limitedaccess
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- May 10, 2010
- Messages
- 7,594
The majority of the market will still place much more emphasis on performance, noise and temperatures which is why designs will still skew larger even if the PCB itself does not need to be. I mean personally even for a smaller sized case build I'd still rather opt for a larger 2-fan sized heatsink solution just for noise reasons at anything approaching ~150w (even more so if higher).
Also the space savings from HBM are somewhat overstated because most current board designs aren't very space optimized themselves. The GTX 970 full sized board designs really shows this, there is a ton of empty space but you still effectively leverage that large of a board to fit the large heatsinks - https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GTX_970_STRIX_OC/3.html
Actually the Sapphire Fury approach was quite innovative, in terms of having the heatsink overhang for airflow, and it may be likely we see more future designs adopt that with shorter PCB boards. Sapphire Fury-X - https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/R9_Fury_Tri-X_OC/3.html
In practice the space savings is not that much, a 3 inch length savings is not going to matter to most people, even those aiming at smaller cases.
Just to expand a bit regarding board design, look at the Nano's PCB compared to the Asus Fury's or the Fury X -
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/R9_Fury_Strix/4.html
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/R9_Fury_Strix/images/front.jpg
http://images.anandtech.com/doci/9621/R9_Nano_Straight_On_Bare_Front_RGB_5inch_new.jpg
The reason the Nano is small is more than simply due to HBM space savings.
Also the space savings from HBM are somewhat overstated because most current board designs aren't very space optimized themselves. The GTX 970 full sized board designs really shows this, there is a ton of empty space but you still effectively leverage that large of a board to fit the large heatsinks - https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GTX_970_STRIX_OC/3.html
Actually the Sapphire Fury approach was quite innovative, in terms of having the heatsink overhang for airflow, and it may be likely we see more future designs adopt that with shorter PCB boards. Sapphire Fury-X - https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/R9_Fury_Tri-X_OC/3.html
In practice the space savings is not that much, a 3 inch length savings is not going to matter to most people, even those aiming at smaller cases.
Just to expand a bit regarding board design, look at the Nano's PCB compared to the Asus Fury's or the Fury X -
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/R9_Fury_Strix/4.html
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/R9_Fury_Strix/images/front.jpg
http://images.anandtech.com/doci/9621/R9_Nano_Straight_On_Bare_Front_RGB_5inch_new.jpg
The reason the Nano is small is more than simply due to HBM space savings.
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