The new generation of video cards unveiled by Nvidia last week offers up to 4 times more performance compared to the previous generation. The RTX 40 series that come in the GeForce RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 models are the most powerful and expensive of the models that will come later and as such they also need a lot of free space.
The various manufacturers have begun to reveal the new products that will be launched soon and one of them is Gigabyte which presented the AORUS GeForce RTX 4090 Master. Thus, according to the images presented by the company, the new card will require a space of no less than 4 expansion slots.
While in practice the physical connection to the case is made in a single PCIe x16 slot and the can sits on two slots, the massive heatsink attached to the card is 16.2 cm thick, which means that a relatively large case is required and it is not suitable for those who planned on a compact gaming computer.
But not only Gigabyte’s cards are like that, because Asus also has relatively large cards. Thus both the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4090 and the TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4090 are 14.9 and 16 cm wide respectively, meaning they exceed the 3.5 expansion slots.
The main reason for this is, as mentioned, the large heatsink to optimize heat dissipation and the high power consumption required by the card, and in this context a strong power supply is also required, with the recommendation being 850 watts at the very least.