I was wondering why they only operate in the northern hemisphere.

It's because it requires cold water to cool its reactor. Tropic water is apparently not cold enough, so it can't get to the southern hemisphere without exploderating. Or something.

Snowden: 100% accuracy so far.

RSA: For profit company that looks really bad right now and there's no downside to them lying.

I'll go with the 100% guy with nothing to gain.

What a peasant. I don't know what you do on a laptop, but 1080p is a terrible resolution.

If nothing else, there's not nearly enough vertical resolution -- but in general 1080p is a very low resolution for any computer to have.

I don't think you understand how long it would take and how expensive that would be.

The US is one of the least dense countries in the world -- especially at its population.

You don't get cable? I have comcast and get ~30 Mbps in Seattle for less $.

I believe there is a strong difference between commercial and non-commercial copyright violations.

When you take what someone is trying to sell and sell it yourself, you've clearly crossed all moral boundaries. You've removed people who demonstrably will pay for the content from the pool of people to pay the creator.

whoooosh!

I've heard of something else that lets you buy stuff you don't need at any time.

It's called a store. There's a lot of them. They're not usually considered to be unethical.

What? Your point is masked in your.. rant.

I don't know exactly how you define the "thermals" to be "terrible". The card is a beast. Pretend 40% is 100%. It's the best card on the market - price at no object (also it's cheaper than the top 2 nVidia cards). The fact that it can do more if you ask it to should just be a bonus.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7457/the-radeon-r9-290x-review/12

has the 290 on top of 780 sli -- in SLOW mode.

3840x2160 is the kind of resolution you want this card for. You don't need it for 1080p, so comparing there is silly.

Why do you care about thermals? I care about framerate, visual quality, and noise.

The 290 running with a 40% fan is LOADS faster than the 780 -- especially at high resolution.

Who cares if it could go faster, take it for what it is right now and it's a better card.

And hell -- if you REALLY care, hook up water cooling to this and watch it really scream!

Yeah.. they'll sell a few thousand copies less.

But 2014! That'll be the year of Linux on the desktop!!!

yeah, huh? No.

And especially not at high resolutions that you'd actually use a card like this for.

You're not going to run 1080p on something like this. 3x27" is the interesting resolution and it the 290 hauls ass.

I'll be excited about this "mantle" thing when I actually see stuff that benefits from it instead of a bunch of theoretical mumbo jumbo.

Graphics API overhead this.. 10x more draw calls that..

Show me a real game and show me how it's actually better than the alternatives that actually exist at that same time. "Look this thing that doesn't really exist (or isn't in use) is faster than stuff that's actually here now and being used". Everyone can win at that game.

Real numbers on real games. Until then, you can keep your Mantle to yourself.