NVIDIA's next-gen Ampere GA102 GPU: 'over 20 chokes' on PCB design

NVIDIA looking after enthusiasts with 'over 20 chokes' on its next-gen Ampere GA102 PCB design, a huge power delivery upgrade.

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It seems with each passing day the hype train for NVIDIA's next-gen Ampere GeForce RTX series graphics cards grow, with the Ultimate Countdown... well... counting down until the big special event on September 1.

The latest news on NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce RTX series is that the GA102 GPU board design will pack some delicious power delivery, seeing enthusiasts eyebrows raise (well, at least just one of them). NVIDIA has been slowly providing better and better power delivery designs with its high-end Founders Edition cards, but this is taking it to the next level.

NVIDIA's highest-end Ampere GA102 GPU board design should be the one expected in the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti or GeForce RTX 3090, or GeForce RTX 3090 ULTRA or ULTIMATE -- whatever-the-hell NVIDIA end up calling it.

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The upgraded power delivery is reportedly "over 20 chokes", but we don't know which model that the leaker is talking about. It could be any of the flagship Ampere GA102-based cards. How is this any different to the power delivery systems on the previous-gen GeForce GTX and GeForce RTX graphics cards.

  • GeForce GTX 1080 Ti: 7 VDDC + 2 MVDD
  • GeForce RTX 2080 Ti: 13 VDDC + 3 MVDD
  • Ampere GA102 PCB: "over 20 chokes"

Some notes were also compiled from Chiphell, with many references to the GeForce RTX 3090. But the note at the bottom is the best: "It's better than Mrs. Su's HBM card" which seems to be in reference to those leaks about a new Radeon RX 5950 XT "Big Navi" with 24GB of ultra-fast HBM2e memory.

  • 1. So-called 24/20GB 384/320-bit Only right on one point.
  • 1) 3090 is 24GB this is fine, pushing up KatCorgi also confirmed
  • (2) then in order to high-speed video memory is not used 16Gbit particles, this is a double-sided 2Rx32 specifications, positive and negative a total of 24 stars!
  • 2, 3080 and 3090, although using the same core, but 3080 seems to be to re-sample the PCB, rather than 3090 cut two particles made out of the
  • 3, by the way, 3090 is an interesting arrangement of this particle, there is a particle put to the bottom
  • 4, this time the public version of the power supply luxury is unimaginable, or cooling pressure is unimaginable.... NVIDIA SMX kind of card power supply density you all understand, this time is bound to do a dense, a cylinder solid capacitors are not, instead of all the chip capacitors / tantalum capacitors.
  • 5, is not a shaped PCB I do not know anyway, but NV this PCB layout merit to be honest!
  • It's better than Mrs. Su's HBM card.
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We've heard about the power delivery system on the GA102 before, where Igor's Lab reported that the TGP of the purported GeForce RTX 3090 would be 350W. The breakdown of this is 230W for the GA102 GPU, 60W for the 24GB of GDDR6X memory, 35W+ across MOSFETs and other power systems for a total of 350W.

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  • What's NVIDIA doing with all those mentions of 21? I'm a kinda numerology nerd in some ways, so it helps decode at least some of it -- which I did so here. (GeForce) 256 x 21 (days/years celebration) = 5376 (GPU cores in purported GA102 GPU), and 5 + 3 + 7 + 6 = 21.
  • What about "ULTIMATE"? Well that's the other thing -- does NVIDIA mean this will be the "ultimate graphics card", or does it mean we could expect an ULTIMATE branded graphics card? GeForce RTX 3090 ULTIMATE has a nice ring to it... just saying.
  • Where can I tune into the GeForce special event? NVIDIA will be premiering the special event broadcast on September 9 at 9AM PT, hosted by none other than NVIDIA CEO and founder Jensen Huang. You can tune in right here.

More reading:

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  • Traversal coprocessor: We have had more leaks on NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce RTX 3000 series than any family of graphics cards before it, with an interesting "traversal coprocessor" on the new GeForce RTX 3080 and GeForce RTX 3090 graphics cards. You can read more on that here.
  • NVCache: Ampere is meant to have something called NVCache, which would be NVIDIA's own form of AMD's HBCC (High Bandwidth Cache Controller, more on that here). NVCache would use your system RAM and SSD to super-speed game load times, as well as optimizing VRAM usage. You can read more on NVCache here.
  • Tensor Memory Compression: NVCache is interesting, but Tensor Memory Compression will be on Ampere, and will reportedly use Tensor Cores to both compress and decompress items that are stored in VRAM. This could see a 20-40% reduction in VRAM usage, or more VRAM usage with higher textures in next-gen games and Tensor Memory Compression decreasing that VRAM footprint by 20-40%.
  • How fast is the GeForce RTX 3090? Freaking fast according to rumors, with 60-90% more performance than the current Turing-based flagship GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. We could see this huge performance leap in ray tracing titles, but we'll have to wait a little while longer to see how much graphical power NVIDIA crams into these new cards. You can read more on those rumors here.
  • Power hungry: As for power consumption, GA102 reportedly uses 230W -- while 24GB of GDDR6X (which we should see on the new Ampere-based TITAN RTX) consumes 60W of power. You can read more on that here.
  • Production begins soon: NVIDIA is reportedly in the DVT (or Design Validation Test) range of its new GeForce RTX 3000 series graphics cards. Mass production reportedly kicks off in August 2020, with a media event, benchmarks, and more in September 2020 as I predicted many months ago. More on that here.
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I've already written about rumors that NVIDIA's next-gen Ampere GPU architecture would be up to 75% faster than current-gen GPUs such as the Turing architecture, right after rumors that Ampere would offer 50% more performance at half the power of Turing. This is pretty crazy stuff right there.

Not only that, but we've got some rumored specs on the purported GeForce RTX 3080 and GeForce RTX 3070 graphics cards, which will both be powered by NVIDIA's new Ampere GPU architecture.

We've already heard that Ampere would offer 50% more performance at half the power of Turing, which sent the hairs on my neck standing up. Better yet, you can read about the leaked specs on the purported Ampere-based GeForce RTX 3080 and GeForce RTX 3070 right here.

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Even more reading:

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Anthony joined the TweakTown team in 2010 and has since reviewed 100s of graphics cards. Anthony is a long time PC enthusiast with a passion of hate for games built around consoles. FPS gaming since the pre-Quake days, where you were insulted if you used a mouse to aim, he has been addicted to gaming and hardware ever since. Working in IT retail for 10 years gave him great experience with custom-built PCs. His addiction to GPU tech is unwavering and has recently taken a keen interest in artificial intelligence (AI) hardware.

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