NVIDIA GTX 1080-successor a Rather Hot Chip, Reference Cooler Has Dual-Fans

The GeForce GTX 1080 set high standards for efficiency. Launched as a high-end product that was faster than any other client-segment graphics card at the time, the GTX 1080 made do with just a single 8-pin PCIe power connector, and had a TDP of just 180W. The reference-design PCB, accordingly, has a rather simple VRM setup. The alleged GTX 1080-successor, called either GTX 1180 or GTX 2080 depending on who you ask, could deviate from its ideology of extreme efficiency. There were telltale signs of this departure on the first bare PCB shots.

The PCB pictures revealed preparation for an unusually strong VRM design, given that this is an NVIDIA reference board. It draws power from a combination of 6-pin and 8-pin PCIe power connectors, and features a 10+2 phase setup, with up to 10 vGPU and 2 vMem phases. The size of the pads for the ASIC and no more than 8 memory chips confirmed that the board is meant for the GTX 1080-successor. Adding to the theory of this board being unusually hot is an article by Chinese publication Benchlife.info, which mentions that the reference design (Founders Edition) cooling solution does away with a single lateral blower, and features a strong aluminium fin-stack heatsink ventilated by two top-flow fans (like most custom-design cards). Given that NVIDIA avoided such a design for even big-chip cards such as the GTX 1080 Ti FE or the TITAN V, the GTX 1080-successor is proving to be an interesting card to look forward to. But then what if this is the fabled GTX 1180+ / GTX 2080+, slated for late-September?