are video cards getting smaller?

[bigfoot_hunter]

Yesterday I helped my roommate replace his video card. The 3 year old Nvdia 6800gt 256m finally gave up the ghost. He bought an Nvidia 7200 512 mb card, and it is a lot smaller and lighter than the old one. The 6800 has a huge heat sink and fan while the new one has only a small plastic fan.

Are they using laptop style cards nowadays to cut down on heat and power demand?

[mujo]

Not really, the new 8800 Geforce cards are the size of half a ATX motherboard.

[DeafOfficeWorker]

I hope that new card has sufficient cooling capabilities. Some manufacturers are selling cards that require additional heatsinks and fans to run properly.

[regis]

Bigfoot, it depends on the "model" of video card. I've seen some that are relatively small but aren't really designed for gaming which are quite small, not sure if it's small enough to fit in a laptop. Like DOW said, for a really high end card you want one with a heatsink/fan on it. Otherwise the GPU will most likely overheat and/or crap out. And generally speaking it should fit in one PCI slot (if not 2) in the back of the tower.

[bigfoot_hunter]

In other words, you get what you pay for.

[Clay Pigeon]

Yeah I used to own a 6800 (vanilla) and it was pretty big. When that pc died back in feb i replaced it (it was AGP) with an 8800gts and my new card is huge (and very, very hot). So to answer your question, no. Cards of the same class are getting larger. Im willing to bet that your friends 7200 is larger than a 6200.

[gator]

Heat and power demand seems to be increasing rather than decreasing with every new video card generation. It seems to be like the CPU wars of several years ago before they finally realized that heat/power becomes a big problem when you crank up the MHz.


Basic idea on what each class of video card looks like:

Entry Level: x200/x300/x400 (X1300 -> X2400, 7300GT -> 8400GT)
Mid Level: x600 (X1600 -> X2600, 7600GT -> 8600GT)
High End: x800/x900 (X1900 -> X2900, 7900GT -> 8800GT)

[Squidly]

Hmmmmm!

Are you talking about the NVIDIA 7200GS?

This card has been designed to offer a low-cost upgrade from integrated graphics solutions!!!

This card is lightyears behind the 6800gt that your friend had!!!

First time seing someone that downgrade his computer!!!

I havent check but I bet that the 7200gs doesn't have a fan to cool it (passive cooling) and that is not a good news when you want to play recent games!!!

*edit*

Forget the last phrase, i just saw that you said that the 7200 has a small plastic fan!!! Anyway, still not a very good card!!! (7200<6800gt)


I would suggest if his budget is limited (which is probably the case since he bought the 7200gs) that he buy at least a 7600gt if he wanna stick to NVIDIA (however. a better card would be even better (7800 or 7900 series)). If it is not the case (limited budget), the 8800GTS is probably the best buy to do (price/performance)!

ATI has some great cards too!!!

Good luck!

[Gen.Ben]

[quote="mujo";p="33299"]
Not really, the new 8800 Geforce cards are the size of half a ATX motherboard.
[/quote]

Yeah, I wouldnt say the cards are getting any smaller...

The 8800's are huge!



Same with the 2900's from ATI!



Comparison shot

[MrBlah]

that is what i have, the top one, the 8800 Ultra(by EVGA), and i have two of em, last system ill need to build for a few years. the length of the card extends about 1 inch beyond the width of my ATX motherboard, width covers up the nearest pci slot. and the fan has a hump on it so height is easily 2/3 = 3/4 that of the biggest full tower case i know of, mine the Thermaltake Armor LCS. its wider than a standard full tower case and is BTX compatible. so as for gettin smaller, think again. just because the number is bigger does not by no means mean the gpu and overall video card is better.

to give a better idea, look at the 2900 above in gen ben's post, you see the power connectors. that extends at most an 1/8 inch beyond an ATX mobo, the 8800 ultra adds a 1/2 inch to if not more.
lemme go take a picture of my old cards compared to my new ones. ill be back in a few.