Leadtek Copies NVIDIA's Homework - Debuts Custom GeForce RTX 4070 Card With Blower Design

[T0@st]

It was reported earlier this morning that Leadtek was preparing a new custom design NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 graphics card - Tom's Hardware pointed out that South Korea's National Radio Research Agency had uploaded a registration for a "RTX 4070 AI BLOWER" VGA card on behalf of "Leadtek Research Inc." The article delves into a possible scenario, based on the model name alone, of Leadtek producing a cooling solution that reflects NVIDIA's blower-style reference design. Team Green has gained quite the reputation for being protective of that blueprint, despite its Founders Edition lineup of gaming-oriented cards shifting to a traditional cooling solution (back in the RTX 20-series days). Board partners are normally expected to devise their own/unique cooling solutions, and NVIDIA has mostly reserved the blower + vapor chamber combination for its professional GPU model lineups.

Leadtek has created a product page for their new custom card this afternoon, and it is immediately clear that this morning's prediction was somewhat correct. The WinFast RTX 4070 AI BLOWER 12G sports a "streamlined" yet boxy black cooling solution that appears to be closer in appearance to an NVIDIA RTX A-series professional card, although a flash of silver trim and logo on the fan provides a bit of "gamer" visual language. Leadtek's specification info states that their AI Blower cooler features an aluminium die cast housing alongside a copper finned vapor chamber. The lone mounted fan is said to have a 50,000 hour operational lifespan thanks to a special internal arrangement: "WinFast double ball bearing fan provides better reliability, higher dust resistance levels, and moreso keeps friction and noise to a minimum." Tom's Hardware posited that Leadtek's custom card would be marketed as an enterprise product (for AI processing) - the freshly uploaded product page does position it for those purposes, but the rundown also mentions its supposed gaming performance prowess.




Graphics Processing Unit (GPU): NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070
Bus Interface: PCI Express 4.0
Memory Configuration: 12 GB GDDR6X
Core Clock Base clock: 1920 MHz
Boost clock: 2475 MHz
Memory Speed: 21 Gbps
Output Ports: 1x HDMI (2.1), 3x DisplayPort 1.4a
Maximum Digital Resolution: 7680x4320
Memory Interface Width: 192-bit
Memory Bandwidth: 504 GB/sec
CUDA Cores: 5888
HDCP Support: Yes
Microsoft DirectX Version: 12 Ultimate
NVIDIA RTX NVLink: No
OpenGL: 4.6
Maximum Power Draw (Watts): 200 W

Dimensions:
265 mm (length) x 111 mm (height) x 38 mm (thickness)



Package Contents:

• WinFast RTX 4070 AI BLOWER 12G Graphics Card
• Quick Installation Guide
• Power Cable

Requirements

• Microsoft Windows 10, Windows 11 and Linux operation system (64 bit)
• PCI-Express compliant motherboard with one four-width x16 graphics slot
• One 8-pin PCI-Express supplementary power connectors
• 8 GB system memory (16 GB or higher recommended)
• 1.5 GB of available hard disk space
• A DP or HDMI compatible monitor
• Minimum 650 W Power Supply

View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[vvkvvkvvk]

My next card if it comes to EU in reasonable cost.

 

[Fouquin]

Leadtek, MSI, ASUS, Gigabyte, Tyan all made blower cooled cards for 20 and 30 series, so why is it a surprise when any of them do it for 40 series?

Leadtek is also one of a very few select companies that even has access to NVIDIA's reference work anymore. They're literally on a completely different class above the usual AIB since they're authorized for professional components direct from NVIDIA.

Team Green has gained quite the reputation for keeping that blueprint exclusive to its reference and Founders Edition lineup of graphics cards.

This is a confusing line because Founders Edition cards have not been blowers since 2017. So what exactly are NVIDIA protecting, a design they don't even use?

 

[Melted Rabbit]

At one time, Leadtek manufactured the Quadro cards for markets outside the US.

As for the blower fan, the Nvidia RTX A5000 also uses a blower fan design. The A5000 is essentially a 4090, but clocked lower and has 48GB of GDDR6 memory.

 

[ZoneDymo]

My next card if it comes to EU in reasonable cost.

really? a 4070 that everyone and their mother will tell you offers bad value? and you want to support that?

 

[vvkvvkvvk]

really? a 4070 that everyone and their mother will tell you offers bad value? and you want to support that?

I'm not made of money and been quite happy with my blower Ampere and Turing cards. They just cost an arm and leg. Having that gaming feature set instead of professional should lower the cost and I'd rather buy something else than ASUS or Gigabyte this round.

However, given that FEs are available this time I might just have that, I'd just need to source slim power adapter for it.

My GPU needs are 1) isn't too large b) reasonable cost 3) no gamer aestethics (blower preferred)

Leadtek, MSI, ASUS, Gigabyte, Tyan all made blower cooled cards for 20 and 30 series, so why is it a surprise when any of them do it for 40 series?

Leadtek is also one of a very few select companies that even has access to NVIDIA's reference work anymore. They're literally on a completely different class above the usual AIB since they're authorized for professional components direct from NVIDIA.

Almost all of them were OEM and/or only 3080 tier cards in Ampere gen.

PNY is the partner who does Founders and their professional line, probably mostly because they're US based and can skirt around export bans.

This is a confusing line because Founders Edition cards have not been blowers since 2017. So what exactly are NVIDIA protecting, a design they don't even use?

Not Founders but their professional ex-Quadro line. They're black and sleek blower cards. Also if you look at the price of the A4500 for example, expensive as hell.

 

[Fouquin]

Almost all of them were OEM and/or only 3080 tier cards in Ampere gen.

Do you want me to link you all of the retail variants in alphabetical order, or just let you browse our GPU Database for the details? We can start with the RTX 3060 and work our way up.

PNY is the partner who does Founders and their professional line, probably mostly because they're US based and can skirt around export bans.

Leadtek has had the same contract as PNY (and ELSA, the third member of this select group) since NVIDIA started the Quadro qualification. Not sure what about being US based is going to skirt export bans when almost every part of the boards, including the ASIC, is made in Taiwan.

Not Founders but their professional ex-Quadro line. They're black and sleek blower cards. Also if you look at the price of the A4500 for example, expensive as hell.

See this furthers the confusion, as this is clearly a GeForce product. Not a professional product. And Leadtek has a professional contract regardless, so if anything they're just copying themselves? It's just so strange to act like this is some novel incident when it's been the status quo for decades. "Leadtek did the same thing they did last year, and the year before that, and the decade before that," just doesn't have the same ring to it I suppose.

 

[vvkvvkvvk]

Do you want me to link you all of the retail variants in alphabetical order, or just let you browse our GPU Database for the details? We can start with the RTX 3060 and work our way up.

Why so hostile? Ampere cards that were available in blower configuration in my market were short lived 10 GB pre-LHR 3080 from ASUS and Gigabyte. I've seen only 1 second hand blower MSI 3060ti for sale, iirc it was from some pre-built box.

I missed buying them, had to settle for A4000. FEs only came (again) avaliable this gen, being discontinued few weeks after Ampere release almost 3 years ago.

Leadtek has had the same contract as PNY (and ELSA, the third member of this select group) since NVIDIA started the Quadro qualification. Not sure what about being US based is going to skirt export bans when almost every part of the boards, including the ASIC, is made in Taiwan.

I've read that some goverment contracts in the US require that you use US sourced parts and hardware, and PNY being HQ'd and having limited assembly capabilities in the US soil would skirt around that. Sorry for being bit unclear about it, I thought that's why only PNY was the only partner with these kind of products. ELSA is a name I haven't seen in ages, and to be honest, I had forgotten about Leadtek existing too. I think I used to have Winfast branded card in the Geforce 3 days.

Almost all NVIDIA professional cards I've had have been either PNY or PNY rebrands by Lenovo and Dell. New Mellanox hardware is also made by PNY.

See this furthers the confusion, as this is clearly a GeForce product. Not a professional product. And Leadtek has a professional contract regardless, so if anything they're just copying themselves? It's just so strange to act like this is some novel incident when it's been the status quo for decades. "Leadtek did the same thing they did last year, and the year before that, and the decade before that," just doesn't have the same ring to it I suppose.

I want a professional looking product without the professional mark-up. A black box without useless RGB and quality blower fan? Sign me up.

 

[pavle]

Blower fan with ball bearings and normal 8-pin power connector? Now that's a good card.