NVIDIA has released a new video on their YouTube channel called “The Remarkable Art & Science of Modern Graphics Card Design”, in which they shared their design philosophy behind the cooling solution of its upcoming GeForce Ampere RTX 3080 / RTX 3090 graphics cards. The video shows NVIDIA cooling solutions over the years and goes over the four main factors behind the design.
The first is of course thermals, which they say are at the heart of its innovation, and that the company is exploring new ways to use air-cooling more effectively in their graphics card designs. With that the upcoming cooling solution on the GeForce Ampere Founders Edition graphics cards will feature an airflow-optomized design which ensures the most effective way to take in cool air, transfer heat on to it, and exhaust the warm air.
The next big thing is mechanical structure, NVIDIA wants to minimize the structural components of the cooler without compromising strength. The new cooler will have a new leaf spring which leaves more room for a back cover.
After that is electrical clutter and NVIDIA plans to mitigate this with a new 12-pin power connector which reduces board space, consolidates cabling, but at the same time does not compromise the cards power delivery capability. NVIDIA did mention that all upcoming cards will come with a 12-pin connector will include a free adapter that coverts to standard 8-pin PCI-Express power connectors, so not extra cost of buying an adapter.
The last thing is product design, where NVIDIA combines its innovations together into a new industrial design. The video is actually rather interesting and you can check it out below. It does pretty much confirm the leaked pictures of the card we’ve seen over the past month or so.