Are GPU's getting too BIG?

[A Computer Guy]

Faster and more power hungry GPU's seems to be coming out like never before.
Having bigger and thicker coolers.
Needing bigger and beefy PSU's.
More power cables.

Are PCIe slots still good enough to handle the weight?
Are we at the point motherboard designs need to shift to putting the GPU on board and slotting in the CPU?
Do we need a fundamental change in motherboard and case design to intake and exhaust GPU's using air coolers?

 

[ARF]

Faster and more power hungry GPU's seems to be coming out like never before.
Having bigger and thicker coolers.
Needing bigger and beefy PSU's.
More power cables.

Are PCIe slots still good enough to handle the weight?
Are we at the point motherboard designs need to shift to putting the GPU on board and slotting in the CPU?
Do we need a fundamental change in motherboard and case design to intake and exhaust GPU's using air coolers?

Yes, definitely. RTX 4090, RTX 4080, RX 7900 XT and XTX are well overengineered.
They should be undervolted in 50% of the current TDP, made with much smaller and tidy coolers, and of course - without losing any factory performance !

 

[A Computer Guy]

without losing any factory performance !

Just to clarify: Performance of the card or performance of the factory making the card?

 

[ARF]

Are we at the point motherboard designs need to shift to putting the GPU on board and slotting in the CPU?
Do we need a fundamental change in motherboard and case design to intake and exhaust GPU's using air coolers?

Yes, the current PC case layout is already ancient and not optimal.
For example, I think after they put the PSU in separate cages, it is time for the GFX to follow suit.

Cooling is not good - they have to make more heat pipes in-built in the cases to offload the large heat stress on the systems !

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Yes, definitely. RTX 4090, RTX 4080, RX 7900 XT and XTX are well overengineered.
They should be undervolted in 50% of the current TDP, made with much smaller and tidy coolers, and of course - without losing any factory performance !

Without loosing performance,. Dreamy.

Yes, the current PC case layout is already ancient and not optimal.
For example, I think after they put the PSU in separate cages, it is time for the GFX to follow suit.

Cooling is not good - they have to make more heat pipes in-built in the cases to offload the large heat stress on the systems !

More heat pipes built into cases.


You do know what a PC is right, I have to wonder?!.

@OP yes.

 

[ARF]

Without loosing performance,. Dreamy.

At least 5% ?

 

[ZoneDymo]

The current Nvidia cards specifically are way too big for no reason, such a waste of materials.
The 4080, while overpriced, is technically a very impressive card when you look at efficiency, it does not need a cooler as big as it gets by a long shot, but here we are for some reason.

Feels a bit Murican with their trucks, bigger is manlier, bigger is better.......

and yeah we see more and more from reviewers that undervolting etc can yield mcuh better power consumption while losing only a bit of performance so its a bit of an odd situation all in all.

 

[droopyRO]

What size do you recommend comrade ? is 15 cm too big for a GPU ?


Ontopic: no, for one reason. there is no more SLI/CF, there are no more sound cards or PCI Ethernet cards. So the slots underneath the GPU are in 99.9% of the cases not used. 10-15 years ago a 3-4 slot GPU would have been a problem for my Creative XFI and Gigabit PCI adapter, this days they can be 4 slot for all i care.

 

[MrHartmann]

I love this trend of big gpus, i prefer a giant one running at 60c, full silent.. than a smaller, +80c, screaming one..

 

[mb194dc]

Give me a 200w 4k 60 GPU at a reasonable price of 300 that will fit in my case... Like my 5600XT but for 4k not 1080p.

GPUs in that segment gone nowhere.

 

[TumbleGeorge]

Give me a 200w 4k 60 GPU

I bet on 2025 when will be released middle class cards of next generation a.k.a. RX 8600 XT & vanilla RX 8700 , also RTX 5060/Ti with GDDR7. Even this models will be capable to little more of 60 fps at 4k.
But I didn't bet for price.

 

[ZoneDymo]

What size do you recommend comrade ? is 15 cm too big for a GPU ?


Ontopic: no, for one reason. there is no more SLI/CF, there are no more sound cards or PCI Ethernet cards. So the slots underneath the GPU are in 99.9% of the cases not used. 10-15 years ago a 3-4 slot GPU would have been a problem for my Creative XFI and Gigabit PCI adapter, this days they can be 4 slot for all i care.

"for all I care" I guess that is always the problem with poles like this.
On the one hand they are asking for your opinion, but your opinion could also be based on your knowledge of what it means for other people.

I personally dont have kids, but I wont vote against childcare support just because it does not benefit me.

Here I might have all the space in the world for a gpu, but that does not mean I endorse these ridiculous unneeded sizes, its completely wasteful for materials and for many existing cases they dont even fit in them....which would be more waste if people needed to upgrade their case to just support these new completely arbitrary sizes.

And also PCI sound cards still exist? Asus Xonar and EVGA NU and Creative Sound Blaser are still being sold, as are far more high end professional solutions like from RME.
Video/Audio capture cards are also still being sold by for example Blackmagic and Elgato and Avermedia to name a few.
We also still have dedicated higher throughput Ethernet cards being sold.

So yeah while perhaps a lot of people dont run that stuff and are fine with whatever is onboard the motherboard, dont act like that market does not exist because otherwise all these products would not be out there anymore.

And I find it odd how you dismiss those but claim SLI/CF was a legitimate reason to not like current gpu sizes because running those setups where extremely niche in themselves....

 

[dgianstefani]

If you care, get a lower powered GPU or use a waterblock.

GPUs are as big as they need to be to remain quiet and cool.

 

[A Computer Guy]

What size do you recommend comrade ? is 15 cm too big for a GPU ?

My survey is about the practicality of GPU size not political.

 

[80251]

I think videocards are getting too long but not necessarily too big. I'd like taller and wider videocards, not longer videocards (because I figure longer videocards will tend to sag more).

 

[ShiBDiB]

The super high end GPU's have always been chonkers. This is nothing new (albeit slightly more extreme) and I'd expect it to fluctuate as new tech gets more efficient. The latest gen of cards are in a spot of being fast as hell but incredibly inefficient energy/heat wise.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
If it weren't for the extended coolers they would fit in your back pocket

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

The super high end GPU's have always been chonkers. This is nothing new (albeit slightly more extreme) and I'd expect it to fluctuate as new tech gets more efficient. The latest gen of cards are in a spot of being fast as hell but incredibly inefficient energy/heat wise.

Even the HD 6990 was similar in size and only 2 slots thick, and it was described as huge.

 

[claes]

ATX needs to die

 

[dgianstefani]

Even the HD 6990 was similar in size and only 2 slots thick, and it was described as huge.

And that was a very loud card

 

[GhostRyder]

I believe they are not too big as long as they dont have to scream their fans to stay cool. If we are requiring 3 slot GPU coolers than scream at 80% to keep the card at max performance then we have an issue.

From what I see, most of the issues lately with power usage seem to stem from the GDDR6 and GDDR6X memory. with 12+gb of memory becoming the norm, these chips are pretty power hungry and with so many its whats making these GPU's harder to keep cool.

 

[Frick]

I believe they are not too big as long as they dont have to scream their fans to stay cool. If we are requiring 3 slot GPU coolers than scream at 80% to keep the card at max performance then we have an issue.

This is basically my take. Lots of power, lots of performance, lots of heat to dump and still low noise and sensible temperatures.

 

[Space Lynx]

There is a wooden pencil holding up the far end of my MSI 6800 XT Trio, and it lowered my hotspot temps by doing so.

So, my answer is fucking yes.

 

[Morgoth]

would love to see more smaller pcb as high end solution with waterblock

 

[Space Lynx]

I know 95% of people won't agree with me, but I would like to see some better blower style cards make a comeback. I remember having a reference rx 5700 XT at one point, blower style. People complained it was loud because they didn't set the fan curves right. With a proper fan curve custom made through MSI Afterburner it honestly wasn't that loud, temps were good, and it kept all the heat out of my case, so the CPU benefited.