Nvidia’s RTX 4000 cards could use extra cooling, potentially making them bigger.
The RTX 4000 series from Nvidia is rumored to bring an enormous increase in performance, but also consume a lot of power. As a result, conventional cooling solutions may no longer be sufficient and larger constructions may become necessary.
This is especially true for models based on the AD102 GPU, because this is supposed to be the most powerful chip of the upcoming Geforce generation. It is suspected for the top models RTX 4080, RTX 4090 and RTX 4090 Ti.
Only recently there were new rumors from the leakers kopite7kimi and Greymon55 about the power consumption of these high-end cards. Accordingly, kopite has probably learned that the RTX 4090 should be at 600 watts:
link to Twitter content
This corresponds to information from Greymon55, who posts information for all three models with the AD102 chip:
link to Twitter content
According to him, the RTX 4080 needs 450 watts at the lower end of the spectrum, the RTX 4090 is 600 watts and the RTX 4090 Ti may need more than 800 watts. For comparison: Nvidia’s current top model Geforce RTX 3090 officially has a power consumption of 350 watts.
Nvidia recommends a power supply with 750 watts for this purpose, and the recommendation could also increase accordingly for the fastest graphics cards of the RTX 4000 generation.
Graphics cards at Mindfactory
Four-slot cooling could become the new norm
High power consumption means high temperatures. kopite7kimi already has an idea of how the cooling of the new high-end models could look like. When asked by a Twitter user, probably deliberately exaggerated, whether the cards are delivered with liquid nitrogen or whether this is a separate add-on, the leaker suggests a 4-slot air cooler:
link to Twitter content
The slot specification refers to the number of occupied mainboard slots or the width of the cards. So far, the maximum has usually been three slots, but larger designs are conceivable in order to get the increasing waste heat under control in the coming generations.
The increased space requirement could lead to problems, especially in compact cases for small Mini-ITX mainboards. In cases for mainboards in the widespread ATX format, the additional slot should not pose any problems, especially since the graphics card is probably the only device that needs a PCI Express slot in many cases.
However, due to the potentially increasing weight of the new cards, it could well be that an additional GPU mount for support will become more popular or that existing ATX cases with such a solution will become more popular.
You can see the difference in size of an additional slot in the following comparison image:
The compact PCIe x1 slot to the right of the graphics card can still be used with the RTX 3080 in a two-slot design, but it is covered with the RX 6900 XT in a three-slot design.
Another possibility would be water cooling. However, their strong cooling performance is offset by the disadvantages of a higher price and the additional space required for the necessary radiator. It will therefore be interesting to see how the manufacturers will deal with the increasing power consumption, provided that this is actually confirmed (which is increasingly being indicated).
However, the cooling solution that the Youtuber from the following article used for the memory chips of an RTX 3070 Ti to reduce their temperatures by an impressive 45 degrees is unlikely to make it onto the mass market due to the high risk:
How do you assess the situation? Will the rumors about the power consumption of the new RTX 4000 models not come true in the end anyway and will there not be a need for stronger cooling solutions? Or can graphics cards with larger cooling solutions or more models with water cooling actually be expected in order to get the high waste heat under control? Feel free to write it in the comments!
