Graphic Cards ATI Changes their Video Card Cooling Policy

[dipdude]

ATi has just made a very cool decision regarding their AIB partners. They have chosen to stop adding their stock coolers to some of their regular shipments to AIB’s. They will still provide them if AIB’s choose to use them, but default shipments will not contain coolers.

This could very well be a win-win scenario for everyone. ATi will possibly be able to sell the cards at a lower price to AIB’s, and maybe even make a little profit. This will in turn encourage ATi’s partners to get more creative with their cooling systems with this added freedom. And that will give consumers more choices, better cooling and added headroom for overclocking. It is unknown whether this will influence prices in a negative way.

http://www.ngohq.com/home.php?page=Articles&go=read&arc_id=100

 

[Lord Nemesis]

But one disadvantage of this would be that the manufacturers may end up not following the reference designs for the cards given by ATi in an attempt to create their own version of coolers. The people with make high performance coolers will not be able to ensure proper compatibilty. The end users would just have to hope that the card manufactuers would also make the best possible cooling solutions.