NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 Reference Design Card Final Design Pictured

[btarunr]

Many would be familiar with these pictures of a generic graphics card based on NVIDIA's GF100 GPU which was spotted at this year's CES. A company slide sourced by DonanimHaber reveals the final iteration of NVIDIA's reference design GeForce GTX 480 graphics accelerator, and what it looks like from the outside. A set of slightly more recent pictures showed its cooling assembly from inside. The protruding heat pipes intrigued us as they were inconsistent with the cooling assembly on the card NVIDIA showed off at CES, which we then believed to be the top-end GTX 480 part. The company slide confirms what the cooling assembly looks like when it's all put together.

The cooler is highly ventilated, with vents all over the cooler's shroud. There are vents on the top, on the sides, apart from the usual obverse fan air intake. To increase its intake, the PCB is further cut to help draw air from the reverse-side of the PCB. The cooler's four large (we reckon 8 mm thick) heat pipes protrude about a centimeter out of the card's periphery, increasing its height by that much. The cooler itself respects the 2-slot thickness limit which is most conventional. A table in the slide also confirms some details we already know: the card has 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory across a 384-bit wide interface. It has a TDP of under 300W, which a recent report reveals to be a hairbreadth under 300W, at 296W. Power is drawn in from an 8-pin and a 6-pin PCI-E power connector. The card is 10.5 inches long, the same length as its reference-design GeForce GTX 280. The card supports 3-way SLI. It will be unveiled on the 26th of March.



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[Mussels]

ugggh, so the 300W rumours were true

 

[Cleorina]

Wow 300W is that over kill if 2 or 3 way sli..?

 

[Atom_Anti]

It says Fastest GPU in the world!!! Really?

 

[afw]

We need reviews ... (honest ones) ....

EDIT: official release in another weeks' time ... and we are seeing pics only now ...and some say there wont be any 480/470 cards in the market till mid april ...

 

[Yellow&Nerdy?]

Holy shit, 296W TDP? An Radeon HD5970 has a TDP of 294W. And we know that the GTX 480 WON'T outperform the 5970. Nvidia fail?

 

[locoty]

I'm sure it will be the hottest card of this year, i mean it, hot

 

[Atom_Anti]

So what if I would like 3 piece of these into my PC? What kind of Power supply do I need?

 

[Mussels]

Holy shit, 296W TDP? An Radeon HD5970 has a TDP of 294W. And we know that the GTX 480 WON'T outperform the 5970. Nvidia fail?

really? 5970 was that high?

edit: yep you're right. so as far as power and heat go, nvidia has to match the 5970 to make this card worthwhile.

 

[caleb]

So what if I would like 3 piece of these into my PC? What kind of Power supply do I need?

3x300W on 12v considering efficency is 100%?

 

[Yellow&Nerdy?]

So what if I would like 3 piece of these into my PC? What kind of Power supply do I need?

Probably 2-3 nuclear power plants and a 1.21 Gigawatt power supply.

 

[Mussels]

3x300W on 12v considering efficency is 100%?

minimum 25A per card (i'd really reccomend 30A), plus power for the rest of your system.


So if you wanted to run two of them in SLI, you're talking either a 65A+ single rail (with relatively low wattage PC), or 3x30A rails (or up) - assuming that you can wire it so one card runs on each rail (with the main rail running CPU and the PCI-E power section of the cards, i'd be worried there on an OC'd system)

 

[Initialised]

The nekid one looked like it had 5 direct core contact heat-pipes, I only see 4 here.

 

[btarunr]

The nekid one looked like it had 5 direct core contact heat-pipes, I only see 4 here.

The first one from left could be a bending of one of the other pipes.

 

[Atom_Anti]

I like overclocking. CPU, GPU's and everything. A 1000W Power Supply will make it? Or should I stick with ATI's GPU?

 

[btarunr]

Btw, imagine a "GTX 495" with each GPU carrying specs of a GTX 470. TDP will be at least over 450W.

 

[afw]

Aren't they using the Vapor chamber technology (vapor-x) on these cards ... ?? it seems the best cooling solution out there ... hmm ...

 

[Kenshai]

Aren't they using the Vapor chamber technology (vapor-x) on these cards ... ?? it seems the best cooling solution out there ... hmm ...

Definitely looks like HDT.

 

[afw]

Definitely looks like HDT.

Yeah ... but why aren't they using the vapor chamber cooling ??? ... any patent/exclusive-rights issue ... ??

 

[Mussels]

coming soon: "fermi recalled due to being sued over using HDT/vapor-X technology"

 

[H82LUZ73]

Ok so what is that thing that looks like an iron sight sticking out of the plastic for the shroud?

At the comment from Mussels Might actually come true lol

 

[Kenshai]

Ok so what is that thing that looks like an iron sight sticking out of the plastic for the shroud?

If you're talking along the top of the card those are the heatpipes.

 

[H82LUZ73]

If you're talking along the top of the card those are the heatpipes.

Yeah just the way the light hits the one closest to the SLI bridge makes it look round.

 

[EarlZ]

Wow, 900Watts for the GPU if you go Tri-SLI

 

[tkpenalty]

iHDT, invisible Heatpipe Direct Touch


300W, seems like 10mm thick quad heatpipes to go with it. Tri SLI would acutually make a system draw more than a 1Kw, the cards alone considering the inefficiency of the PSU... thats like 1.2kw... I feel for the people in the US who have that horrid 150v power supply.

I speculate even if nvidia was to price this more than a HD5970 they would still make a loss on the card.