News RTX 4000 SFF Ada Generation: Half Height Half Pint Hardware for SFF Workstations & Signage

Full Anandtech Article:

NVIDIA Unveils Ada Lovelace RTX Workstation GPUs for Laptops; Desktop RTX 4000 SFF

www.anandtech.com

Excerpt:

On the desktop side of matters, NVIDIA is launching a single new proviz product for desktops: the RTX 4000 SFF Ada Generation. This part is aimed at the small form factor market, supplanting NVIDIA’s previous flagship low-profile video card, the Ampere-based RTX A2000.

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The RTX 4000 SFF Ada Generation comes as NVIDIA’s desktop proviz parts are in the middle of a transition of their own. For the desktop market NVIDIA has only launched an RTX 6000 based on their Ada Lovelace architecture, so it’s a bit of a surprise to see them launch a SFF-focused part (and only a SFF-focused part) as their second desktop card. None the less, given the very limited number of half-height cards in the market and the form factor’s hard limits on power consumption and cooling, NVIDIA is betting that cards based on a newer architecture (and smaller process node) will be a welcome sight for the SFF market.

Amazing news, we just got the A2000 and it's already being dethroned:

 

[Snerual]

Yeah I'm... whelmed my this review. A 70% improvement over the RTX A2000 is very nice in isolation, but I paid 280EUR for my A2000 and I doubt this thing is going to drop below 1000 any time in the next 2 years... We are NOT the target audience and for the A2000 we just got "lucky" they are all dumped by miners now.

 

[SFFMunkee]

Yeah I'm... whelmed my this review. A 70% improvement over the RTX A2000 is very nice in isolation, but I paid 280EUR for my A2000 and I doubt this thing is going to drop below 1000 any time in the next 2 years... We are NOT the target audience and for the A2000 we just got "lucky" they are all dumped by miners now.

Actually that’s a solid point, I can’t imagine getting a Workstation card for reasonably coin any time soon.

 

[scatterforce]

@SFFMunkee GREAT post. As a math teacher, I value the time you spent working that out and posting reasonable and data-driven predictions.

No variant of the 4060ti will be half-height, and with access to 20GB of ram... this card will have great longevity.

edit: @Snerual You make a good point. These cards will drop in price eventually, and the extra ram will make them relevant whenever that does happen.

 

[SFFMunkee]

@SFFMunkee GREAT post. As a math teacher, I value the time you spent working that out and posting reasonable and data-driven predictions.

No variant of the 4060ti will be half-height, and with access to 20GB of ram... this card will have great longevity.

edit: @Snerual You make a good point. These cards will drop in price eventually, and the extra ram will make them relevant whenever that does happen.

That's really the kicker, isn't it? The fact that we all know we're never going to see a low-profile consumer card with this level of performance. nVidia don't even need to consider that market either as they've successfully convinced consumers that they need 2.5-3 slot full-height coolers for even 160W TDP GPUs.

I mean the test used to be 'can it run crysis?' - and eventually you could EASILY snag small cards that could smash out those CryTek frames. Now I suppose the closest equivalent is either Cyberpunk or Jedi Survivor (although it might be too early to tell on that).
With DLSSv2 you can comfortably play CP2077 at 1080p with medium-high settings on even the RTX 3050 or A2000. Sure, you won't break any records but it's definitely playable.

Given that's the case, it's such a waste that nVidia don't offer low-profile reference PCBs for RTX xx50/xx60 cards. Maybe they don't want consumer GPUs cannibalising workstation sales, maybe AIB vendors are able to use the A2000/4000SFF PCB but don't because they don't see the market for it?
Either way, it's a real shame, as it means our only hope lies in workstation cards with MSRPs of $2,500 AUD ($1,675USD), and now the mining bubble has burst we won't be seeing ex-mining Workstation cards flooding the market like we did with the A2000.

Maybe one of the AliExpress / Chinese manufacturers will hear our cries and make our dreams come true. I'm sure there's a market for it, and it would be remarkably profitable as how many of us would pay 15-20% more for a low-profile card? (Not to mention they're likely cheaper to manufacture if the R&D/PCB design is done).

 

[robbee]

Given that's the case, it's such a waste that nVidia don't offer low-profile reference PCBs for RTX xx50/xx60 cards. Maybe they don't want consumer GPUs cannibalising workstation sales, maybe AIB vendors are able to use the A2000/4000SFF PCB but don't because they don't see the market for it?

Honestly, Nvidia has never made a low profile reference card in recent generations untill the A2000. All they have to do is design a 75W card, AIB's will make it into a low profile card. There were plenty of them for the 750ti and 1650.

The real reason is cost, I think. The A2000 and A4000 SFF use high end chips that are expensive to produce. Sure, 1250 dollars is a crazy price, but they cannot sell this card at the price these second hand A2000's go for at the moment. If they used a lower end chip, we probably wouldn't see the same crazy energy efficiency.

Look at it this way: an RTX 3050 downclocked to 75W, would never reach the same performance as the A2000. We would be the first ones to blame Nvidia for not giving us their full potential. The solution imo? Offer the A4000 at the same 600 dollars price tag as the A2000 went for.

 

[Snerual]

The A2000 is basically a downclocked and cut down 3060 die, so in theory a consumer version of the A2000 with 6GB of non-ECC RAM could have been sold for roughly the same price as the 3060. That is something I would gladly pay for, and the rest of us in this thread as well, but the overall market for such a GPU is veeeeeery small. The typical use case for dual slot LP cards used to be upgrading old SFF office PCs, but lately many those SFF models have been putting the 16x slot in such a place that they only accept single slot cards... I think that's why the only modern consumer level LP card is the single slot RX 6400...

Dual slot LP GPUs are a very niche thing for hobbyist SFF cases nowadays. It still makes sense on the professional side of things because there are use cases for running 4 or even 8 A2000s in a single machine and then the form factor with blower cooler comes in very handy.

Also, not sure if anyone noticed already but the RTX 4000 Ada comes with a backplate now

MOD EDIT: I've merged your double post, please use the edit button in the future (once available to you if not already) to help with thread readability

 

[GuilleAcoustic]

The A2000 is basically a downclocked and cut down 3060 die, so in theory a consumer version of the A2000 with 6GB of non-ECC RAM could have been sold for roughly the same price as the 3060. That is something I would gladly pay for, and the rest of us in this thread as well, but the overall market for such a GPU is veeeeeery small. The typical use case for dual slot LP cards used to be upgrading old SFF office PCs, but lately many those SFF models have been putting the 16x slot in such a place that they only accept single slot cards... I think that's why the only modern consumer level LP card is the single slot RX 6400...

Dual slot LP GPUs are a very niche thing for hobbyist SFF cases nowadays. It still makes sense on the professional side of things because there are use cases for running 4 or even 8 A2000s in a single machine and then the form factor with blower cooler comes in very handy.

Also, not sure if anyone noticed already but the RTX 4000 Ada comes with a backplate now

MOD EDIT: I've merged your double post, please use the edit button in the future (once available to you if not already) to help with thread readability

My guess is that it has some of its memory chips on the back ... and they need extra cooling.

 

[vinnyoflegend]

Does anyone know if the RTX 4000 Ada single slot 130-140w card has been spotted in the wild yet? Seems to show as backordered on the sites I usually check (cdw and shopblt)...I'm curious what it will be capable of vs this 70w SFF card.

 

[SFFMunkee]

Does anyone know if the RTX 4000 Ada single slot 130-140w card has been spotted in the wild yet? Seems to show as backordered on the sites I usually check (cdw and shopblt)...I'm curious what it will be capable of vs this 70w SFF card.

I wonder what PCB is under the hood... and if it's shunt moddable

 

[rcodi]

Took some quick disassembly pics for those that are curious.

 

[SFFMunkee]

Took some quick disassembly pics for those that are curious.

Those two R005s on the front look promising for shunt moddinf

 

[REVOCCASES]

Those two R005s on the front look promising for shunt moddinf

FYI, with shunt mod:

 

[REVOCCASES]

Took some quick disassembly pics for those that are curious.

Nice! That's a lot of silicone on such a tiny card

I'm curious if they improved the fan curve on the SFF ADA... or is it still running at min. 3000RPM in idle?

 

[rcodi]

Nice! That's a lot of silicone on such a tiny card

I'm curious if they improved the fan curve on the SFF ADA... or is it still running at min. 3000RPM in idle?

Sorry I finally got around to building this machine, it does idle at 3k still.

Edit: FWIW at 3k rpm is pretty quiet in my opinion and even throughout the rpm range it's pleasant. The A2000 was a similar experience for me so I'm not sure if there's a lottery in fan bearing noise for these cards or something.

 

[REVOCCASES]

Sorry I finally got around to building this machine, it does idle at 3k still.

Edit: FWIW at 3k rpm is pretty quiet in my opinion and even throughout the rpm range it's pleasant. The A2000 was a similar experience for me so I'm not sure if there's a lottery in fan bearing noise for these cards or something.

I had hoped they would have at least lowered the min. fan speed to something like 1000 RPM but it's good if they improved the fans

Both of my A2Ks were not pleasant at all - one had an annoying rattling noise at 3000 RPM and the other one under load

 

[SFFMunkee]

I had hoped they would have at least lowered the min. fan speed to something like 1000 RPM but it's good if they improved the fans

Both of my A2Ks were not pleasant at all - one had an annoying rattling noise at 3000 RPM and the other one under load

I had to replace the fan on mine for it to be even remotely tolerable, afterwards it wasn't too bad.

 

[REVOCCASES]

I had to replace the fan on mine for it to be even remotely tolerable, afterwards it wasn't too bad.

fan lottery

 

[robbee]

Took some quick disassembly pics for those that are curious.

Hey @rcodi , quick question: Does the retention bracket pull the heatsink into the chip like it did with the A2000? Or do the screws have their own springs? Trying to figure out if I can reuse the mounting mechanism for my aftermarket heatsinks.

 

[rcodi]

Hey @rcodi , quick question: Does the retention bracket pull the heatsink into the chip like it did with the A2000? Or do the screws have their own springs? Trying to figure out if I can reuse the mounting mechanism for my aftermarket heatsinks.

No springs, just bracket tension. Here's a pic of the screw and of the bracket in action.

 

[robbee]

No springs, just bracket tension. Here's a pic of the screw and of the bracket in action.

Awesome, thanks a lot!