Nvidia Improves Cooler Design for GTX 580
Nvidia Improves Cooler Design for GTX 580
Posted 11/02/2010 at 7:21am
| by Paul Lilly
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Nvidia has taken its fair share of heat over, well, the heat output of its high-end Fermi cards, namely the GeForce GTX 480. According to news and rumor site Fudzilla, you can expect the upcoming GTX 580 to run a little bit cooler and quieter.
This won't be the result of any major architectural changes, as the GPU will still run hot with a TDP approaching 250W. Instead, Nvidia chose to tweak its cooler design so that it runs more efficiently, essentially sweeping the heat output under the carpet, if you will.
We'll find out soon enough how effective the new design is. Fudzilla says the GTX 580 will launch in the morning hours of November 9, exactly one week from today.
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cscgo29
November 02, 2010 at 9:03pm
I think one of the biggest things that GPU makers can do to help reduce heat, is to use proper TIM (Thermal Interface Material). The grey crap that they currently use does such a poor job. And if it's applied correctly too, that makes a huge difference!
This past weekend, I replaced the TIM on my 2 ATi Radeon HD 5770's with some Arctic Silver 5 and noticed a 10C drop in temps. When I removed the HSF from the first card, the stock TIM was all over the place. It took me a good 30min just to clean it up!
This comment is one of the biggest urban legends in this industry. nVidia and ATI both use Shin-Etsu 7762 thermal grease (as does Intel) because it has the lowest thermal resistance you can get with factory-friendly application. G751 is the best thermally, but it's a pain to work with.
Even if there was a big difference, to get 10C performance benefit, the material would have to be something radically worse. A good example is the Hard OCP study that used american cheese as TIM and it was only 5C worse than Arctic Silver.
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2009/04/07/thermal_paste_shootout_q209/4
Caboose
November 03, 2010 at 9:17am
All the video cards that I've ever replaced the TIM with something like AS5 have shown an improvement in temperatures. Same with mobile CPU's in laptops that I've rebuilt or cleaned. I looked through the article (I've read a number of articles on the difference between various thermal materials), and saw that the 7762 performed worse than the AS5. Also, where you got the information stating that nVidia, AMD and Intel use that specific thermal grease? I don't see Intel, nVidia or AMD using anything more than the basic kinda stuff...
cscgo29
November 03, 2010 at 8:35pm
I used to be a tech rep for another thermal material company, so I know pretty well what everyone uses. Unfortunately for me, I never could replace Shin-Etsu in any of those accounts.
The 7762 material is not the best that Shin-Etsu makes or the best available in the industry. G751 and 7783D and a bunch from other vendors are actually better, but they are more difficult to work with in mass production.
To estimate how much gain you can possibly get, do a simple 1-dimensional heat transfer calculation. Simplified:
dT=QL/kA
dt=temperature loss across grease (degrees C)
Q=chip power (W). Assume 200W for this case.
L=thickness of grease (m). Assume around 0.08mm for most after heatsink assembly
k=thermal conductivity of grease (W/m-C). Assume 6 for 7762
A=die or heat spreader surface area (m^2). GTX480 is somewhere around 40x40mm
dT=1.67C loss in this example with 7762. Even if you replaced it with pure silver, you'd only gain 1.67C in thermal performance.
LatiosXT
November 02, 2010 at 12:51pm
Although they will argue that performance per watt versus a CPU is outrageously better. The average CPU does tens (if not in 100s range) of GFLOPs while high-end GPUs are approaching TFLOPs.
And there's the fact that if you push a part faster, it gets exponentially hotter.
And then if you try to put more transistors into a part, it'll require more current to drive the thing, which puts out more heat.
It's basically a no-win situation. Although one could say NVIDIA did a sloppy job the first time.
Keatah
November 02, 2010 at 12:04pm
Chipmakers should correctly build chips that don't throw away all that power as waste heat. So to speak.
Big heatsinks and rowdy fans and glowing lights and the glorification of blowing hot air around is not elegant computing. Sounds like hacker boys and geek kiddie stuff.
Caboose
November 02, 2010 at 7:57am
I think one of the biggest things that GPU makers can do to help reduce heat, is to use proper TIM (Thermal Interface Material). The grey crap that they currently use does such a poor job. And if it's applied correctly too, that makes a huge difference!
This past weekend, I replaced the TIM on my 2 ATi Radeon HD 5770's with some Arctic Silver 5 and noticed a 10C drop in temps. When I removed the HSF from the first card, the stock TIM was all over the place. It took me a good 30min just to clean it up!
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