Originally Posted by
bamtan2
"designed to use" nobody knows what anything was designed to use. unless you're inside the company you have no idea what they intended. and once the chip is done, that is it. the board gets designed based on what the chip does, not what they intended.
what I'm saying is this. gtx 480 is a 250-300w board. immediately that tells you either nvidia hit their target perfectly (producing a chip that JUST bumps up against the max pci express power standard) ...or... they over-shot and the chip can do more.
early overclocking results indicate the chip and the board can do more. which means the board is probably running beyond spec to support the capability of the overclocked chip. therefore if you build a better board, the chip may overclock even more.
this has now gone from theory to fact because somebody out there is building a better board.
nvidia completely over-shot the standards with this chip. it is way too fast for nvidia's own good. and now only enthusiasts will see what it can really do, because only enthusiasts have the power and cooling margins to run beyond spec.
and if I'm right, the cut down GF100 derivatives will rule face. they will run as fast as they can run, and they will be more power and cost efficient for gaming because they will have not been designed with the same proportion of non-gaming transistors as GF100.