We recently learned that the last RTX 4090s still available in China were being repurposed. In fact, the cards in question were disassembled and then reconverted into cards for servers powering AI in China. Images have just surfaced showing the cards resulting from this conversion.
RTX 4090 reconverted, what do they look like?
As we said, the cards have completely lost their distinctive elements. Gone are the imposing heatsinks, RGB diodes all over the place, brand logos and so on. Here, the look is as generic as possible, with a black casing and radial fan. As you’ll have gathered, aesthetics clearly take a back seat in professional use… although the board shown here features a border echoing the aluminum frame of the Founder version.
Once again, this type of heatsink isn’t the most efficient; in fact, we’ve found better… However, it’s worth bearing in mind that it’s the most efficient when several boards are installed side by side. In fact, the turbine will propel the hot air out of the case/server via its PCIe bracket. In fact, the latter has large openings at this point.
The back of the card also features a rather short backplate. As you can see, it’s located at the level of critical elements such as memory, GPU and power supply stages. Its role is to help dissipate heat.
Finally, it’s worth recalling that, to mount these boards on a generic heatsink like this one, we had to do a bit of soldering. Boards from ASUS, MSI and Gigabyte had their GPUs and memory chips desoldered before being re-soldered onto a generic PCB. Then the heatsink is mounted on it, the board tested and the goods packed and shipped.
The funny thing is the little seal on one of the screws holding the cooling system in place. Despite all the transformations these boards have undergone, they still shouldn’t be dismantled!
