GPU Zotac GTX 1080 Mini

1461748123

Master of Cramming
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Nov 5, 2016
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Mod edit: Title changed, formerly: "Will a short-pcb gtx 1080 be even possible?" and moved to Hardware section.

As title. I really hope I can fit a 1080 into the S4 Mini Chassis :/
 
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Kmpkt

Innovation through Miniaturization
KMPKT
Feb 1, 2016
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You won't see a short form 1080 or equivalent until HBM is used by nVIDIA instead of GDDR5x. At best you'll see it for Volta, but I can't imagine them having it in order for Pascal Refresh. Your best bet for a super short and powerful card would be if there is a successor to the R9 Nano released on Vega. That's what I'm holding out for right now anyhow. When they released the original R9 Nano I believe it was more or less on par with the GTX 980, but significantly beneath the 980ti. I would imagine they will pick something similar in terms of performance for the next iteration of the Nano. Also hope they get it between 150-175W at a minimum and without violent spiking into the 300-400W range.
 

1461748123

Master of Cramming
Original poster
Nov 5, 2016
489
1,068
You won't see a short form 1080 or equivalent until HBM is used by nVIDIA instead of GDDR5x. At best you'll see it for Volta, but I can't imagine them having it in order for Pascal Refresh. Your best bet for a super short and powerful card would be if there is a successor to the R9 Nano released on Vega. That's what I'm holding out for right now anyhow. When they released the original R9 Nano I believe it was more or less on par with the GTX 980, but significantly beneath the 980ti. I would imagine they will pick something similar in terms of performance for the next iteration of the Nano. Also hope they get it between 150-175W at a minimum and without violent spiking into the 300-400W range.
Thanks! Guess I will wait then...
 

Therandomness

Cable-Tie Ninja
Nov 9, 2016
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You won't see a short form 1080 or equivalent until HBM is used by nVIDIA instead of GDDR5x. At best you'll see it for Volta, but I can't imagine them having it in order for Pascal Refresh. Your best bet for a super short and powerful card would be if there is a successor to the R9 Nano released on Vega. That's what I'm holding out for right now anyhow. When they released the original R9 Nano I believe it was more or less on par with the GTX 980, but significantly beneath the 980ti. I would imagine they will pick something similar in terms of performance for the next iteration of the Nano. Also hope they get it between 150-175W at a minimum and without violent spiking into the 300-400W range.
Here's to hoping the 580 will be cheap(ish) and feature HBM(2)...
EDIT: Actually, it should be possible. Just get the Gigabyte ITX 1070 and slap a 1080 chip on it and replace the GDDR5 with GDDR5X (would take up a bit more room, but that should be availible) :p Although the increased TDP might not help.
 
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ChainedHope

Airflow Optimizer
Jun 5, 2016
306
459
We arent going to see anything like this for a while unless we get HBM2 or even HBM3. There are two reasons:
1) GDDR5/x takes a lot of room and with VRAM being a big selling point, they have to push out cards with a lot of these little dyes that are already at their limit in capacity per mm2.
2) GPUs have been marketed as bigger = better for almost 10 years. We are slowly getting out of this mindset with cards like the Nano and the X70 itx variants, but I dont see nvidia making a x80/x80ti model in an itx variant for a few more years. Your best bet is AMD where they realize that gamers are wanting smaller machines that they can take with them places (i.e. lans, moving homes, dorms, business trips, etc...)
 

iFreilicht

FlexATX Authority
Feb 28, 2015
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Doesn't GDDR5X also have tighter constraints for signal integrity? The routing for that on a smaller PCB might be extremely hard, even if the dies physically had enough space on it.
 

Therandomness

Cable-Tie Ninja
Nov 9, 2016
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Doesn't GDDR5X also have tighter constraints for signal integrity? The routing for that on a smaller PCB might be extremely hard, even if the dies physically had enough space on it.
I'm not sure about that, but I know GDDR5X chips are slightly larger than regular GDDR5 so maybe a little vertical expansion? Or maybe a thicker PCB for the signals? I don't know... I rarely know what I'm talking about c:
 

EdZ

Virtual Realist
May 11, 2015
1,578
2,107
The Tesla P4 is a GP104 chip on a half-height PCB, so there is some room for PCB area reduction. It uses GDDR5 rather than GDDR5x though, so a '1080 SE' might be needed for a consumer variant.
::EDIT:: There is also the 1080 MXM module, which is slightly smaller than a full-height-half-length card, but retains GDDR5x.
 
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ChainedHope

Airflow Optimizer
Jun 5, 2016
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Doesn't GDDR5X also have tighter constraints for signal integrity? The routing for that on a smaller PCB might be extremely hard, even if the dies physically had enough space on it.

It does. I studied the JEDEC for a small paper (15 pages) when I was comparing it to HBM and a new memory that i have patent pending lol (Paper also pending peer review).

The problem with GDDR5X is the minimum distance between chips due to trace length needing to be the same size to help minimize with cache thrashing in the memory itself (The card will literally throw data away because there is information coming to the core in a seemingly random way if the traces arent at the correct lengths). They can push it together a few mm's more than the JEDEC standard they made, but it wont be worth the risk.

If they can find a way to make the GDDR5X smaller so they can use less dyes then sure, they can shave off a lot. But at that point no one will be looking at GDDR5X because HBM3 would be out and would offer more memory at lower power and with a small decrease in latency.
 

Kmpkt

Innovation through Miniaturization
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Feb 1, 2016
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A little bird told me there will be some pretty special small form factor stuff coming out at CES in a couple of weeks including something along these lines. Will be pretty huge for the SFF community if it turns out to be true.
 

craigbru

Cramming big things in small boxes since 2006
LOSIAS
Jul 2, 2015
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A little bird told me there will be some pretty special small form factor stuff coming out at CES in a couple of weeks including something along these lines. Will be pretty huge for the SFF community if it turns out to be true.

I sure hope so. It's all I can do to keep from buying a 1070 ITX right now. I'm trying to be patient...
 

Therandomness

Cable-Tie Ninja
Nov 9, 2016
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A little bird told me there will be some pretty special small form factor stuff coming out at CES in a couple of weeks including something along these lines. Will be pretty huge for the SFF community if it turns out to be true.
AMD better release an RX Nano or whatever, for less than £450 this time :p
 

Kmpkt

Innovation through Miniaturization
KMPKT
Feb 1, 2016
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RX Nano would be amazing. Looking at the speculation coming out about the capabilities of full fledged Vega (MI25) and it looks to be about on par or just slightly better than Titan XP. Bodes well for a Nano, I just hope they can keep power consumption and spiking under control.
 

Therandomness

Cable-Tie Ninja
Nov 9, 2016
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RX Nano would be amazing. Looking at the speculation coming out about the capabilities of full fledged Vega (MI25) and it looks to be about on par or just slightly better than Titan XP. Bodes well for a Nano, I just hope they can keep power consumption and spiking under control.
Sadly though, with a TDP of 300W, the MI25 most likely a dual GPU card... But still, 150W TDP should be managable, as is the ~10(?) tFlop rating c:
 

jeshikat

Jessica. Wayward SFF.n Founder
Silver Supporter
Feb 22, 2015
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I guess the joke's on them because AMD basically did just that with the Fury and the Nano, a flagship-level card in a tiny package.