Gaming GPUs Reviews

Aorus GeForce RTX 2080 Xtreme in Review – Lost in RGB | igorsLAB

RGB lettering on top? Has everyone. A nice RGB logo in the backplate? Yawn. Illuminated RGB fans? There are already. But what about real light effects on the rotor blades? Some people who are looking for the ultimate difference and would like to be paralyzed by the stroboscope effect will now sharpen their ears. At least that's what she must have thought of Gigabyte's marketing when planning the Aorus GeForce RTX 2080 Xtreme. Pleasantly more bling for the people, spoke the marketing and so it was built...

Tear Down and Board Analysis

Aorus relies on a true own design for this map right from the start, but still takes over some layout details in the power supply from the reference design. The two ATX power supply connectors are not a special feature. There are two real rails leading from the sockets to the board. These two rails, as well as the power supply from the motherboard slot, were each provided with a 1-H coil for smoothing possible spikes and each carry a separate shunt for monitoring the current flow.

Let's start with the most interesting part! The new uP9512P is used as an 8-phase PWM controller specifically designed to provide high-precision output voltage systems for the latest generation of GPUs. The uP9512P has programmable output voltage and active voltage positioning functions to adjust the output voltage depending on the load current, so that it is optimally positioned for a good load current transition.

The uP9512 supports NVIDIA Open Voltage Regulator Type 4i+ with PWMVID function. The PWMVID input is buffered and filtered to create a very accurate reference voltage. The output voltage is then precisely controlled on the reference input. The integrated SMBus interface offers enough flexibility to optimize performance and efficiency and also to connect the appropriate software. The controller also supports new Smart Power Stage chips (PLCs). Appropriate PLC then provide very accurate information about e.g. currents (IMON) and temperatures (TMON).

One feature of the uP9512P is the direct parallel connection of several voltage converter circuits without the usual doublers, since due to the necessary direct communication with the PLC no doubler chips can be used. We count a total of 12 voltage converter circuits for the GPU, which would not make sense as single phases. Doublewith normal phase shift, in the simplest case there would be only six real phases, which would also make no sense. However, since one relies on a neat 8-phase design, four phases are connected in parallel and in the PLC double pack and four more are simple. The two phases for memory are generated by another uP9512P in 2-phase mode.

If you want to know more details about this type of power supply and the improvements at Turing, I refer to our investigative article "Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti – Internal details about power supply, deviating components and where the spikes have remained!" which is always worth reading. There you will also learn more about the new Smart Power Stages, which replace the traditional, individual VRMs. The following table contains the most important components:

GPU Power Supply

PWM Controller uP9512P
UPI Semiconductor
8-phase
Vrm 10x FDMF 3170
ON Semiconductor
Smart Power Stage
Coils Encapsulated Ferrite Choke
470 mH Ferrite Choke

Memory and power supply

Modules MT61K256M32
Micron
8x 8GB GDDR6 SGRAM Modules
2 Channels x 256 Meg x 16 I/O
2 Channels x 512 Meg x 8 I/O
14Gb/s
  
PWM Controller uP19512P
UPI Semiconductor
2 phases
Vrm 2x FDMF 3170
ON Semiconductor
Smart Power Stage
Encapsulated Ferrite Choke
470 mH Ferrite Choke

Other components

Controller HT32F52241
Holtek
8-bit ARM Processor, RGB, Embedded Controller
Video Switch PI3WVR13612
DP/HDMI Video Switch
Bios 25WP080
Eeprom
Single BIOS
Shunts 1x Shunt per 12v rail (3)

More details

Other
Features
– 2x 8-pin PCI-Express connectors for power supply

 

Cooler and backplate in detail

The radiator design does not contain any secrets. A slat area sits on a massive aluminium heat sink that presses the sanded heatpipes onto the GPU (DHT, Direct Heat Touch), while the circumferential metal frame of the radiator construction provides active cooling of the memory using intermediate thermal pads. The absence of a copper heat sink is due to the compromise found because of the very high fan structure. which also slightly reduces the overall available radiator area compared to the previous models. Because you can't build a graphics card endlessly deep.

It is also the first time that Aorus (Gigabyte) has to fix the plastic cover with three more screws. For the voltage converters there is an extra heatsink, laudable. A total of seven 6 mm heatpipe then distributes the waste heat to the cooling fins, five of which transport the waste heat along the side to the radiator end, while two heatpipes around the outside of the cooling block above the GPU. This time, Aorus uses a fan arrangement with three 9.5cm fans, one of which rotates in the middle. We can see how well this works.

The brushed backplate made of aluminium indirectly cools the storage via thermal pads, the pads for the VRM have been cleverly saved, which certainly benefits the storage. Why, we can see in the infrared images. However, you can already see that the R&D's investment in a good IR equipment from Jenoptik was worthwhile. I had fixed them long enough.

Cooling system at a glance
Type of cooler: Air
Heatsink: none, DHT (Direct Heat Touch)
Cooling fins: Aluminum, vertical alignment
related
Heatpipes 7x 6mm copper composite, non-nickel-plated
VRM cooling: 12 GPU VRM via built-in heat sink
2 memory VRM over 90° angled fins of the cooler
RAM cooling via heatsink frame
Fan: 3x 9.5 cm fan, 2x 10 + 1x 9 rotor blades
Fan stop
Backplate Aluminum
Cooling function, RGB logo

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About the author

Igor Wallossek

Editor-in-chief and name-giver of igor'sLAB as the content successor of Tom's Hardware Germany, whose license was returned in June 2019 in order to better meet the qualitative demands of web content and challenges of new media such as YouTube with its own channel.

Computer nerd since 1983, audio freak since 1979 and pretty much open to anything with a plug or battery for over 50 years.

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