It’s not really an understatement to say that over the years videocards (GPUs) — much like CPU coolers — have become rather chonky. Unfortunately, the PCIe slots they plug into were never designed with multi-kilogram cards in mind. All this extra weight is of course happily affected by gravity.
The problem has gotten to the point that the ASUS ROG Astral RTX 5090 card added a Bosch Sensortec BMI323 inertial measurement unit (IMU) to provide an accelerometer and angular rate (gyroscope) measurements, as reported by [Uniko’s Hardware] (in Chinese, see English [Videocardz] article).
There are so-called anti-sag brackets that provide structural support to the top of the GPU where it isn’t normally secured. But since this card weighs in at over 6 pounds (3 kilograms) for the air cooled model, it appears the bracket wasn’t enough, and active monitoring was necessary.
The software allows you to set a sag angle at which you receive a notification, which would presumably either allow you to turn off the system and readjust the GPU, or be forewarned when it is about to rip itself loose from the PCIe slot and crash to the bottom of the case.
Bonkers that we have gotten to the stage that sensor makes any sense at all, though that is a great way to differentiate your product and could well become the default wanted by anybody that still LAN parties and system integrators that have to ship these monsters pre-built…
I would call it a design flaw if the card, in its standard-conforming mount of the slot(s) and PCI interface, can’t support its own weight in a vertical case. Especially since that’s pretty much the default configuration nowadays. Some case manufacturers have attempted to implement a support structure, but it’s hard to design for when the card lengths are effectively random. Not to mention damaging the PCI socket or even the motherboard substrate itself.
It’s really not that hard to design for because there are defined, standard form factors for PCI-E cards so case manufacturers can build products to suit and provide the support rails for cards to slide into.
Obviously if card manufacturers don’t build cards to the standard “full length” dimensions then it really shouldn’t be too much to ask that they design and supply a bracket that bridges the difference so your super expensive GPU isn’t flexing the BGA chips off the board?
IBM Microchannel was designed with a support structure made in cast alloy, and Microchannel board were made with a blue plastic stub that slid in the support structure. Shorter board had a longer stub.
Even the original IBM AT PC had support slots for supporting the longer ISA expansion boards.
Pretty much every name brand PC I’ve ever encountered (and I have seen a LOT, I’ve been ‘doing IT’ for near 40 years now) has had those support slots, all the way from original IBM PC to the current 2024 HP Z Workstation and the 2023 Optiplex under my desk.
The RTX5000 in the Z Workstation has a decent bracket to engage with those support slots too.
This only seems to be an issue with aftermarket cases and cost cutting GPU manufacturers.
You’ll need an adjustable tower case so the videocard will be horizontal. We’ll call it PISA.
You know, there once was a time when many PC cases were designed to lie flat on the table beneath the monitor. They called it “desktop” PC case.
Or just use a vertical mount kit/case. Much better.
Silverstone Raven here. Solves the weight problem easily.
This is kinda hilarious, a 3 kilo graphic card. Literal newborn infants weigh less
It’s about the weight of a lot of rifles.
Time to flip form factors:
Put the GPU on the ATX board and add the CPU via PCIe-slot…
Or better yet, make two ATX boards, one for CPU and one for GPU, that can be joined edge-to-edge. Much more space for giant heatsink towers then.
Just make a slot in the GPU for the CPU and a larger slot for the PSU…
Who need motherboard anyway
Back in the day, we had hard drives on cards, and the way this was solved there was a couple small pieces of channel aluminum that ran the full length of the card. How have we gotten to the point where we choose to detect mechanical failure rather than prevent it with reinforcement?
Well maybe this card hit a critical point in the “mass vs. additional support” graph where adding support isn’t feasible anymore because the additional weight would require even more support which adds more weight ….
:-)
Hanging an accelerometer off SMBUS and paying a few grand NRE for the software is far cheaper than machining a new support structure. That doesn’t make it the right solution, but margins even on high end GPUs are razor thin for the manufacturers and most consumers will end up buying on performance and completely ignoring reliability fixes. Note how many people still bought 4090s even though their new DC in connector design was known to spontaneously combust.
To be fair, what hard cards had in mechanical stabilization they lost out on in reliability and utility. They were a niche solution for a problem that all but disappeared as soon as 3.5″ IDE hit the market, which was only a couple of years after their release.
Indeed, my first HD was a Plus Hardcard XL 105 and had lots of black aluminium everywhere to support the drive.
Only got rid of it a few years ago, didn’t have a machine with an ISA slot to put it in.
When all you know is EDA software, everything looks like a nail.
Don’t forget that pre built machines must survive shipping with these cards installed! A lot can happen in transit
If I remember correctly, even my Quadro FX 4600 came with a metal support bracket at the front side. It would slide in one of those plastic rails at the front of my computer case while inserting the card.
This same bracket was also present on some big SCSI adapters and other cards that would reach to almost the front of the case. Probably something server and workstation related.
I’m not sure if there are still any computer cases with these brackets, but wouldn’t it make sense to re-use something proven, that has been used for years? It was a really simple solution with the only downside that sometimes the HDD cage would be blocking the front of the case.
really a comic problem from my perspective…easy for me to laugh at, because i don’t play modern high-end videogames or run LLMs at home. pretty sure doom3 runs decently well on “Intel UHD” integrated GPU right?
but the mechanical problem reminds me of the old full-length ISA cards. there’s a little plastic slot in the very front of the case, which will grip the end of the card if you have one that long. i had exactly one card that was that long…i think it was pre-hercules MDA board? you know, 80×25 text with about 4kB of memory. monochrome green or orange monitor.
i’m glad to be completely ignorant of how that has evolved in the modern era. personally, just installing a modern pcie or M.2 card is a voyage of discovery each time. x1 vs x16, M/B-keying, is this M2 slot even mini-PCIe or something else? who knows. everything’s easier away from the bleeding edge