PNY Unveils China-exclusive GeForce RTX 4070 Graphics Card with Lateral Blower

[btarunr]

PNY unveiled a China-exclusive GeForce RTX 4070 graphics card featuring a lateral cooling solution. The card is strictly 2 slots thick, and has some clearance behind the region with the blower, so there's breathing room for the next card. Graphics cards with lateral blowers are meant for workstations that use multiple graphics cards with implicit multi-GPU for certain productivity applications. The card uses an aluminium channel-type heatsink, with a base-plate that's either a slab of copper, or a vapor-chamber; with the channel heatsink soldered on top. A lateral blower guides air through the channels, and exhausts out the back. The card draws power from a single 8-pin PCIe power connector located at the top, and ticks at reference speeds of 2475 MHz boost.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[Chrispy_]

I wish there were still blower designs in the consumer space. They're great for mITX and they're only noisy compared to humongous triple-fan, triple-slot coolers that have been given the benefit of an open test-bench or a giant E-ATX case with 7+ fans in them.

You don't even have to go down to mITX SFF boxes to see larger GPUs struggling. Many mATX cases and even some more compact ATX cases have restrictive airflow - either because they're physically small or because they're focusing heavily on air filters or soundproofing. In situations like those, an exhausting blower is a better option to keep fan speeds reasonable by ensuring that intake air for all the cooling hardware is fresh, and not recirculated exhaust being dumped into the case by a 300W GPU. Even massive triple-slot coolers struggle to keep the GPU under 80C if the air inside the case is at 70C to start with...

 

[wNotyarD]

Even massive triple-slot coolers struggle to keep the GPU under 80C if the air inside the case is at 70C to start with...

Sounds like front-mounted radiator.

 

[Chrispy_]

Sounds like front-mounted radiator.

One of many possibilities, yes:

• Front-mounted radiator kicking hot air into the GPU
• Low case airflow from insufficient fans or fan speed
• Low case airflow from dust filters/soundproofed indirect air-path design
• Case airflow that bypasses the GPU because the GPU is wide enough to effectively partition the case in two, cutting off its own intake fans from the partition with airflow.
• Lack of space around the GPU for airflow - for instance when the GPU is so tall that it butts right up against the window and blocks the fin-stack from exhuasting, or vertical mounts that jam a GPU against a window...

I'm sure there are more scenarios, but I've encountered all of the above examples in person.

 

[LabRat 891]

Lateral Blowers make the most sense to me for any non-custom application.
Whether it's a rackmount, or OEM/ODM PC, you want the heat out of the case ASAP.

 

[Cyberaegis]

I wish there were still blower designs in the consumer space. They're great for mITX and they're only noisy compared to humongous triple-fan, triple-slot coolers that have been given the benefit of an open test-bench or a giant E-ATX case with 7+ fans in them.

You don't even have to go down to mITX SFF boxes to see larger GPUs struggling. Many mATX cases and even some more compact ATX cases have restrictive airflow - either because they're physically small or because they're focusing heavily on air filters or soundproofing. In situations like those, an exhausting blower is a better option to keep fan speeds reasonable by ensuring that intake air for all the cooling hardware is fresh, and not recirculated exhaust being dumped into the case by a 300W GPU. Even massive triple-slot coolers struggle to keep the GPU under 80C if the air inside the case is at 70C to start with...

Can't agree more.

Complete removal of blowers is immoral. They make huge sense when the current gen highend graphics cards could dump tons of heat into our cases if open-air coolers are installed like they are now.

As to performance/noise ratio, larger, wider, thicker blowers can strike a better balance between cooling capacity and quietness. We already see a 3-slot blower on W7900. There's no physical barrier to introduce that design to more consumer cards. And a 3-slot or even thicker design doesn't compete with 2-slot professional lines.

Further more, when a 4-slot design is considered, a blower can actually be replaced by one axial fan to move air out of the case. Even better noise control can be expected in this way.

 

[Tomgang]

Meh i don't miss blower style coolers. They tend to be more noisy and the gpu do run hotter. I prefer the the cooler design with 2 og 3 fans.

With that said, I have a blower style cooler gpu in my pc dual system. More precisely a rtx a2000. That do run between 72 and 78 degree celsius and aren't to noisy, but it is also only a 70 watt tdp card. But with a small cooler.

Else the first and only time I had a blower style gpu was a gtx 285, besides the rtx a2000. I will never chose or recommend a blower style gpu for gaming rig. Anything above 200-250 watt should not be cooled by a blower style cooler, specially not a dual slot cooler.

It do make sense for server use where noise is not a problem and airflow is plenty.

 

[Chrispy_]

Meh i don't miss blower style coolers. They tend to be more noisy and the gpu do run hotter. I prefer the the cooler design with 2 og 3 fans.

With that said, I have a blower style cooler gpu in my pc dual system. More precisely a rtx a2000. That do run between 72 and 78 degree celsius and aren't to noisy, but it is also only a 70 watt tdp card. But with a small cooler.

Else the first and only time I had a blower style gpu was a gtx 285, besides the rtx a2000. I will never chose or recommend a blower style gpu for gaming rig. Anything above 200-250 watt should not be cooled by a blower style cooler, specially not a dual slot cooler.

It do make sense for server use where noise is not a problem and airflow is plenty.

For a lot of people who built their own PC in a big airy case with plenty of airflow, blowers aren't the best option.
For everyone who doesn't match that description, blowers are usually better. Even the "good" prebuilts often have laughably shit case cooling.
IMO we don't need many blowers, but given that each GPU manufacturer has about a dozen different SKUs/variants per GPU tier, is it too much to ask that just a single one of them is a blower?