First Single-Slot, Air-Cooled GeForce GTX 680 Taking Shape

[btarunr]

Single-slot advocates [in Asia, and select markets], your prayers are answered. Galaxy is working on a single-slot, air-cooled GeForce GTX 680. With a name that translates to "GeForce GTX 680 Warriors' Edition", Galaxy's card takes advantage of the fact that since very compact GK104 PCBs can be made, if dual-slot coolers are used, and since the TDP of the chip is a manageable 195W, the equation can be turned around to make long single-slot graphics cards.

Pictured below is the graphics card, with its [apparently] long cooler that protrudes beyond the length of the PCB. The cooler follows the same design principle at work in coolers of GeForce 8800 GT and Radeon HD 4850, that of a compact lateral-flow fan guiding air through a dense network of copper channels, where heat is dissipated to the air. These copper channels draw heat from a copper plate (probably vapor-chamber, in Galaxy's case), which makes contact with all hot components on the PCB, including the GPU, memory chips, and VRM. Hot air is guided out, from the top of the card. There is no further information about this card.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[FreedomEclipse]

If the 8800GT was anything to go by.... This will be one hell of a noisey card

 

[btarunr]

The cooler is much longer than that of 8800 GT, the fan is bigger, too.

 

[Shou Miko]

very nice "one-slot" GTX680 me kinda want

 

[slyfox2151]

If the 8800GT was anything to go by.... This will be one hell of a noisey card

Thats the price you pay for a single slot cooler

 

[FreedomEclipse]

The cooler is much longer than that of 8800 GT, the fan is bigger, too.

noted...

but that still wont stop the fan having to spin faster to cool as much as a reference dual slot cooler. bigger fan is an improvement though

 

[hhumas]

omg its too long

 

[Zubasa]

The cooler is much longer than that of 8800 GT, the fan is bigger, too.

The GTX 680 also have significantly higher TDP as well

 

[MeanBruce]

Hey gorgeous… wink wink… It’s about time someone designed an elegant video card, not everyone wants a rocket launcher or a hand grenade theme, Mucho Kudos Galaxy! Now if we could just get that dragon-rider horseman guy off the front of the box!

 

[RejZoR]

I wonder why the hell NO ONE can make such nice and simple cooler case/frame. They always have to stick some weird cooler cases with crappy stickers and things sticking out of it.

 

[yogurt_21]

I find it impressive that the 680 puts out so much performance yet can have a single slot option. The 4850 and 8800gt weren't the highend card when they came out. This is. I for one find it impressive.

 

[PopcornMachine]

Afraid of the fan screeching.

Nice thing would be to WC such a card while saving a slot, but custom pcb makes that a remote possibility.

Not spending $500 on a GPU regardless.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

I wonder why the hell NO ONE can make such nice and simple cooler case/frame. They always have to stick some weird cooler cases with crappy stickers and things sticking out of it.

Cooler is still work in progress.... they most likely would put stickers all over it when their done

 

[Shou Miko]

i hope to see a price soon and if it can do atleast SLi and hopefully more or else it will be a shame if u need to do, internal sli.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

i hope to see a price soon and if it can do atleast SLi and hopefully more or else it will be a shame if u need to do, internal sli.

depends if you are that 'selected market' - otherwise some might surface on ebay

 

[happita]

The cooler is single-slot yea, fan is bigger yea...but the smaller depth of the fan itself might yield some challenges as to noise and temp control.

 

[Delta6326]

This would be sweet in my desk build, but I can only fit GPU of 11.5".

 

[Velvet Wafer]

reminds me of something else:

 

[PLAfiller]

That is SOO cool! I really hope they make a single-slot gts650 when the card is out. There is something that attracts me to that razor-blade look: http://www.techpowerup.com/136367/C...-GeForce-GTS-450-Buri-SLIM-Graphics-Card.html . I guess I don't value "the golden path" it's either have to be enourmous, or ultra slim, 3 or 1 slot . Dual slot is too boring

 

[HossHuge]

The thing that makes the card look so long is that they can't fit it in to one picture. They need a wide angle lens.

 

[Jurassic1024]

I hope they tuck those fan wires away somewhere you can't see 'em!

 

[EnergyFX]

Sarif Industries built a graphics card?

 

[Batou1986]

The cooler is much longer than that of 8800 GT, the fan is bigger, too.

Its going to need it considering the 8800gt had a tdp of 105w add all the heat output from new style vrm's and its going to be one toasty card.

I do like that galaxy is trying new things instead of putting out the same thing over and over hopefully they make this work and work well because having a shitload of $600 RMA's will kill them.

I don't like that out of 3 EVGA 8800 gt ko's bought new that I only have one that still works due to now fault of my own.

 

[Yo_Wattup]

Someone enlighten me; what's the point of a one slot card?

omg its too long

That's what she said.

 

[Octavean]

I have an eVGA 8800GT that is still in use in a dedicated Windows 7 Media Center system. I will point out that it has a lifteime warranty and was RMAed twice. When the 8800GT first started to ship I bought one and it failed fairly quickly (first 30 days or so). The RMA replacement was brand new and had a newer HSF with a larger fan then the original. If I recall correctly, the 8800GT gave the dual slot 8800GTX a run for its money and outperformed the 8800GTS handily so the overall performance was impressive for its time.

I’m guessing this single slot GTX680 will cost more then a typical dual slot so I might question the value in that.