Nvidia's Thermal Solution, In Depth
Nvidia's Founders Edition card employs two 8.5cm axial fans with 13 blades each in its effort to move heat away from TU102 as quickly and evenly as possible. The forged aluminum shroud cannot be completely disassembled without the use of force (or a special tool we don't have—force is looking like the better option at this point).
Although it looks less imposing than previous-generation Founders Edition cards, GeForce RTX 2080 Ti's thermal solution is actually quite massive. Without thermal pads, our laboratory scale says it weighs 948g.
The following image shows the bottom of Nvidia's vapor chamber with the backplate and PCB removed. Nvidia says the fin stack is soldered to the vapor chamber, so it'd be difficult to separate the two pieces.
GeForce RTX 2080 Ti's backplate isn't just for looks. Nvidia incorporates the plate into its cooling concept by sandwiching thermal pads between the metal and PCB, behind where you'd find memory modules up front. The company probably could have done without the pad under TU102, though: our measurements showed no difference when we removed it.
| Cooling Subsystem, At a Glance | |
| Cooler Type | Air cooler |
| GPU Cooling | Vapor chamber |
| Cooling Fins | Aluminum, oriented vertically |
| VRM Cooling | Via mounting frame |
| RAM Cooling | Via mounting frame |
| Fans | 2x 8.5cm axial fans, 13 blades eachNo semi-passive mode |
| Backplate | Yes, helps with cooling |
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