KFA2 RTX 2060 Super EX 1-Click OC Review – Good things doesn’t have to be expensive

1 - Intro and Test System 2 - Tear Down: PCB Analysis and Cooler 3 - Benchmarks Full-HD 1920 x 1080 Pixels 4 - Benchmarks WQHD 2560 x 1440 Pixels 5 - Power Consumption and PSU Recommendation 6 - Temperatures, Clock Rate and Infrared 7 - Fan Speed and Noise 8 - Conclusion and Bottom Line

Tear Down and Board Analysis

As with the RTX 2070 EX, KFA2 relies on a true board design and goes its own way when fitting the voltage converters, which this time are due somewhat to the price. The two ATX power supply connections with an 8-pin and a 6-pin socket are not special. 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, are each provided with a 1H coil for the smoothing of possible spikes and each have its own shunt for the monitoring of the current flow.

The cost-down of the KFA2 GeForce RTX 2060 Super EX can be seen, among other things, by the fact that the second BIOS with DIP switch is provided on the board, but has not been implemented here (picture above, right center). On the back you can see that e.g. an RGB-illuminated backplate would have been possible (image below, left edge, upper third). Otherwise, however, the board is fully equipped, even if you have even omitted five solid capacitors compared to the 2070 EX.

Let’s start with the most interesting part! The new uP9512R is used here as a 6-phase PWM controller specifically designed to provide high-precision output voltage systems for the latest generation of GPUs. The uP9512R 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.

It 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.

One feature of the uP9512R is the control of discrete voltage regulators with high- and low-side MOSFETs via a separate gate driver. KFA2 therefore dispenses with the more expensive, highly integrated PLC (Smart Power Stage) in favour of a cheaper solution consisting of individual components. We count a total of 6 voltage converter circuits for the GPU. The two phases for storage are generated by a dual-buck controller (uP9512P).

The following table contains the most important components:

GPU Power Supply
PWM Controller	uP9512P UPI Semiconductor 8-phase PWM controller
Gate Driver	uP1962S UPI Semiconductor Gate Driver
VRM	6x QN3103 High-Side + 12x QN3107 Low-Side UBIQ Single N-Channel Trench MOSFET
Coils	Encapsulated Ferrite Choke 220 mH Ferrite Choke
Memory and power supply
Modules	Micron GDDR6 8x 1GB 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	uP1666Q UPI Semiconductor 2 Phases Buck Controller
VRM	2x QN3103 High-Side + 4x QN3107 Low-Side UBIQ Single N-Channel Trench MOSFET
	Encapsulated Ferrite Choke 470 mH Ferrite Choke
Other components
Bios	25WP080 Eeprom Single BIOS
Shunts	1x Shunt per 12V rail (3x)
RGB Controller	GM001 OEM Controller Customized
	NCP45491 ON Semiconductor 4-Channel Monitoring
More details
Other Features	8-pin + 6-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 aluminum heat sink that carries the copper GPU heat sink. The heatpipes were then pressed in between the two blocks. The circumferential metal frame of the radiator construction ensures an active cooling of the storage by means of intermediate thermal guide pads.

For the voltage converters there is an extra heatsink, laudable. A total of three 8 mm heatpipes then distribute the waste heat to the cooling fins, with all five transporting the waste heat along the side to the radiator end, while a heat pipe still serves the outside of the cooling block above the GPU. KFA2 uses a fan arrangement with two 9.7 cm fans, which also harmonize well with the two-part radiator structure. now we also know why the card is about 100 grams lighter than the RTX 2070 EX, because two heatpipes have been omitted.

The blackened aluminium backplate does not cool anything and is used exclusively for stabilization. But the quite large cooler also does what it is supposed to do. More in more detail later on.