Sunday, November 4th 2018
ASUS RTX 2080 Turbo (Baseline) Cards Come with TU104 "A" Chips
The GeForce RTX 2080 Turbo from ASUS is supposed to be a "baseline" RTX 2080 product, which the company can sell at $699, or closest to it. These boards were found to feature the TU104-400A-A1 variant of the TU104 silicon, which NVIDIA allows its add-in card (AIC) partners to ship factory-overclocked speeds with. At this point it's not known if all ASUS RTX 2080 Turbo cards feature the "A" variant TU104 chips, or if it's a lottery. Given that the ASUS RTX 2080 Turbo's PCB is largely based on NVIDIA's reference design, PC Games Hardware (PCGH) has been able to successfully flash the card's BIOS with that of the RTX 2080 Founders Edition cards based on the reference PCB, which have power-limits increased to the tune of 307 W, which facilitates not just higher GPU Boost frequencies, but also better sustainability of elevated boost clock states.
With its "Turing" family of GPUs, NVIDIA created ASIC variants along the lines of chips that board partners are allowed to factory-overclock, and those that they aren't. You can read all about that in our older article. Normally, the TU104-400-A1 silicon is intended for baseline cards such as the ASUS RTX 2080 Turbo, whereas the TU104-400A-A1 goes into factory-overclocked products such as ASUS RTX 2080 ROG Strix. The discovery of TU104-400A-A1 on the ASUS RTX 2080 Turbo makes it the cheapest option for enthusiasts wanting to flash it with BIOS of other reference-PCB based cards that have TU104-400A-A1 chips to increase power limits, and then simply pairing the card with custom liquid cooling, to manually overclock further, thanks to the increased power limits. We're not sure you can flash Founders Edition BIOS on cards that have reference-design PCBs but non-A ASICs.
Source:
PC Games Hardware
With its "Turing" family of GPUs, NVIDIA created ASIC variants along the lines of chips that board partners are allowed to factory-overclock, and those that they aren't. You can read all about that in our older article. Normally, the TU104-400-A1 silicon is intended for baseline cards such as the ASUS RTX 2080 Turbo, whereas the TU104-400A-A1 goes into factory-overclocked products such as ASUS RTX 2080 ROG Strix. The discovery of TU104-400A-A1 on the ASUS RTX 2080 Turbo makes it the cheapest option for enthusiasts wanting to flash it with BIOS of other reference-PCB based cards that have TU104-400A-A1 chips to increase power limits, and then simply pairing the card with custom liquid cooling, to manually overclock further, thanks to the increased power limits. We're not sure you can flash Founders Edition BIOS on cards that have reference-design PCBs but non-A ASICs.
28 Comments on ASUS RTX 2080 Turbo (Baseline) Cards Come with TU104 "A" Chips
Has it even been shown if A and non-A chips are actually different? OC overhead on RTX GPUs is not that significant to begin with.
www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/3386-nvidias-secret-gpu-tu106-400-vs-400a-2070-xc-ultra-review
I would really like to see someone put both under water with fullcover block and then lets see what happens, keeping temperatures the same. Cooling matters a lot for Turing cards (as it did for Pascal). Boost 3.0/4.0 scales clock bins all the way down to 30C. And that is just the core.
The only valid difference seems to be the power limit, usefulness of which is a bit suspect. In all the Pascal and Turing cards I have had chance to play with the useful power limit is somehere around +15% (from spec), after that cards will simply run into voltage limit more often than not. Besides, 50MHz is well within normal variance of chips :/
Also, from my understanding, the blower cards are popular in Asia for some reason and are mostly made for that market.
In Europe, cheapest GTX 1080Ti and RTX 2080 are within 30-40€ of each other, aftermarket cooling models are in the same price range. Same story with GTX 1080 and RTX 2070. All with cards in stock.
Situation with RTX 2080Ti is completely fucked up everywhere it appears. In addition to it being in a class of its own and still at 1100+€ there are clearly yield problems and some dying problems.
Regarding the A vs non-A, most manufacturers seem to indicate the chip type clearly in specs. I would put much more value to the cooler slapped on the card rather than the chip variation.
We know that nGreedia made far to many 10 series chips 6 months ago, and the AIBs didn't want them, as the mining craze had stopped and nobody wanted these cards for sky high money, this situation is exactly what nGreedia wanted. Artificially high prices for 3 year old crap, and a new series of cards with magically no software support, want to bet that situation changes just before the 10 series stock dries up?
Bigger chips, more expensive memory, more complex PCB (as MSI interview revealed).
Yep, you fixed it for me alright!
Listen, my nGreedia shill, I'm not happy over what your company is doing to PC gaming, and you will not stop me from calling it out when I see it. I'm proud to not be an idiot that enjoys being ripped off, and seeing my hobbies go down the drain far enough that only the rich kids can play it. If that makes me a troll, then it's your problem, not mine.
www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/geforce-rtx-2070.c3252
1. Dies: 7.2 billion transistors and 314 mm² vs 10.8 billion transistors and 445 mm². 40% bigger chip, more expensive to produce.
2. VRAM: 8GB of GDDR5X on 256-bit bus vs 8GB of GDDR6 on 256-bit bus. GDDR6 is at least the same price as GDDR5X, very likely more.
3. PCB:GTX 1080 has less complex PCB than GTX 1080Ti and definitely less components. RTX 2070 has more components on it than GTX 1080Ti.
Does not make sense to get a bigger profit margin from this. Memory may be so-so but if MSI was even remotely truthful BOM of card must be lower for 10-series. When it comes to GPUs themselves, even discounting the considerable size increase (and less GPUs per wafer due to that) at these sizes yields start becoming a problem.
GDDR6 is backed by all 3 leading makers of memory, so no I expect GDDR5X to cost more, given similar yields & lower overall supply for the latter.
You're forgetting the obvious elephant in the room, price ~ how much does the RTX sell for?
As I said above, at least in Europe, GTX 1080 and RTX 2070 sell for the same price. Same story with GTX 1080Ti and RTX 2080.
First, because these GPU's are so retardly expensive, I wouldn't even doubt either building custom loop or not anyway.
And the fact, that Asus puts best "A" chips into the cheapest and reference line makes the choice for loop between cards even easier.
Third, my 1080ti strix has an awfull coil sounds, so...
It's just good that I will have a premium option for waterblock, for lower price. (If I'll ever get nuts and buy one for myself)
Moreover, it might happen so, that 1080 ti simply becomes dud in 2019 + no competetion from amd, and huang rushing everyone with crazy priced gpu’s - so you’ll have no choice but to purchase these rtx bullshit cards, in order to play new games.
But yeah, I must admit - if those monopoly motherf****ers are gonna MAKE me to spend alot of cash just because they want to - I’ll screw them over and buy PS4. Or even abandon videogames - my eyes will thank me for that.