With the latest generations of graphics cards, we’ve seen a pretty noticeable increase in performance. sizeor more precisely in the size of the thermal solution necessary for them to operate at an appropriate temperature. Now Cooler Master and PNY have taken that almost to absurdity, since they’ve just presented a graphics card that takes nothing more and nothing less than 4.5 wide slots, nearly 9 centimeters. At this rate we will need a ship to accommodate our equipment…
The change in size of modern graphics cards is understandable: consumption has increased at the same rate as power, and this means more heat generation and therefore the need for thermal solutions with greater heat dissipation capacity. The problem is that it seems like all manufacturers are shooting “middle street”, or in other words, they are increasing the size instead of making their heatsinks more efficient.
A graph of 4.5 slots: big donkey, walk or not walk
This is a popular saying that is used to criticize people who choose something based on its size without considering whether what they have chosen is better or worse. Pero también nos sirve para definer la situation en la que está el mercado de las tarjetas gráficas en este momento, ya que como hemos mencionado, all los manufacturers sin exception están solving los problems de un a mayor generación de heat de la GPU con disipadores más grandes , no more no less.
The clearest example we have in the last occurrence of Cooler Master and PNY, which showed Computex their new model of RTX 4090 graphics card (it’s not even a Ti model) which occupies 4.5 slots, a real monster of almost 9 centimeters thick. You can see in the images attached to this article that even an ATX form factor motherboard is almost ridiculous compared to the size of this graphics card.
It’s not really the longest graphics card on the market at “only” 12 inches, and yet its 3.5-inch thickness makes it even thicker than ASUS and Noctua’s massive model, the RTX 4080. measured 310 × 144.8 × 87.5 mm. Both graphics cards incorporate 120 mm fans, the same ones frequently used in PC cases, which guarantees good cooling but… at what cost?
What is certain is that we see more and more larger and heavier graphics cards, testing both the capacity of PC cases and the resistance of retention systems, since the manufacturers themselves have been forced to adopt solutions to avoid problems, such as holding brackets which anchor the graphics to the screws of the motherboard to prevent them from bending due to weight… just compare the size of a current graphics card with that of a previous generation to realize this (for example, below you can see an RTX 4080 compared to an RTX 3080).
Really, instead of going for the simpler solution of increasing the size of the graphics card, manufacturers should focus their efforts on designing more efficient cooling systems… options are available, and we have seen very good improvements in chambered vapor heat sinks, for example. , which are not implemented.
