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The first GPU maker to implement the 12VHPWR is NVIDIA, with its "Ampere" GeForce RTX 3090 Ti, doubling down on it with the RTX 4090 and soon-to-launch RTX 4080.
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More importantly, the positioning of the connector ensures a bunch of these cards can be installed in 4U server enclosures (without adding 3.5 cm to the Z-height). The card elegantly positions the connector at the tail end of the PCB, where while it might obstruct the air intake slightly, it would still ensure that the connectors aren't bent at odd angles. The PCI-Express add-in card (AIC) form-factor variant of the GPU comes with a single 12VHPWR connector that can deliver up to 600 W of power with 100% excursions within small fractions of time (as prescribed in the ATX 3.0 spec). The swanky new Intel Data center Max GPU "Ponte Vecchio" is the company's first product to implement the 12+4 pin ATX 12VHPWR power connector, which the company helped design as part of the ATX 3.0 spec. Things change slightly with 3DMark Port Royal, where the RTX 4080 is 69% the performance of the RTX 4090 in a test where the RTX 3090 Ti does 58% that of the RTX 4090. With its "power limit" slider maxed out, the RTX 4080 inches 2 percentage-points closer to the RTX 4090 (73% that of the RTX 4090), and with a bit of manual OC, it adds another 4 percentage-points. At stock settings, and in 3DMark Time Spy Extreme (4K), it has 71% the performance of an RTX 4090, whereas the RTX 3090 Ti is 55% that of the RTX 4090. The big picture: the RTX 4080 is found to be halfway between the RTX 3090 Ti and the RTX 4090. The $1,200 MSRP graphics card was tested on 3DMark Time Spy, Port Royal, and games that include Forza Horizon 5, Call of Duty Modern Warfare II, Cyberpunk 2077, Borderlands 3, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Someone with access to an RTX 4080 sample and drivers on ChipHell forums, put it through a battery of synthetic and gaming tests. Benchmarks of NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce RTX 4080 (formerly known as the RTX 4080 16 GB) are already out as the leaky taps in the Asian tech forumscape know no bounds.
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