Tuesday, December 29th 2020

MSI GeForce RTX 3090 AERO is a Throwback to the GTX 480 "Fermi"

by
btarunr
 Discuss (19 Comments)
MSI today unveiled the GeForce RTX 3090 AERO, the latest in the crop of RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 graphics cards with rear-venting lateral airflow coolers, such as the ASUS RTX 3090 Turbo OC and the GIGABYTE RTX 3090 Turbo, targeting environments with restricted airflow (such as rendering farms). The MSI RTX 3090 AERO strongly resembles the reference-design of NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 480 "Fermi."

The card's blower guides air-flow laterally through an aluminium fin-channel heatsink that isn't hidden underneath a cooler shroud, but rather extends all the way out to the thickness of the card, with its top-plate having some finnage of its own. Much like the ASUS card, the MSI AERO uses two 8-pin PCIe power connectors that are located its tail-end, rather than at the top. Only half of the card's reverse side is covered by a back-plate, meant to cool the memory chips located there. The other half is bare PCB. This has been done to make it easier for an adjacent card to breathe. The card otherwise sticks to NVIDIA-reference clock-speeds for the RTX 3090. The company didn't reveal pricing.

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19 Comments on MSI GeForce RTX 3090 AERO is a Throwback to the GTX 480 "Fermi"

#1
Nuckles56
I feel like this is a poor choice by MSI, as there's already the comparisons being made between the two
Posted on Reply
#2
ZoneDymo
I actually love it, it looks oldschool and industrial, sure it wont preform nearly as good as a tripple fan cooler but man, just cool
Posted on Reply
#3
Fouquin
So this has been floating around for a week or so and I'm going to point out what I pointed out on other posts; they completely ruined the airflow path for the fan by putting an oversized cowling around it. The entire purpose of the shroud being stepped and angled down around the fan is that it opens up an airgap for the card to breathe when in an SLI or constrained configuration. They blocked it off with that big cylindrical cowl.
Posted on Reply
#4
wurschti
Looks perfect for a sleeper PC.
Posted on Reply
#5
phanbuey
looks amazing especially in that SLI configuration that isn't supported anymore.
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#6
repman244
The way it's meant to be grilled.

Posted on Reply
#7
lexluthermiester
Nuckles56I feel like this is a poor choice by MSI, as there's already the comparisons being made between the two
Gotta disagree. I think this is cool looking! And potentially very functional.
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#8
Caring1
The graphic depicting airflow is misleading as it appears the finned area is copper, when it is aluminium.
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#9
lexluthermiester
Caring1The graphic depicting airflow is misleading as it appears the finned area is copper, when it is aluminium.
The top is an aluminium plate attached to copper fins. At least that's the way it looks to me...
Posted on Reply
#10
kayjay010101
phanbueylooks amazing especially in that SLI configuration that isn't supported anymore.
If you'd read the briefing, it states it's meant for rendering farms, where multiple cards sandwiched together is indeed supported. SLI isn't the only possible way for two (or more) GPUs to be used together.
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#11
my_name_is_earl
I try searching for an RTX 3090 just for the lul. Nope, nothing left anywhere. I'll skip this scalper generation.
Posted on Reply
#12
owen10578
FouquinSo this has been floating around for a week or so and I'm going to point out what I pointed out on other posts; they completely ruined the airflow path for the fan by putting an oversized cowling around it. The entire purpose of the shroud being stepped and angled down around the fan is that it opens up an airgap for the card to breathe when in an SLI or constrained configuration. They blocked it off with that big cylindrical cowl.
That's exactly what I've been thinking whenever I see this design pop up in news sites recently. Such a bizarre choice...
Posted on Reply
#13
Upgrayedd
phanbueylooks amazing especially in that SLI configuration that isn't supported anymore.
kayjay010101If you'd read the briefing, it states it's meant for rendering farms, where multiple cards sandwiched together is indeed supported. SLI isn't the only possible way for two (or more) GPUs to be used together.
It's a 3090, it supports SLI. They are the only 3000 series cards that do.
Posted on Reply
#14
Lionheart
I actually really loved the GTX 480 reference design, just a big chunk of metal with pipes sticking out the side, reminded me of a muscle car, obviously wasn't the most efficient cooler/GPU but meh, still loved it.
Posted on Reply
#15
Turmania
I love this generation of Nvdia refernce design cards, but I believe AMD got it better done in terms of cooling and noise with their reference design. though it does not matter since we can not buy those cards...
Posted on Reply
#16
Vya Domus
Yikes but I suppose it's a necessary evil for people wanting to put together workstations.
FouquinSo this has been floating around for a week or so and I'm going to point out what I pointed out on other posts; they completely ruined the airflow path for the fan by putting an oversized cowling around it. The entire purpose of the shroud being stepped and angled down around the fan is that it opens up an airgap for the card to breathe when in an SLI or constrained configuration. They blocked it off with that big cylindrical cowl.
owen10578That's exactly what I've been thinking whenever I see this design pop up in news sites recently. Such a bizarre choice...
You can clearly see that there is a fair bit of space left above where the fan ends until the heatsink ends, more than there is on your average blower cooler. They had to put plastic around the entire fan otherwise it wouldn't produce enough pressure.
Posted on Reply
#17
DeeJay1001
Throwback to one of the most infamous GPU designs in the history of modern GPUs. Bold move.
Posted on Reply
#18
mouacyk
Nuckles56I feel like this is a poor choice by MSI, as there's already the comparisons being made between the two
And then this one actually cools well enough... you might have to eat that burger raw
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