Nvidia's Fermi Cards Said to Run Very Hot

By Tuan An Nguyen
published

Hot graphics with hot temperatures.

Graphics enthusiasts eagerly await the arrival of Nvidia's Fermi GPU-based cards. At this point, Nvidia is trailing behind ATI and its 5000-series cards, but expectations are high for Fermi.

Expected to turn things around for Nvidia in a big way, Fermi is supposed to vastly superior to the company's current line of 200-series cards.

Speaking to several case vendors at CES, we were told that while running one Fermi card alone or two single-GPU cards is fine, going any higher may introduce thermal issues. Though no firm temperatures were revealed, manufacturers said that users need to be extra careful about how they setup the innards of their gaming chassis.

A rep from one manufacturer said that Fermi-based cards will run hotter than the hottest ATI Radeon HD 5000 series.

More on CES 2010

Tuan An Nguyen
54 Comments Comment from the forums
  • another reason why fermi is going to fail. it runs absurdly hot and no one in their right mind would buy a card that requires such specialized cooling to properly work. this should be the final nail in the coffin for fermi. it will be overpriced, power hungry, scorching hot and behind the ball. to sum it up nvidia failed.
    Reply
  • redgarl
    It doesn't look good for Nvidia... Still, the 8800GTX was one hell of a hot card.
    Reply
  • Godhatesusall
    oh,please fanboi

    Im no big fan of Nvidia, but saying a GPU will suck before we get some benchmarks is absurd. Wait untill fermi is out, then you can critisize the final product as much as you want.
    Reply
  • AMW1011
    redgarlIt doesn't look good for Nvidia... Still, the 8800GTX was one hell of a hot card.So was the HD 2900 XT....
    Reply
  • hunter315
    Hotter than the hottest 5xxx card? Does that mean that is going to use the max 300W for a single chip? The 5970 is already rated at 294W how much hotter can it get? If so thats going to get ugly on the power supply side, 300W per card pretty much rules out tri SLI or a two chip card unfortunately.

    I want fermi to come out already so that we will have some real numbers to end this debate of whether its going to rock or suck.
    Reply
  • noodlegts
    I believe all they're saying is if you want to Tri-SLI you'll need water cooling.

    I had a pair of 8800GTX's and they ran extremely hot in my small unventilated mid-tower case until I upgraded to a bigger chassis. That didn't make them "fail" cards by any stretch of the imagination!
    Reply
  • AMW1011
    noodlegtsI believe all they're saying is if you want to Tri-SLI you'll need water cooling.I had a pair of 8800GTX's and they ran extremely hot in my small unventilated mid-tower case until I upgraded to a bigger chassis. That didn't make them "fail" cards by any stretch of the imagination!Yeah but they work fine when air cooled by a decent case, they don't need water cooling at all.
    Reply
  • Time to incorporate your Espresso Machine into your Gaming Computer!
    This way you can have all the hot java you want when you want.:D

    Reply
  • gwolfman
    if it's still as fast as they claim, you can underclock fermi and still beat the 5870. :D
    Reply
  • omnimodis78
    I love these stories - passing it onto us as if it was substantiated news. I especially get a kick from the title only to find out that even the source quoted admits that single and dual GPU setups are fine. I doubt anyone who has the budget or the need to run more than two cards simultaneously will be using air-cooling and an average PSU, so what's the point to writing this story? To aggravate people, to talk trash about a great (albeit lately odd) company? TH, get a grip you're starting to write trashy "news" and you're quickly becoming The National Enquirer of online tech news. Not cool.
    Reply