6 - Photo's NVIDIA Reference card
The Photos
On the next few pages we'll show you some photos. The images were taken at 2560x1920 pixels and then scaled down. The camera used was a Sony DCS-F707 5.1 MegaPixel.
Here's the NVIDIA reference design 9800 GX2. trust me when I say it looks smaller than it actually is. That's 27cm / 10.6in of pure unadulterated silicon right there. Weighs quite heavy too .. two maybe three pounds.
Slightly in perspective. Keep a close eye on that cooler. Pretty much inside it are two boards, interconnected with each-other. In the middle one cooling unit is disposing heat for both GPUs. So imaging two PCB's, of which both the GPU cover points inwards.
Hidden with a sticker, the 6-pin and dreaded 8-pin connector. Two are needed as you need a stable voltage supply towards both the PCBs. I'm pretty confident that the board using the 8-pin connector also feeds the ventilator.
Hey hey hey ! There she is .. don't be shy, show yourself. That's right, HDMI. Finally we see it integrated as standard. Of course this was a pretty safe thing to do for NVIDIA, as with two boards, they can still offer the two DVI connectors.
That's also the culprit, see .. lots of people work with dual monitors. Most of them have a DVI connector. What if all cards would have one HDMI and one DVI connector. Both the DVI port supports simultaneous HDCP and dual-link (meaning a possible 2560 x 1600 for 30").
Missing however is the 7-pin analog HDTV-out mini-din, and S-video connector, or YPrPb (component) or composite outputs. As far as I'm concerned, no biggy at all. Good riddance. Anyway, let's move towards the BFG card.