A Closer Look At Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1070 Ti FE
Nvidia's Founders Edition card sports a familiar industrial design. It satisfyingly well-built: the shroud doesn't just look like metal, it's actually made of aluminum.
Specifications
Exterior
The cooler's injection-molded aluminum cover is painted silver and black, similar to GeForce GTX 1070 and 1080. This does make its matte surfaces susceptible to scratches.
A metal fan shroud helps convey this card's exceptional build quality, but it also adds a lot of weight: the GeForce GTX 1070 Ti FE exceeds 1kg. It's very similar to GeForce GTX 1080 FE, though. The new card is just under 10g lighter.
A two-part backplate hides this card's PCB. But it's an esthetic add-on that doesn't improve thermal performance in any way. If you need space for a second card in SLI, or simply want better ventilation, remove both sections without fear of negative consequences.
The centered GeForce GTX logo, which lights up in green, dominates the top of Nvidia's 1070 Ti Founders Edition. One eight-pin auxiliary power connector is tucked into the metal frame.
This design is very mechanical, with lots of angles. All of those facets may not be to everyone's tastes. But they certainly make a statement.
Peeking into the end gives you a glimpse of the cooling fins and retention frame. That gap doubles as an air intake.
As with Nvidia's other Founders Edition cards, you get access to five display outputs through the I/O bracket, four of which can be used simultaneously in multi-monitor configurations. There's a dual-link DVI-D port, an HDMI 2.0 interface, and three DisplayPort 1.4-capable connectors. The remaining space back there is cut up into openings for exhausting hot air.
Say Hello To GeForce GTX 1080's Thermal Solution
GeForce GTX 1070 Ti FE gets a significant upgrade from Nvidia's 1070 FE card in the form of a vapor chamber cooler, the same one found on GeForce GTX 1080 FE. The compact module is fastened to the PCB right next to the GPU package using four screws.
We now have 51 individual components on the table in front of us, and if you remove the cooler completely, you end up with 12 more.
The radial fan sucks air in from your chassis, blows it through the cooling fins, and exhausts it from the I/O bracket. Nvidia's retention frame serves double duty, adding rigidity to the board and cooling the VRM/memory modules.
Thermal Solution | |
---|---|
Type of Cooler | Air Cooling, Direct Heat Exhaust (DHE) |
Heat Sink | Large Hybrid Vapor Chamber |
Cooling Fins | Aluminum, Horizontal Orientation, Tight Grouping |
Heat Pipes | None |
VRM Cooling | Via Cooling Frame |
RAM Cooling | Via Cooling Frame |
Fan | Radial Fan |
Backplate | Aluminum, Painted BlackNo Cooling Function |
Power Supply & Components
Nvidia borrows from its GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition parts bin for the 1070 Ti's PCB. Although GeForce GTX 1070 Ti FE employs five power phases, an empty emplacement indicates room for one more.
The 5+1-phase design is enabled by uPI Semiconductor's uP9511 eight-phase buck controller. It cannot address the voltage converter phases directly, so TI 53603A solid gate drivers are used to control the ON Semiconductor 4C85Ns. These are durable dual N-channel MOSFETs with sufficient reserves in the DC/DC voltage converter category.
GPU Power Supply | ||
---|---|---|
PWM Controller | uP9511uPI SemiconductorEight-Phase PWM Controller |
Gate Driver53603Texas InstrumentsOne per Phase
VRM4C85NON SemiconductorPower MOSFETDual N-ChannelHigh- and Low-Side
CoilsEncapsulated Ferrite Choke
Memory & Memory Power SupplyModulesMT51J256M32HF-80MicronGDDR5, 8 Gb/s8 Gigabit (32x 256Mb)Eight Modules
PWM Controller1 PhaseSingle Buck ConverterGeneric
VRM4C85NON SemiconductorPower MOSFETDual N-ChannelHigh- and Low-Side
CoilsEncapsulated Ferrite Choke33nH
Other ComponentsMonitoringINA3221Monitoring ChipCurrents, Voltages
BIOSWinbond 25Q40Kynix SemiconductorEEPROMBIOS
Shunts & Filter1x Coil (Smoothing) & Shunt behind PCIe Connector (12V Input Voltage)
Other FeaturesSpecial Features- 1x Eight-Pin Auxiliary Power Connector- Filter Choke at Entry
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