NVIDIA RTX 3090 Ti’s new PCB spotted?
At Eurasian Economic Commission one can find a new filing listing PG136C PCB.
As some of you might already know NVIDIA RTX 3090 graphics card is available with two reference board designs: either PG136 or PG132. The difference between the two is actually quite simple, the PG136 is only used by NVIDIA’s own Founders Edition cards, while PG132 is a reference design for all NVIDIA partners. Furthermore, the PG136 PCB was a lot more compact board with a v-shaped design and came with the new 12-pin power connector. The PG132 was only available with dual 8-pin power connectors.
NVIDIA PG136 & PG132 board designs
With this in mind, the appearance of the PG136C board number indicates that RTX 3090 is either getting an update or this is might actually a subvariant for the RTX 3090 Ti graphics. Since NVIDIA has already shown its Founders Edition card at CES 2022, it is very possible that the PG136C will fit this bulky 3-slot cooling design as well.
NVIDIA PG136C board, Source Eurasian Economic Comission
Changes coming with PG136C should be a bit more complex though. With the introduction of 2GB GDDR6X memory modules, NVIDIA no longer needs to use both sides of the PCB for the memory. Furthermore, one would expect that the 12-pin power cable will be updated to a 12+4-pin design, matching PCI-SIG specs for the Gen5 power connector.
What this tells us is that NVIDIA has completed the design stage of the RTX 3090 Ti Founders Edition PCB. The board wouldn’t go through the certification process in any other case. This does not rule out the production problems that we reported earlier though. Some sources cite BIOS and power issues, while other sources mention memory issues. Since NVIDIA requested all board partners to pause the production of RTX 3090 Ti cards, all those problems might be related to the secondary reference board design anyway, not the PG136C board for Founders Edition.
Source: EEC via @harukaze5719
