NVIDIA’s GPU based on the Ada Lovelace architecture corresponds to the GeForce RTX 40 series, which is rumored to be released at the end of this year. It was previously reported that Nvidia’s next-generation flagship AD102 will have three TGPs, 450W, 650W, and 850W, respectively. There are also rumors that the power consumption of GeForce RTX 4080/RTX 4080 Ti/RTX 4090 has reached 450W/600W/800W respectively. Whatever the exact number is, it indicates that Nvidia’s next-generation graphics cards will have astonishing power consumption.
Recently, Twitter user @kopite7kimi revealed that the TGP of the GeForce RTX 4090 has been confirmed to reach 600W. There are also new rumors that the power consumption of the GeForce RTX 4080/RTX 4090/RTX 4090 Ti is 450W/600W/800W+ respectively. Especially for a figure like 800W, I believe that many people will be shocked. I don’t know if it is overestimated or if there is a special version. The introduction of the new PCIe 5.0 power supply interface has indeed brought the possibility of a higher power supply to the new generation of graphics cards. The PCIe slot plus a single PCIe 5.0 power supply interface can provide up to 675W of power. If it is two PCIe 5.0 power supply interfaces, it is not a big problem to provide more than 800W of power supply.
Compared with the power supply, how to dissipate the heat of the graphics card may be a more difficult problem to solve. The power consumption of 600W is definitely a daunting challenge for graphics card cooling, and the relevant cooling scheme needs to be determined several months in advance so that mass production can be carried out before the official release. At present, most of the flagship graphics cards still use air-cooled heat dissipation. Under the three-fan and three-slot thickness cooling solution, it is a routine operation to cope with 400W-level graphics cards. However, to solve the heat dissipation problem of the 600W graphics card, water cooling should be added, at least some mixed heat dissipation solutions. AMD has used water cooling on top public graphics cards from time to time over the years, and perhaps Nvidia will follow suit this time.
