Discussion Discontinuation of Blower Style RTX Cards

[richardrosenman]

Hi gang;

So I work in 3D animation and, like many in my industry, I have switched to GPU rendering which is a HUGE benefit over traditional CPU rendering.

As such, my workstation has 4x GTX 1080 Ti cards exclusively for rendering with Redshift.

For these kinds of setups, blower style cards are the only option. These are the cards that suck in air from inside the computer and blow it out the back. This means they don’t circulate hot air and always remain cool.

I have first hand experience in seeing the benefits of this because the first 4 1080 Ti’s we put in, weren’t blower style cards and within minutes the machine shut down due to excessive heat.

I am very interested in making an upgrade soon. However, I’ve read that most manufacturers are dropping blower-style cards. If this is true, it is very unfortunate. It won’t be possible to build multi-GPU systems. I understand a lot of people don’t see their benefit because they believe they are noisy and not very efficient at cooling but they don’t come from a rendering background and are unaware of these crucial benefits. Without blower-style cards, I don’t see it possible to build a multi-GPU system for 3D rendering.

Am I wrong here?

Regards,
Richard

 

[kanewolf]

Hi gang;

So I work in 3D animation and, like many in my industry, I have switched to GPU rendering which is a HUGE benefit over traditional CPU rendering.

As such, my workstation has 4x GTX 1080 Ti cards exclusively for rendering with Redshift.

For these kinds of setups, blower style cards are the only option. These are the cards that suck in air from inside the computer and blow it out the back. This means they don’t circulate hot air and always remain cool.

I have first hand experience in seeing the benefits of this because the first 4 1080 Ti’s we put in, weren’t blower style cards and within minutes the machine shut down due to excessive heat.

I am very interested in making an upgrade soon. However, I’ve read that most manufacturers are dropping blower-style cards. If this is true, it is very unfortunate. It won’t be possible to build multi-GPU systems. I understand a lot of people don’t see their benefit because they believe they are noisy and not very efficient at cooling but they don’t come from a rendering background and are unaware of these crucial benefits. Without blower-style cards, I don’t see it possible to build a multi-GPU system for 3D rendering.

Am I wrong here?

Regards,
Richard

Custom liquid cooling might be your only option.

 

[Eximo]

Nvidia is not manufacturing blower style cards under the Founder's Edition badge, yes.

Other manufacturer's are free to do so,, and they have:

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/Cm...090-24-gb-turbo-video-card-gv-n3090turbo-24gd

RTX3080Ti and RTX3090 are very large cards, at most designed to run in pairs. So it might not be as big a deal to have a pair with axial fans. They also added a blow through fan on this generation, most of the OEMs matched this to some extent, though not quite as good as Nvidia's design. Not much chance of powering four of them without dual power supplies or something in any case.

1080Ti 250W
RTX 3090 350W (Spikes as high as 500W, very easy to trip overcurrent protection on power supplies) So 1600W for three might be possible with a light system.

 

[Eximo]

Just to be clear. A pair of 3090 has more CUDA cores than your 4 1080Ti.

GTX1080Ti 3584 cores x4 = 15416 (Same core count as an RTX3060)

RTX3090 10496 cores x2 = 20992

 

[hotaru.hino]

NVIDIA does make blower style cards themselves, in their Quadro line. Of course, they're kinda pricey.

 

[Eximo]

NVIDIA does make blower style cards themselves, in their Quadro line. Of course, they're kinda pricey.

Lower power rating as well to accommodate the blower. I wonder if that is true of the blower RTX3090 out there, lower power limits.

Doesn't seem to be so, though I can imagine instant throttling with the blower cards in any case.

ASUS took their own listing for their blower version down, so probably not a high priority to make them. Probably not available any longer. Same is probably true for Gigabyte, more expensive SKUs to make.

 

[Phaaze88]

Lower power rating as well to accommodate the blower. I wonder if that is true of the blower RTX3090 out there, lower power limits.

Gigabyte 3090 Turbo bios: https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/226352/gigabyte-rtx3090-24576-200924
Currently the only verified bios of a 3090 blower on TPU database - the other blowers probably aren't as low as the A6000 either.

 

[Eximo]

Good find.