Posted on Wednesday, March 24 2010 @ 20:53 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
Atomic MPC got their hands on one of NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 480 graphics cards and published the first disassembly photo gallery, you can check it out all 24 photos
over here.
The GTX480's reference heatsink is unique compared to a huge array of more common designs; first and foremost due to its external radiator that vents heat directly off the surface of the card. While it still features a squirrel-cage intake fan at one end, and passes most of the air outside the rear of the chassis, this radiator hints at a heat load that is atypical of most high-end cards.
As the specs that have leaked suggest, the 250W TDP of the GTX480 card would require some serious cooling - which is why the heatsink appears to have been constructed predominantly from nickel-plated aluminium or copper. Five large heatpipes lie across the core, taking heat away to dump the load into the fins, while an aluminium frame lies across the Samsung memory chips.
