NVIDIA rumored to use HUGE cooling block on GeForce RTX 3080

These leaks of NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce RTX 3000 series graphics cards are probably the biggest leaks of a card before its release ever -- and the leaks just don't stop.

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We've heard about the GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card cooler rumored to cost NVIDIA up to $150 on its own, rumors of the purported GeForce RTX 3090 being 60-90% faster than the RTX 2080 Ti, and then the juicy rumor of the RTX 3090 packing a huge 24GB of GDDR6X memory that would annihilate the RTX 2080 Ti.

Well, now it's all about the cooler underneath the new GeForce RTX 3080 -- and what should be the Founders Edition cooler for the other RTX 3000 series cards. The new close look at the Ampere RTX series graphics cards shows us the gigantic cooling block that NVIDIA is using, with four very thick heat pipes.

NVIDIA looks to be shifting towards using heat pipes in its new RTX 3000 series cards, something the company hasn't done recently. The secondary part of the heat sink is physically attached to the rest of the primary cooler -- with dual fans keeping it cool (one on the front, one on the back -- never been done on an FE card before).

If we had some excellently cooled GeForce RTX 3000 series Founders Edition cards out of the gate, it pushes AIB partners against a wall. If NVIDIA can have a card with sub 70C temperatures and a kick ass cooling system... why would you want to buy a third-party card?

Aesthetics? RGB lighting?

Founders Edition cards are some of the best-binned GPUs that NVIDIA make, and normally AIB partners come in with far better cooling designs and tame the beast of a GPU that NVIDIA has made. Until now, reference and Founders Edition cards might rock some of the best-binned GPUs but their cooling abilities have always lacked.

Until now...

NVIDIA launching a kick ass GeForce RTX 3000 series Founders Edition family of cards would be an interesting move, something that concerned me when NVIDIA first launched the Founders Edition cards with the GeForce GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 cards.

I remember sitting next to Jason (JayzTwoCents) at the NVIDIA launch event in Austin, Texas and the second NVIDIA announced that to us we both agreed that this would be bad in a few generations for AIB partners.

Well, here we are.

NVIDIA could much more tightly control its cards which is great for the company, great for gamers, and great for the Founders Edition family of cards but what does it mean for AIB partners?

This launch is going to be one of the biggest, and most interesting graphics card launches of all time -- mark my words. AMD launching its new RDNA 2-based Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards, Intel is going to jump in with something in the next 6-18 months, and NVIDIA is going to have a field day coming in and stepping over it all with some gigantic releases with Ampere.

I can't wait.