Leaked NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Graphics Card PCB Shows A Design Reminiscent of The Existing RTX 3090 Ti PCB
Back in March, Igor Wallosek of Igor’s Lab posted what was then assumed to be a block diagram of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090’s PCB. It was stated that the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti had been a crucial learning curve for NVIDIA and its AIB partners to ready themselves for the next-gen Ada Lovelace GPU lineup featured on the GeForce RTX 40 series. Now we have a much more detailed PCB diagram that should be used by the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090. The GeForce RTX 4090 will utilize the AD102 GPU, the flagship within the Ada Lovelace lineup. As per previous rumors, the Ampere GA102 and Ada Lovelace AD102 GPUs are likely to be pin-compatible which means they can be featured on similar PCB designs or ones with little modifications than to design completely brand new boards. This will allow AIBs to ease down the development process of their next-gen GeForce RTX 40 series custom models, helping them save production time & money. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 ‘Reference Model’ PCB:
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti ‘Founders Edition’ PCB:
That might also explain why NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 40 Founders Edition coolers, which leaked earlier, look so similar to existing GeForce RTX 30 series coolers. Besides some changes to the cooling plate and fin layout, the design almost looks identical. But with that said, the PCB here seems to be an AIB reference design rather than a Founders Edition PCB. The reason is that the PG139 SKU ‘Founders Edition PCB’ features a V-shaped design whereas the PG136 SKU comes in the standard rectangular shape. Besides that, the PCB blueprint that Igor has churned up based on information from his sources shows that the AD102 GPU boards for the GeForce RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 are once again going to come in a compact layout. The layout shows a 28-phase power delivery of which 24 phases have been dedicated to the GPU & PLL while the remaining 4 phases power the memory. Currently, the RTX 3090 Ti Founders Edition features 21 phases, and both are reference designs. It is likely that the custom models could feature an even higher count if the next bit is true about the power limit. Other than the power phases, there are 12 memory module traces on the front which would mean that the 24 GB capacity rumors are indeed correct and if NVIDIA wants to go higher, say 48 GB for a workstation variant, they can fill up the backside of the PCB with an additional twelve 2 GB modules (GDDR6/X). The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 PCB features four display outputs which include a single HDMI and triple DisplayPort interfaces, and NVLINK connector, & a single 16-pin Gen 5 power plug. This means that we can expect up to 600W TDP on the AD102-powered cards. The RTX 4090 itself is said to be rated at around 450W while the RTX 4090 Ti can push things up to the 600W limit.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Ti & RTX 4090 ‘Preliminary’ Specs:
Igor has also posted a production/launch timeline of the upcoming NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 series graphics cards, more specifically the AD102 powered RTX 4090. It looks like there are two rumors now with one stating an August launch while Igor states an August/September 2022 production time frame which would give us a launch around October 2022 at the earliest.
