minor ways, but that's all. If a high-end chip is outputting 300W of heat then you have to have a big robust cooling solution to handle it. The only other option is to miniaturize the chip so that it has a lower heat output... but when you do that, someone will say "why don't they push the boundaries a bit and clock this new miniaturized chip higher? I have a case that can fit the huge graphics card cooler that would be required as a consequence".

But if some master engineer did, somehow, come up with a smaller way to achieve the same amount of cooling what do you think would happen? They'd apply that to ALL of their graphics cards. You'd get somewhat-faster cards with the same size as a 5850 and you'd get superfast cards with the same size as a 5970. And so on.

So what are you actually asking for here? For graphics card makers not to push the bleeding edge? For them to say "some people have big cases and would find a mega-card useful but let's not make that card because it might offend people with smaller cases"? You are not *obliged* to buy the biggest, fastest card if it doesn't suit you for whatever reason.
Click to expand...

I agree that there are sound reasons why cards have been getting longer, I just don't like it is all.

It also seems to me that other than the standards requirements, there's no real reason that they couldn't go wider instead of longer, I haven't seen a retail, or corporate case in a very long time that would prevent a graphics cards being a couple of inches wider.
 
MartinX said:
I agree that there are sound reasons why cards have been getting longer, I just don't like it is all.

It also seems to me that other than the standards requirements, there's no real reason that they couldn't go wider instead of longer, I haven't seen a retail, or corporate case in a very long time that would prevent a graphics cards being a couple of inches wider.
Click to expand...

My thoughts as well.

Of course, we aren't obligated to get the largest card, I am not worried about this specific launch, if it doesn't fit, I won't buy it. I am more concerned in this being a trend, and companies passing it off as acceptable.

I find it interesting that so many users (Especially those who are buying $400+ cards), are gladly suggestion for us to do the bidding of the company. IE. If it's to long, you should mod your case, etc. And not the other way around. When I purchase something, I expect the company to work and build me a product. Not they build a product, and I tailor my computer around it.

I think these super long cards are alienating the audience, and seems like a step back. Again I am flexible enough to go up to or below 12. So I don't think I am being unreasonable. I just made this topic to get enough interest that someone pays attention.
 
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