GPU Manufacturing how?

[Tristan944]

With NVIDIA and ATi, how are the cards made?

There are so many different brands, does each company make their own board and components and put all the pieces together? Or does NVIDIA or ATI make the boards and sends them to all the different companies?

 

[getochkn]

Nvidia and AMD make the chips and sell them to the different companies. Usually they will make what is referred to as the "reference design", which is their ideal design of a board. Some companies will just buy the reference boards and chips from Nvidia/AMD and slap their logo on it and sell it. These ones aren't usually the top of the line or super over clocked or more memory versions, etc, but a basic card.

The big companies that can afford it, will design their own board, cooling, etc. Sometimes this is aid in overclocking, adding more VRAM, using better caps and voltage reg's, etc. They can also choose what outputs to use, and their design will determine the power requirements, etc. These usually perform better, overclock better and cost most.

Then there is companies that take it even further, like the Saphire Flex cards. With AMD (not sure about Nvdida) but for 3 monitor support to play games on all 3 screens, or more, the configuration as to what ports work and don't work can be a pain. Saphire has designed their own method for doing this that lets you use and outputs on the card you want. It doesn't have to be displayport in the middle, dvi to active adapter for the 2nd or 3rd, can't use VGA, etc. Their Flex cards let you do whatever.

 

[ksham]

Tech companies make the boards. nvidia and amd/ati makes the chip.

Though, there was a take on Zotac and it took a lot of people to make a board. I think the chips are just automated.

 

[lostgamer_03]

Nvidia and AMD makes a reference design, they only make their GPUs in small amounts.

The rest is up to the companies such as ASUS, MSI and Zotac. Some uses the reference design, while others makes their own design to make the GPU cooler, better for overclocking, more efficient and so on.

Bottomline is that other companies make the GPUs, while AMD or Nvidia make the recipe for the GPUs.

 

[ksham]

It's similar to Intel and AMD making the CPU and other companies making the motherboard to go along with the chip. But in the graphics cards, they just come together.

 

[TheBigTroll]

all nvidia and amd designs is the software, the GPU itself, and the shape and design of the reference cooler and pcb. they build nothing. the rest goes to board partners

as for amd and intel, they both design their own chips and chipsets and the stuff that goes along with them but intel has its own fab plants to produce their chips so thats why they always have an advantage over amd in terms of the process size