Nvidia shares details about Ampere Founders Edition cooling & power design

[illegalwater]

V shaped PCB, 12 pin power connector, and the unique cooler design all confirmed in one video by Nvidia themselves.

Quote

NVIDIA today shared the design philosophy behind the cooling solution of its next-generation GeForce "Ampere" RTX 3080 / 3090 graphics cards, which we'll hopefully learn more about on September 1, when NVIDIA has scheduled a GeForce Special Event. Part of the new video presentation shows the evolution of NVIDIA's cooling solutions over the years. NVIDIA explains the four pillars behind the design, stressing that thermals are at the heart of its innovation, and that the company looks to explore new ways to use air-cooling more effectively to cool graphics cards. To this effect, the cooling solution of the upcoming GeForce Ampere Founders Edition graphics cards features an airflow-optimized design focused on ensuring the most effective way to take in fresh air, transfer heat to it, and exhaust the warm air in the most optimal manner.

The next pillar of NVIDIA's cooling technology innovation is mechanical structure, to minimize the structural components of the cooler without compromising on strength. The new Founder Edition cooler introduces a new low profile leaf spring that leaves more room for a back cover. Next up is reducing the electrical clutter, with the introduction of a new 12-pin power connector that is more compact, consolidates cabling, and yet does not affect the card's power delivery capability. The last pillar is product design, which puts NVIDIA's innovations together in an airy new industrial design. The video presentation includes commentary from NVIDIA's product design engineers who explain the art and science behind the next GeForce. NVIDIA is expected to tell us more about the next generation GeForce Ampere at a Special Event on September 1.

Very interesting design.

Sources

https://www.techpowerup.com/271410/nvidia-shares-details-about-ampere-founders-edition-cooling-power-design-12-pin-confirmed

 

[Mateyyy]

 

 

So this clears up the misconception that at least I had about the second fan on the new reference design (the one close to where the power connectors would traditionally be). It doesn't push air the opposite way of the first fan, but rather it just pulls it through the fins and pushes it upwards in the case.

This raises another question or concern though: how bad is this going to hurt CPU air coolers and temperature sensitive RAM? Hot air from the graphics card's heatsink will be pushed right towards the CPU and memory area, by the looks of it.

[Stahlmann]

Yeah the new cooler design looks cool and all, but i guess the AIB models will have much better cooling solutions again. Even with traditional 3-fans-on-heatsink designs like the MSI Gaming X Trio or the Asus ROG Strix models.

 

If you really want a great thermal design, get a huge case and slap a NH-D15 onto your GPU  

[Parideboy]

40 minutes ago, illegalwater said:

a new 12-pin power connector that is more compact

I'm really trying to understand how. Not from a consumer stand point for sure.

You still need at least two 8pins to reach out for the 12 pin and if you need only one 8 pin, why even bother with the 12 pin?

Takes less space on the pcb? Sure, at more than double the height. It's a bit shorter tho.

 

Just some fancy way of saying "Yeah, we went with Samsung's ""8nm"" and cards draw a lot of power. Having 2/3 8pins on a reference model would have been weird, so we've invented a new connector. Basically two 8pins without the additional ground pins, but flipped. Plus, with the humungus dimensions of our cards, the 12pin connector looks like an 8pin anyways"

 

The cooling solution looks great, don't get me wrong. But the fact that they had to go all the way to redesign the mounting mechanism of the heatsink tells me that they had a reason to. That reason being thermals.

Imho, this confirms the rumors about the power draw and dimensions of the 3090. Those cards are going to be huge and draw tons of power.

[porina]

19 minutes ago, Mateyyy said:

This raises another question or concern though: how bad is this going to hurt CPU air coolers and temperature sensitive RAM? Hot air from the graphics card's heatsink will be pushed right towards the CPU and memory area, by the looks of it.

As always it'll depend on the airflow both through the GPU and around the CPU area separate from that.

 

I found myself in a similar situation this morning. I wanted to get an older gaming PC ready for sale to reduce the amount of stuff I have around. The GPU hit thermal limiting point and got pretty noisy. The case it is in doesn't have any airflow in the GPU area, other than indirectly by a 92mm exhaust and whatever the PSU does. After running around trying to find a fan that'll fit the case front, I got an 80mm intake now which gives the GPU area a little more flow. That reduced GPU fan speed in compute loads from 2900rpm down to 2200rpm. Amazing what a bit more airflow does.

[Mateyyy]

4 minutes ago, Parideboy said:

Just some fancy way of saying "Yeah, we went with Samsung's ""8nm"" and cards draw a lot of power.

How is them going with Samsung 8nm synonymous with their new GPUs drawing a lot of power?

5 minutes ago, Parideboy said:

Imho, this confirms the rumors about the power draw and dimensions of the 3090. Those cards are going to be huge and draw tons of power.

The more I think about it, the more I don't see the problem with the 3090 pulling 350W+ of power.

It very much looks like a Titan replacement, not something targeted towards the vast majority of the consumer market (gamers). If they want to go balls to the walls with it, I'm totally cool with that.

[Parideboy]

3 minutes ago, Mateyyy said:

How is them going with Samsung 8nm synonymous with their new GPUs drawing a lot of power?

Cause TSMC is way more efficient and if Nvidia wants to hit that 50% improovement mark over the past generation, you gotta squeeze em

11 minutes ago, Mateyyy said:

The more I think about it, the more I don't see the problem with the 3090 pulling 350W+ of power.

It very much looks like a Titan replacement, not something targeted towards the vast majority of the consumer market (gamers). If they want to go balls to the walls with it, I'm totally cool with that.

I really hope you're right. I wanted to upgrade my GPU to the 3xxx series. I don't want them to suck

[Athan Immortal]

Finally we can see the full reason for this design. I'm honestly quite impressed. I still don't buy the need for the power connector, I'm not sure that that's not more to do with giving new PSUs an arbitrary "Nvidia approved" stamp just to get the logo out there, it's nothing that couldn't have been done with an existing 8+6.

 

Hopefully it's forever relegated to an adapter.

 

21 minutes ago, Parideboy said:

The cooling solution looks great, don't get me wrong. But the fact that they had to go all the way to redesign the mounting mechanism of the heatsink tells me that they had a reason to. That reason being thermals.

Imho, this confirms the rumors about the power draw and dimensions of the 3090. Those cards are going to be huge and draw tons of power.

I agree with everything you're saying, but I'd actually take a power hungry card if it means we can get a substantial jump. GPUs have always been hamstrung by their form factor. First by the PCI-E power restrictions which were overcome with separate power cables, but then the restriction has always been thermals. I'm actually OK with graphics cards getting more power if it means we an take another jump, and if redesigning the thermal solution is what it takes I guess that's the way we go. I'd prefer that than liquid cooling becoming the requirement, at least for the moment.

[Mateyyy]

3 minutes ago, Parideboy said:

Cause TSMC is way more efficient and if Nvidia wants to hit that 50% improovement mark over the past generation, you gotta squeeze em

Turing's on 12nm TSMC and it's more power efficient than Navi on 7nm TSMC though. We'll have to wait and see these new GPUs actually tested before we can come to any conclusions.

5 minutes ago, Parideboy said:

I really hope you're right. I wanted to upgrade my GPU to the 3xxx series. I don't want them to suck

Hopefully. I really wouldn't expect them to suck, rumours seem to indicate some hefty uplifts in performance, especially when it comes to real-time ray tracing which I'm really excited about, and Nvidia obviously wants to keep their top spot in the GPU market.

On that note, I'm also excited to see what AMD has to offer. If the next-gen consoles at ~$500 (pricing's not confirmed yet though) are anything to go by, with playable performance with ray tracing powered by RDNA2, I think this'll be an exciting generation.

[Parideboy]

Just now, Mateyyy said:

Turing's on 12nm TSMC and it's more power efficient than Navi on 7nm TSMC though. We'll have to wait and see these new GPUs actually tested before we can come to any conclusions.

Sure, mine are just thoughts thrown out there based on what we know (both confirmed and alleged)

We'll have to wait for the actual cards for the final verdict

3 minutes ago, Mateyyy said:

Hopefully. I really wouldn't expect them to suck, rumours seem to indicate some hefty uplifts in performance, especially when it comes to real-time ray tracing which I'm really excited about, and Nvidia obviously wants to keep their top spot in the GPU market.

Performance should be there, as always. Hopefully at decent prices

5 minutes ago, Mateyyy said:

On that note, I'm also excited to see what AMD has to offer. If the next-gen consoles at ~$500 (pricing's not confirmed yet though) are anything to go by, with playable performance with ray tracing powered by RDNA2

AMD's raytracing should be better than Turing, but worst than Ampere.

That alone means nothing, but it's literally all we know about it.

9 minutes ago, Mateyyy said:

I think this'll be an exciting generation.

Absolutely. That's why I'm pulling the trigger on either AMD or Nvidia, no matter what

 

20 minutes ago, Athan Immortal said:

I agree with everything you're saying, but I'd actually take a power hungry card if it means we can get a substantial jump. GPUs have always been hamstrung by their form factor. First by the PCI-E power restrictions which were overcome with separate power cables, but then the restriction has always been thermals. I'm actually OK with graphics cards getting more power if it means we an take another jump, and if redesigning the thermal solution is what it takes I guess that's the way we go. I'd prefer that than liquid cooling becoming the requirement, at least for the moment.

If temps are in check it's not an issue. I'm worried about noise tho

[GoodBytes]

Sounds to me that they are preparing people to avoid backlash on its failure design. Something they lived with back with its Thermi architecture with the GeForce 480. 

 

The video, to me, sounds like an excuse... "Please understand how difficult it is to cool processors!"

 

I can't wait for the following gen (4080/4090?) when they'll actually put effort in optimization and fix their massive power leakage that they are facing. Where in late 2021 they'll make a video showcasing how amazing they are and how they were able to greatly reduce the power consumption of the Ampere architecture. Or if you prefer "4000 series, the 'We fixed everything!' model ".

 

Which is what happened when the Fermi refreshed, the 500 series GPU. Not only it provided a nice performance boost, but also produced significantly less power, which in turn means less heat and noise, despite the very same GPU architecture as the 400 series. Just passed more time to fix the flaws.

 

I bet, if Nvidia felt like AMD would have nothing this year to show, Nvidia would delay the 3000 series another year (or around 6 month, of whatever it takes until they could fix this). But sadly, they are in a mode of: "We can't have AMD have a competitive card, regardless of what happens! Clock this GPU to the max! Put an A/C unit on it if you have to!", and so we have this power hungry chip.

 

[burh4n]

1 hour ago, Mateyyy said:

So this clears up the misconception that at least I had about the second fan on the new reference design

 

2 hours ago, illegalwater said:

unique cooler design all confirmed

So I saw this shot and I'm not convinced that it is the new airflow design. Primarily due to the orientation of the fins in the card mid-section. All 3000 series images (I've seen) show the fins at an angle to the length of the card, where these are perpendicular to the card. Additionally the model used in that simulation appears to be rather modest in size, maybe 1.5-2 PCIe slots in height, but at least the 3090 is rumored to be 3 slots in height; overall not much of an indicator but something of note. The wire frame images in the videos look very much like the current reference design as the label is in the middle section (where the fins would be). There was a lot of old and new clips in that video, so it could be from earlier model simulations. They teased a bit, but I'd question how much of the thermal design they'd reveal before the official launch (personally). All that being said, the simulation does appear to match up with design present on the leaked images of the cards. 

[GoodBytes]

2 minutes ago, burh4n said:

So I saw this shot and I'm not convinced that it is the new airflow design. Primarily due to the orientation of the fins in the card mid-section. All 3000 series images (I've seen) show the fins at an angle to the length of the card, where these are perpendicular to the card. Additionally the model used in that simulation appears to be rather modest in size, maybe 1.5-2 PCIe slots in height, but at least the 3090 is rumored to be 3 slots in height; overall not much of an indicator but something of note. The wire frame images in the videos look very much like the current reference design as the label is in the middle section (where the fins would be). There was a lot of old and new clips in that video, so it could be from earlier model simulations. They teased a bit, but I'd question how much of the thermal design they'd reveal before the official launch (personally). All that being said, the simulation does appear to match up with design present on the leaked images of the cards. 

I have a feeling that the "fins" we are seeing is just plastic decoration, but under them, you have the actual fins. At least part of these fins, like around the fans. I guess we will see soon enough. 

[DildorTheDecent]

1 hour ago, VegetableStu said:

guessed it on the flow direction of the through-card fan

I'm struggling to understand why it was confusing so many people. There's no way that front fan was going to be pushing air through the heatsink. Especially with how temperature sensitive GPU Boost is these days. What I'd give for Kepler like scaling is worth more than gold.

 

Maybe some people just aren't good at visualising things.

[Parideboy]

1 minute ago, burh4n said:

 Additionally the model used in that simulation appears to be rather modest in size, maybe 1.5-2 PCIe slots in height, but at least the 3090 is rumored to be 3 slots in height; overall not much of an indicator but something of note.

Could be done on purpose, to hide the fact that the 3090 could be a 3 slot card.

8 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

The video, to me, sounds like an excuses... "Please understand how difficult it is to cool processors!"

I got the same vibe. Really hope this ins't going to be another Fermi

[Bombastinator]

2 hours ago, Mateyyy said:

 

 

So this clears up the misconception that at least I had about the second fan on the new reference design (the one close to where the power connectors would traditionally be). It doesn't push air the opposite way of the first fan, but rather it just pulls it through the fins and pushes it upwards in the case.

This raises another question or concern though: how bad is this going to hurt CPU air coolers and temperature sensitive RAM? Hot air from the graphics card's heatsink will be pushed right towards the CPU and memory area, by the looks of it.

not much I suspect if a person has an aftermarket cooler. They’re generally massive overkill.  Someone with a stock cooler might see issues from that if they were running on the edge of hot already.  Down firing  coolers will have fewer issues with VRM and RAM though.  stock coolers always seem to be down firing. 

[Bombastinator]

26 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Sounds to me that they are preparing people to avoid backlash on its failure design. Something they lived with back with its Thermi architecture with the GeForce 480. 

 

The video, to me, sounds like an excuse... "Please understand how difficult it is to cool processors!"

 

I can't wait for the following gen (4080/4090?) when they'll actually put effort in optimization and fix their massive power leakage that they are facing. Where in late 2021 they'll make a video showcasing how amazing they are and how they were able to greatly reduce the power consumption of the Ampere architecture. Or if you prefer "4000 series, the 'We fixed everything!' model ".

 

Which is what happened when the Fermi refreshed, the 500 series GPU came out. Not only it provided a nice performance boost, but also produced significantly less power, which in turn means less heat and noise, despite the very same GPU architecture as the 400 series. Just passed more time to fix the flaws.

 

I bet, if Nvidia felt like AMD would have nothing this year to show, Nvidia would delay the 3000 series another year until they could fix this, but now they are in a mode of: "We can't have AMD have a competitive card, regardless of what happens! Clock this GPU to the max! Put an A/C unit on it if you have to!"

I would think that.  I would totally put out the hardest core thing I could at this stage and damn the torpedoes.  That stock hit and firing jaunt intel went on is something best avoided.  They could have done it too if they just lowered the price of their CPUs. Nvidia sort of did that with their “S” cards.  At least creating new models to hide the price reduction.  They managed to avoid the worst of the hit and gained for doing so.  Doesn’t mean they’re actually out of the woods though.  I recall the 480 being a much sought after used card though.  What I’m wondering right now is if either Nvidia or AMD cards can handle the new consoles.   There appear to be tricks if MS flight sim 2020 is any indication. Figuring out what those are and countering them by whatever means is going to be key.  I suspect the consoles will create mobo changes.

[BuckGup]

I was considering getting a 3090 or whatever it is called but this makes me really not want to buy it lol. I haven't been impressed in NVIDIA GPUs since the 980ti and AMD since the RX480 came out

[Bombastinator]

3 minutes ago, BuckGup said:

I was considering getting a 3090 or whatever it is called but this makes me really not want to buy it lol. I haven't been impressed in NVIDIA GPUs since the 980ti and AMD since the RX480 came out

I’m not necessarily against buying one, but I gotta see what AMD has too, and what the consoles have up their sleeves before I commit. 
 

Under the assumption that AMD knows a lot more than Nvidia about what’s under the hood in those consoles, The big thing I suspect is whether AMD put effort into avoiding solving console issues or addressing them. 

[Senzelian]

45 minutes ago, BuckGup said:

I haven't been impressed in NVIDIA GPUs since the 980ti

Then you must've been asleep during the 10 series launch. They doubled performance, which is rather rare.

[Derangel]

2 hours ago, Athan Immortal said:

Finally we can see the full reason for this design. I'm honestly quite impressed. I still don't buy the need for the power connector, I'm not sure that that's not more to do with giving new PSUs an arbitrary "Nvidia approved" stamp just to get the logo out there, it's nothing that couldn't have been done with an existing 8+6.

 

Hopefully it's forever relegated to an adapter.

 

You do realize that you can't pull the rumored 350w with an 8+6 configuration, right? A 6 pin is only rated for 75w while an 8pin is rated for 150w. You would be looking at 8+8+6, at minimum, but ideally you'd want three 8pins. Three fairly large 8pin connectors vs a compact 12pin. It's a pretty significant space saving measure.

[CarlBar]

3 hours ago, Parideboy said:

I really hope you're right. I wanted to upgrade my GPU to the 3xxx series. I don't want them to suck

 

But it is, or at least one of the fans is .

[Athan Immortal]

16 minutes ago, Derangel said:

 

You do realize that you can't pull the rumored 350w with an 8+6 configuration, right? A 6 pin is only rated for 75w while an 8pin is rated for 150w. You would be looking at 8+8+6, at minimum, but ideally you'd want three 8pins. Three fairly large 8pin connectors vs a compact 12pin. It's a pretty significant space saving measure.

I did not realise this, very interesting. Thanks for the information.

[CarlBar]

3 hours ago, Parideboy said:

I'm really trying to understand how. Not from a consumer stand point for sure.

You still need at least two 8pins to reach out for the 12 pin and if you need only one 8 pin, why even bother with the 12 pin?

Takes less space on the pcb? Sure, at more than double the height. It's a bit shorter tho.

 

I agree from the consumer standpoint for now. But if NVIDIA is planning to make really high draw cards more normal in the future it will be handy, as an aside images indicated the 12 pin is actually smaller than a single 8 pin in both height and width, but it has the power carrying capacity of 3x8 pin's.

 

1 hour ago, GoodBytes said:

I bet, if Nvidia felt like AMD would have nothing this year to show, Nvidia would delay the 3000 series another year until they could fix this, but now they are in a mode of: "We can't have AMD have a competitive card, regardless of what happens! Clock this GPU to the max! Put an A/C unit on it if you have to!"

 

Not releasing somthing would not have been an option, the market expects new releases every year to 18 months, if it takes longer than that the kickback from investors would be huge. They also didn't come up with this cooling solution or 12 pin connector overnight. I think they allways planned to have a card this power hungry and hot, they just expected to get more performance for that power and heat out of it via TSMC 7nm.

[CarlBar]

8 minutes ago, Athan Immortal said:

I did not realise this, very interesting. Thanks for the information.

 

Funniest thing, some fo the super OC cards may have 2 of these 12 pins if the 350w 3090 rumours are true. An LN2 OC could actually draw enough to need that.