RTX 4000: circuit board design allows conclusions about cooling

Michael Soldner

Nvidia is currently preparing for the new graphics card generation RTX 4000. Depending on the model, the new GPUs should be able to draw up to 600 watts from the power supply. This significantly increases the power consumption of the RTX 4000 graphics cards compared to the previous generation. An RTX 3090 was allowed to use a maximum of 350 watts. In view of the higher TDP, the question of efficient cooling arises for many gamers. A leaked circuit board design of the RTX 4000 graphics card should now allow conclusions to be drawn about the planned heat dissipation.

Reference board found

Information on this comes from established leaker and tech expert Igor Wallossek of Igor’s Lab. This should be in possession of a picture showing the reference board of the top models RTX 4090 and RTX 4080. These allegedly come from a Chinese source. Although Igor Wallossek does not want to show the photo, he has published a drawing that explains the structure of the circuit boards.

Up to 24GB video memory

24 voltage converters can be seen on it. This allows the board to generate eight phases. In addition, 12 soldering points for GDDR6X memory can be seen. These are delivered with a maximum of 2 GB per module, resulting in up to 24 GB of video memory. Since the chips of the RTX 3000 and RTX 4000 graphics cards should be pin-compatible, manufacturers could already be working on suitable cooling solutions to simulate the 600 watt TDP and dissipate this enormous heat.

Triple slot air cooler or water cooling

Nvidia itself probably wants to use a triple-slot air cooler for the Founders Edition. The board partners are said to partially rely on a 3.5 slot design. This leaves plenty of room for large heat sinks and fans. Water cooling is also an option, but is usually significantly more expensive than air-cooled models.

Geforce RTX 4000 and Radeon RX 7000 twice as fast