WTF?! Customers and critics have praised Nvidia’s Founders Version graphics card reference designs for his or her appears and cooling programs, however the firm would not provide them in ultra-small mini-ITX type components. One Redditor determined to take issues into their very own fingers.
A GPU modder lately revealed their try and envision a theoretical mini-ITX GeForce Founders Version card. The result’s a uniquely slick-looking ultra-small RTX 3060.
Reddit consumer “Clashmains_2” purchased a Gainward 3060 Pegasus and changed its total shroud with a 3D-printed various meant to evoke Group Inexperienced’s reference designs. Some customers want the Founders Version fashions as a result of their shrouds, coolers, and heatsinks look sleeker than most choices from AIB companions.
Sadly, the reference designs rapidly turn into troublesome to search out at MSRP quickly after launch (apart from the RTX 4000 collection, which has suffered gradual gross sales). Nvidia would not want GPU companions if it might meet international client demand alone.

Given the scenario, it is unsurprising that some formidable customers would construct customized designs like the sooner GTX 1000 and RTX 3000 collection mods that impressed Clashmains. The modder used computer-assisted design software program to evoke Nvidia’s heatsink fashion and modified a 92mm Noctua fan to suit the tiny type issue.
This preliminary proof-of-concept is supposed for show moderately than real-world use, being created from PLA 3D-printing filament, which is not designed to resist typical GPU temperatures. Clashmains examined it anyway, and though the shroud began to deform at 60C, the cardboard maintained temperatures just like the unique cowl, indicating a profitable design.
Regardless of the comparatively complicated design displayed within the above screenshot, this was the modder’s first try at 3D printing, and it will not be the final. They plan to reuse the fan after printing one other shroud from Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene, which is extra resilient however tougher to print. Responders within the remark part supplied different solutions for printing materials with execs and cons relating to sturdiness, ease of printing, and hazard from poisonous fumes.
Whether or not or not constructing case mods for graphics playing cards turns into a development, it is not the one means customers have sought to enhance Nvidia merchandise. Modders have twice efficiently doubled the RTX 3070’s controversial 8GB of VRAM, leading to measurable efficiency good points. The second try resulted in a bodily reminiscence change to extra simply check how having solely 8GB of VRAM limits the 3070 and different current Nvidia GPUs.
