PNY Reveals Passively-Cooled Quadro RTX 8000, RTX 6000 GPUs

Quadro RTX 8000 Passive

Quadro RTX 8000 Passive (Image credit: PNY)

Graphics card vendor PNY has listed two new Quadro products on its website: the Quadro RTX 8000 Passive and Quadro RTX 6000 Passive.

Both graphics card flaunt a new design with the absence of a cooling fan for heat dissipation. Although the graphics cards sport a passive cooling system, it doesn't mean that they don't require active cooling. The Quadro RTX 8000 and RTX 6000 Passive are designed for data centers and workstations. They'll probably be installed inside specialized enclosures with high-speed chassis fans that can provide them with the necessary airflow, and therefore, can get away without having its own cooling fan.

The Quadro RTX 8000 and RTX 6000 Passive measure 10.5 x 4.4 inches and take up two PCI slots. One of the main advantages of a fanless design is that you don't ever have to worry taking your system apart to replace a dying fan.

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Header Cell - Column 0 Quadro RTX 8000Quadro RTX 8000 PassiveQuadro RTX 6000Quadro RTX 6000 Passive
Architecture (GPU)Turing (TU102)Turing (TU102)Turing (TU102)Turing (TU102)
CUDA Cores4,6084,6084,6084,608
Single-Precision Performance16.3 TFLOPS14.9 TFLOPS16.3 TFLOPS14.9 TFLOPS
Tensor Performance130.5 TFLOPS119.4 TFLOPS130.5 TFLOPS119.4 TFLOPS
Rays Cast10 Giga Rays/Sec10 Giga Rays/Sec10 Giga Rays/Sec10 Giga Rays/Sec
RTX-OPS84T80T80T80T
Tensor Cores576576576576
RT Cores72727272
Texture Units288288288288
ROPs96969696
Base Clock Rate1,395 MHz1,230 MHz1,440 MHz1,275 MHz
GPU Boost Rate1,770 MHz1,620 MHz1,770 MHz1,620 MHz
Memory Clock14 Gbps13 Gbps14 Gbps13 Gbps
Memory Capacity48GB GDDR648GB GDDR624GB GDDR624GB GDDR6
Memory Bus384-bit384-bit384-bit384-bit
Memory Bandwidth672 GBps624 GBps672 GBps624 GBps
L2 Cache6MB6MB6MB6MB
TBP295W250W295W250W
Transistor Count18.6 billion18.6 billion18.6 billion18.6 billion
Die Size754 mm²754 mm²754 mm²754 mm²
Pricing$5,500?$4,000?

The Quadro RTX 8000 and RTX 6000 Passive don't stray too far from their vanilla versions in regards to specifications. They retain the same TU102 silicon, featuring 4,608 CUDA cores, 576 Tensor cores and 72 RT cores. Nonetheless, the passive versions come with slightly lower core and memory clocks.

The Quadro RTX 8000 and RTX 6000 offer single-precision and Tensor performance up to 16.3 TFLOPs and 130.5 TFLOPs, respectively, while the passive variants are restricted to 14.9 TFLOPs and 119.4 TFLOPs, respectively. The memory bandwidth on the passive models top out at 624 GBps, while the non-passive ones check in with 672 GBps.

The main reason why the passive versions don't offer the same level of performance as the regular versions is because they are constraint to a tigher TBP (typical board power) envelope. The Quadro RTX 8000 and RTX 6000 are rated for 295W. The passive versions, on the other hand, max out at 250W. However, they still require a single 8-pin and 6-pin PCIe power connectors for external power.

As you would recall, the regular Quadro RTX 8000 and RTX 6000 are equipped with four DisplayPort 1.4 outputs and a USB-C port for Nvidia VirtualLink. Well, the passive variants don't come with any display outputs.

PNY backs the Quadro RTX 8000 and RTX 6000 Passive with a limited three-year warranty. The manufacturer didn't reveal the pricing for the graphics cards, but we expect it to be in the same range of the regular models.

Zhiye Liu
News Editor and Memory Reviewer

Zhiye Liu is a news editor and memory reviewer at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.

  • nofanneeded
    These are not passive cooled. they need case fans... or wind tunnels design in CASE.
    Reply
  • escksu
    These are not passive cards. They are usually mounted in workstations or 2U racks where there are casing fans to cool the cards.
    Reply
  • kyzarvs
    escksu said:
    These are not passive cards. They are usually mounted in workstations or 2U racks where there are casing fans to cool the cards.
    It does say that in the article?

    Although the graphics cards sport a passive cooling system, it doesn't mean that they don't require active cooling.
    Reply