News Gigabyte GPU Design Details Emerge About PCB Cracking

[Admin]

Twitter user 0xcats, who reportedly has experience with PCB design, shares a theory on why the PCBs on Gigabyte graphics cards are experiencing cracking.

Gigabyte GPU Design Details Emerge About PCB Cracking : Read more

 

[digitalgriffin]

Learned that the first year of engineering. Sharp corners equal high stress points. We then used a special type of plastic to show the differences in stress between sharp corners and rounded ones.

Photoelasticity - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

Imagine if there were a computer spec designed to mount GPUs vertically...

 

[Deleted member 2947362]

That one Heat Paste Hungry GPU

 

[Amdlova]

With these mega sized gpu... it's normal to get something broken. Some time ago people complains about the size the air cooler bending or broking the mother board. But gigabyte make some crap products. Beware buyers

 

[g-unit1111]

I'm seriously curious as to how much of this problem would be solved if the GPUs were mounted horizontally instead of vertically. Because I would imagine that those giant heat sinks and heavy fans can't be good for vertical mounting.

 

[helper800]

With these mega sized gpu... it's normal to get something broken. Some time ago people complains about the size the air cooler bending or broking the mother board. But gigabyte make some crap products. Beware buyers

Never had a problem with a gigabyte product myself, but buyer beware of their customer service...

 

[bit_user]

That one Heat Paste Hungry GPU

Totally! It's on there like peanut butter on a cracker!

​

 

[Deleted member 2947362]

Totally! It's on there like peanut butter on a cracker!

​

​

lol peanut butter on a cracker hahaha lol

 

[razor512]

That one Heat Paste Hungry GPU

Pretty common for even factory applications since with a bare die, having more paste than needed has very little impact on cooling, but a single bare spot or less than 100% coverage can damage the chip, especially if the bare spot has no on-die thermal probe in that location.

 

[Deleted member 2947362]

Pretty common for even factory applications since with a bare die, having more paste than needed has very little impact on cooling, but a single bare spot or less than 100% coverage can damage the chip, especially if the bare spot has no on-die thermal probe in that location.

(cues the music and wobbly lines)

I come from the days of ye olde CPU when it was common practice for amd and intel to sell CPU's with exposed die like my old althlon 1200mhz and intel P3 and my amd XP 1600 cpu etc

I also remember you were forced to go through the terrifying stress and almost vomit fear inducing install the heat sink process

praying to god I don't slip and destroy the motherboard with this totally inappropriate screw driver while forcing down trying to get the what seemed like an over the top sprung steel CPU Heat Sink retaining Clip to lock to the plastic CPU socket and all the time hoping I have not damaged/chipped the CPU Die and wondering how much heat sink paste will be left on the CPU?

Then I learned it was easier to fit the heatsink before I fitted the motherboard in the razor sharp should of came with a free box of plasters case with power supply included LOL

Those of us who come from the Ye Olde CPU Day's will know once one end of the CPU heatsink retaining Clip is attached to the CPU socket you had one hand trying your hardest to keep the heatsink flat and true on top of the exposed CPU Die

The force of the attached end of the retaining clip would be pulling the heatsink in an upward direction due to the sprung steel its made from

In the other hand you would be forcing down and with a forward motion trying to attach the other end of the heatsink retaining clip with with screw driver.

And Like a NOOB or mainly because I was just thick lol I would make it harder for myself by first installing the motherboard in to computer Case.

Which back in those days PC cases used to be made by or at least must of been sponsored by a well known ... lets just call them G-let razor's (for any legal reasons lol)

By the time I had finished the install my hands looked like I put them in cylinder lawn mower!

Do Not Try This At Home Or Anywhere Else!!!

EDIT
Ok I added the worrying bit about the heatsink paste but the rest of it is the truth honest lol

Only after the Build was complete and windows XP etc was installed (I didn't really get in to benchmarking until win XP) did I start to think of the heatsink paste but these CPU's never seemed to go much over 60C no matter how much was used because sure most if not nearly all of it was most likely squeezed out after the Battle of the CPU install.

 

[nitrium]

"An unusual and alarming amount of Gigabyte owners have **experimented with ** the PCB cracking on their graphics cards. "

I think you mean "experienced". I'm pretty sure almost no one experimenting with making this happen on purpose.

 

[King_V]

"An unusual and alarming amount of Gigabyte owners have **experimented with ** the PCB cracking on their graphics cards. "

I think you mean "experienced". I'm pretty sure almost no one experimenting with making this happen on purpose.

One would hope...

 

[bit_user]

with a bare die, having more paste than needed has very little impact on cooling,

Source?

I'd been lead to believe direct-die cooling was especially sensitive to excess TIM. People even go to the extreme of polishing their water blocks, since a rough finish supposedly transfers heat worse than a smooth one, due to the excess TIM that fills in the cracks.

 

[tennis2]

Learned that the first year of engineering. Sharp corners equal high stress points. We then used a special type of plastic to show the differences in stress between sharp corners and rounded ones.

Photoelasticity - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

The corners are radius'd......

This is just the relative distance from the that nearest mounting hole to the edge of the PCB.

 

[mac_angel]

Don't have that problem in my country also I use my local computer shop and they order the stuff

so if I ever have any hardware that has an Issue the shop just sort's it out for me.
I find that shop owner/s are much much better when it comes to after sales care.

Stuff ordering online myself I know my luck! lol

This does not help you but not everyone has the same problems with returns.

There is a lot more value when using a shop and after care even if does cost a little more it's worth it for the after care, less stress and hassle

That's the bonus of direct Human to Human contact rather than looking at a monitor typing and waiting for a response possibly feeling frustrated.

Yea, if I can, I try to get the extended warranty through shops that I buy from. But a lot of the time I don't have that kind of extra money. I live in Canada, and we have a local MSI and Asus office. MSI is more or less an exchange depot, but decent turn around time, and Asus has an actual office. For RMA's it's mostly a turn around depot, but you can go in and drop it off, etc. The manager there is an amazing guy, too.
As for Gigabyte, it's not just me that have been complaining. JayzTwoCents did a report on this issue before Tom's Hardware, and there are a LOT of people having this breaking problem, and Gigabyte refusing to RMA them. Even before this, there are a lot of people complaining about Gigabyte and their support/RMA. I know that happens with a lot of companies, but I find Gigabyte to be one of the worst.

 

[dk382]

A cursory check of TechPowerUp's PCB pictures of the 4070 Ti and the 4090 "Gaming" line of cards shows that these still have the raised notch, but the PCB is larger with the GPU and cooler mounting holes positioned higher up. If this is indeed caused by that notch coming so close to the mounting holes, then that won't be an issue on those particular 40-series cards.

 

[helper800]

Source?

I'd been lead to believe direct-die cooling was especially sensitive to excess TIM. People even go to the extreme of polishing their water blocks, since a rough finish supposedly transfers heat worse than a smooth one, due to the excess TIM that fills in the cracks.

Just look at any TIM applications on GPUs, as that is direct die. I have had no issues repasting GPUs with whatever amount of paste I please for years. I typically use more than most people with no detriment. Let me put it this way; You can always put too little TIM and never put too much. This assumes it is not conductive paste. When you install a heatsink to either a GPU or a CPU die you are essentially squeezing out all exccess TIM and filling in all the spaces where the HSF does not touch the die or IHS. The reason why lapping or polishing either the HSF, die of the CPU /GPU, or the IHS has any benefit is because it allows the two surfaces to have a higher percentage of contact with each other, thus increasing thermal transfer. In conclusion, it is not that TIM in excess causes more heat, its that the better the contact between surfaces for an HSF and die / IHS there is, the better the cooling performance. without TIM to fill in the spaces there would be air, which is a great thermal insulator, which is bad news for the CPU / GPU.

 

[bit_user]

Yea, if I can, I try to get the extended warranty through shops that I buy from.

In the typical case, extended warranties are a ripoff. And, for tech products, I figure the product will likely be obsolete and nearly due for replacement by the time the original warranty expires (very dependent on product type and warranty term).

However, if buying an extended warranty lets you simply walk into the shop, with the broken product, and let them deal with those sorts of headaches, I can understand why you'd do it. However, if I have to deal with an aftermarket warranty company, myself, I feel like that's just going to be yet another headache and yet another person to give me the runaround.

 

[bit_user]

Just look at any TIM applications on GPUs, as that is direct die.

That doesn't mean anything other than that the GPU has enough "margins" in its thermal specification that it can afford such a sloppy application.

without TIM to fill in the spaces there would be air, which is a great thermal insulator, which is bad news for the CPU / GPU.

I'm not talking about under-applying it. That's obviously bad.

 

[Deleted member 2947362]

That doesn't mean anything other than that the GPU has enough "margins" in its thermal specification that it can afford such a sloppy application.


I'm not talking about under-applying it. That's obviously bad.

When you apply thermal paste on any exposed Die the heatsink really should be lapped to a high standard, I agree I normally put a little more than is needed but not to little if you can work that out lol

let me explain : we all have our own idea of what is to little and what is to much.

So it can be anything from puddle sized to smear's for some people. lol

Anyway

I think the only thing that your doing when putting Peanut butter on a cracker size amounts is making more mess than you really needed to not any damage.

Just a smear on the standard finish of heatsinks then good luck with that mate, because your now in the realms of how good is the finish of the contact area on the heatsink ?

That is unless everything including the die have been lapped to the highest possible standards.

In which case you shouldn't need very much at all, I would of thought.

 

[NasciDaTecnologia]

Guys, the RTX 4090 Gigabyte Gaming OC was a video card that I was considering buying, however, given this problem of the Gigabyte RTX 30 and RTX 40 supposedly cracking, added to the fact that it does not give a guarantee when the PCB is cracked , my distrust increased a lot with this manufacturer's video cards to the point of not wanting to buy more from him.

In your opinion, what other manufacturer do you recommend I buy an RTX 4090, that has a great warranty (and RMA), build quality and is an excellent value for money? And which model do you recommend? I don't plan on overclocking.

Some RTX 4090 I have in mind to buy (available here in my country):

-LEADTEK WinFast 4090 HURRICANE;
-PNY XLR8 Gaming Verto Edition VCG409024TFXXPB1;
-PNY XLR8 Gaming Verto Epic-x RGB VCG409024TFXXPB1-O;
-PNY Uprising Epic-X Gaming VCG409024TFXMPB;
-MSI Gaming X Trio;
-MSI Suprim Liquid X;
-ZOTAC Trinity OC Gaming ZT-D40900J-10P;
-ZOTAC AMP Extreme AIRO ZT-D40900B-10P;
-GALAX ST 1-Click OC 49NXM5MD6DDR;
-GALAX SG 1-Click OC 49NXM5MD6DSG;
(Gigabyte Gaming OC is also available, but due to the issue I left it off the list)

Do you recommend any of these video cards? Have you used any of them? If so, what did you find in practice?

And even after this Gigabyte issue, would you recommend me to give it a "second chance" and buy Gigabyte Gaming OC?

Even though I have an idea of what I'm going to do, I always like a second opinion.

 

[bit_user]

In your opinion, what other manufacturer do you recommend I buy an RTX 4090, that has a great warranty (and RMA), build quality and is an excellent value for money? And which model do you recommend? I don't plan on overclocking.

Is coil whine still a common problem? Last time I bought a high-end graphics card, that was one of the things I was checking the user reviews for, on Newegg and Amazon.

 

[helper800]

Is coil whine still a common problem? Last time I bought a high-end graphics card, that was one of the things I was checking the user reviews for, on Newegg and Amazon.

Coil whine can happen to any brand of any card and still comes with cards today.

 

[bit_user]

Coil whine can happen to any brand of any card and still comes with cards today.

At the time, some brands and models seemed much less susceptible to it than others.