Blower-style RTX 3090 cards have suddenly been discontinued by a number of manufacturers, as spotted by Videocardz, so getting your hands on one could get harder – and that’s before we consider the stock issues facing all GPUs right now.
Although Nvidia stopped using blower-style coolers on its Founders Edition models after the GTX 10 series, they can still be found on the aftermarket variants of one of the best graphics cards. They have an inferior cooling ability compared to open air-cooled cards, which puts you at a particular disadvantage if you’re learning how to overclock your GPU, making it seem like a weird choice for a power-hungry card card such as the 3090.
But if you’re crafting a build inside the best PC case for a compact ITX build, the lack of airflow in the case means a blower-style GPU can be the better option here. Fortunately, other blower Ampere cards don’t seem to have been put on the chopping block, with just the 3090 taking the hit, but what could be the reason for this sudden withdrawal?
There’s no official statement from AIBs or Nvidia yet, but it’s possible that these cooling solutions might become exclusive to Nvidia’s dedicated CMP cards for mining, where blower cards make more sense in tightly packed mining rigs.
If this theory is true, and it seems the only plausible explanation, it’s a bit of a disappointment. Last month Nvidia claimed in its blog post that the new mining cards wouldn’t impact availability of GeForce GPUs for gamers, but this news says otherwise.