Nvidia 30XX - FE vs. Reference
#1
Hi there.
I'm currently just spitballing, so no hard plans to actually build a rig.
But I took a look at the 30XX series and noticed how they are now selling Founders Edition AND Reference Design.
They are apparently not the same thing anymore. PCB is totally different too.
As you know, it used to be "only buy Reference", which then became "buy Founders".
And now... what are we buying again?!
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#2
(01-17-2021, 02:50 PM)the_charm Wrote: Hi there.
I'm currently just spitballing, so no hard plans to actually build a rig.
But I took a look at the 30XX series and noticed how they are now selling Founders Edition AND Reference Design.
They are apparently not the same thing anymore. PCB is totally different too.
As you know, it used to be "only buy Reference", which then became "buy Founders".
And now... what are we buying again?!

What you want to buy is a blower fan design. Meaning a fan which intakes air and blows it out the back of the card rather than just a bunch of fans circulating the air around the card. 

The reason behind this is to keep your cards cooler in a small space and dissipate as much hot air from remaining in the enclosure. If you're not worried about space and a fully enclosed case than buying other styles should not be a problem. 

You can check out this link to get a better understanding: 
https://www.howtogeek.com/365215/what%E2...pu-cooler/
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#3
Thanks for your answer, slyexe!
But i wasn't really concerned w/ the cooler style.
I already knew blowers are to be preferred. (For closed chassis rigs at least)
What weirds me out is the sudden divide between FE and Reference now...
AFAIK we buy Reference, because these cards are over-engineered and rigorously tested.
Thus they can handle the enormous strain pw-cracking puts on them.
Non-ref cards on the other hand are build w/ cheaper materials and basically only use the same GPU-chip.
That allows for higher margins for the manufacturers, but also makes them unfit to handle pw-cracking workloads.
So with the 30XX series... can we expect FE is as resilient as Reference?
Did nvidia put the same amount of testing in both designs?
In a world where every company is trying to cut costs, it sounded kinda weird if nvidia were to suddenly do twice the testing...
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