When Small Meets Ampere: Multiple Mini-ITX GeForce RTX 30 Cards Unveiled
Nvidia's Ampere goes Mini-ITX: Mini-ITX GeForce RTX 30 Cards Announced.
Nvidia's GeForce RTX 30-series consumer graphics cards and its Ampere architecture are generally not the company's most economical solutions in terms of power consumption, at least compared to its launches over the last several years. Yet, with a proper power management and cooling system, you can get an Ampere into a Mini-ITX system. Palit Microsystems is the first graphics card maker to bring Ampere to the small form factor.
Palit Microsystems, which happens to be one of the world's largest graphics card makers with its Palit, Gainward, Galax, and KFA2 brands, is among the first to announce Mini-ITX add-in-boards running Nvidia's GA106-300 graphics processing units with 3584 CUDA cores as well as 12GB of GDDR6 memory.
So far, the company has introduced four Mini-ITX GeForce RTX 3060 boards: the Palit GeForce RTX 3060 StormX, the Palit GeForce RTX 3060 StormX OC, the Gainward GeForce RTX 3060 Pegasus, and the Gainward GeForce RTX 3060 Pegasus OC. For some reason, Palit has yet to add Mini-ITX GeForce RTX 3060 cards into its Galax lineup and actually unveil any KFA2-branded GeForce RTX 30-series products.
All four Mini-ITX GeForce RTX 3060 graphics cards use a dual-slot cooling system with one fan and have four display outputs – four DisplayPort 1.4a connectors as well as one HDMI 2.1 port. The cooling systems have multiple heat pipes and can stop the fan under light loads, yet they have different shrouds, and it is unclear whether the coolers used by the Gainward and Palit brands are actually different. Furthermore, it is unclear whether the boards use the same PCB design.
The cards are said to consume up to 170W of power and feature one eight-pin PCIe auxiliary power connector. Measuring 170mm x 125 mm, the boards can physically be installed into a Mini-ITX chassis, yet not all SFX power supply units have an eight-pin power connector.
From a performance point of view, the Palit and Gainward-branded Mini-ITX GeForce RTX 3060 graphics cards feature a default GPU clock of 1320MHz and a boost clock of 1777MHz. Meanwhile, Palit has yet to disclose boost frequencies of OC versions of these cards, which probably means that the boards will be available later.
Palit does not list MSRPs of its products on its websites, so we do not know whether Mini-ITX versions of its GeForce RTX 3060 will cost more than regular models with large cooling systems.
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Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.
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spongiemaster I believe it when I see it for sale. I'm still waiting on the Titan Mini's Nvidia announced a while back...Reply
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bigdragon Yay, more 30-series cards that only bots can buy. It is nice that manufacturers are finally starting to produce smaller models. Not every GPU needs a giant, triple fan, 3-slot cooler.Reply
Unfortunately, I sunk a ton of time into trying to secure a 3070 or 3080 over the past 3 weeks. Stock alerts are useless when the websites with GPU stock error out, fail to complete checkout, or go offline. It's beyond frustrating to have a GPU in your cart only to not be able to check out....while simultaneously seeing scalpers brag on Discord about getting 4x of the thing you're just trying to check out 1 of. The 30-series has been a complete and total nightmare. Really wish Nvidia and partners would stop blasting PR spam about products that are impossible to buy. -
hotaru251 Reply
similar for zen 3 cpu...bigdragon said:Yay, more 30-series cards that only bots can buy. It is nice that manufacturers are finally starting to produce smaller models. Not every GPU needs a giant, triple fan, 3-slot cooler.
Unfortunately, I sunk a ton of time into trying to secure a 3070 or 3080 over the past 3 weeks. Stock alerts are useless when the websites with GPU stock error out, fail to complete checkout, or go offline. It's beyond frustrating to have a GPU in your cart only to not be able to check out....while simultaneously seeing scalpers brag on Discord about getting 4x of the thing you're just trying to check out 1 of. The 30-series has been a complete and total nightmare. Really wish Nvidia and partners would stop blasting PR spam about products that are impossible to buy.
been tryign to nab one for weeks and even the microcenter sells out immediately. (and they are in store only with actual limits..) -
gggplaya Replyhotaru251 said:similar for zen 3 cpu...
been tryign to nab one for weeks and even the microcenter sells out immediately. (and they are in store only with actual limits..)
I have search tabs stored as shortcuts on my browser for microcenter and I checked them every day.
I was able to get a 5800x and a 3060ti at microcenter. It's way better than trying to compete online with bots. -
hotaru251 Reply
only microcenter near me is chicago.gggplaya said:I have search tabs stored as shortcuts on my browser for microcenter and I checked them every day.
I was able to get a 5800x and a 3060ti at microcenter. It's way better than trying to compete online with bots.
which just happens to be massively populated e_e -
Matt_ogu812 All these so-called GPU's are probably being bought up and stored in 'Hanger 51' under Government Protection.Reply -
4freedomssake I have a mini-ITX rig with a Geforce 1070 under the hood. I'm happy to see some new GPU's coming out; but I have never even heard of these companies. You?Reply -
Inneluki Reply
I bought one Inno3D RTX 3080 ICHILL X4 today without any issues in a nearby computer shop. For 1800 NZD or like 1300 USD. High demand means high price, that's how economics is working. MSRP like government-regulated prices in USSR, this <Mod Edit> cannot work properly in the real world and only leads to a deficit.bigdragon said:Yay, more 30-series cards that only bots can buy. It is nice that manufacturers are finally starting to produce smaller models. Not every GPU needs a giant, triple fan, 3-slot cooler.
Unfortunately, I sunk a ton of time into trying to secure a 3070 or 3080 over the past 3 weeks. Stock alerts are useless when the websites with GPU stock error out, fail to complete checkout, or go offline. It's beyond frustrating to have a GPU in your cart only to not be able to check out....while simultaneously seeing scalpers brag on Discord about getting 4x of the thing you're just trying to check out 1 of. The 30-series has been a complete and total nightmare. Really wish Nvidia and partners would stop blasting PR spam about products that are impossible to buy.