The Inquirer is reporting that Gainward is hard at work on their GeForceFX videocard that will be equipped with an "ultra-quiet cooling solution" opposed to the hardly criticized 'dustbuster' that NVIDIA is using for showing reference samples.
I wonder how many of the card manufacturers are also working on a better cooling system, perhaps you will be better off waiting for a second batch of more elaborated cards instead of pre-ordering FX's that will most likely resemble the reference design.
Gainward engineers in Taiwan, before they get their deserved week of vacation for Chinese New year, have been busy to making a low noise cooling solution. They were able to reduce the cooling system noise to only 7dbs. They claim the rest of the Nvidia reference design cards could be as high as 70db that is "the same level as a domestic vacuum cleaner". We don't need to say more.
This should come as great news for all of us that were expecting a bit more from the NV30, though the 7 db vs. 70 db noise level comparison sounds a bit too radical, but something down to usual noise levels and room for overclocking should be good enough IMHO (if possible).