MSI prototypes for the future of graphics card cooling look impressive and expensive

pcgamer.com:

Assuming the next-generation of graphics cards will be more power-hungry than the last, we could end up in a pickle trying to keep them cool. I mean, look at the RTX 4090, it's already massive. Our PC cases can't take much more. But there's more to cooling than bigger and bigger heatsinks, and over at Computex 2023, MSI has shown off a couple of concepts it's looking into that can drop GPU temps by as much as ten degrees.

The first new cooling method is called Dynamic Bimetallic Fins, and it's essentially a fin sandwich. The bread, so to speak, is made up of two aluminium sheets, and the tasty filling is a copper sheet. The combined fins end up being around 1mm thick, which is roughly 3-4x thicker than your regular single fin, but the mixing of metals helps dissipate heat better—dropping temperatures by 3 degrees Celsius according to MSI.

The one downside is sure to be the cost of such a creation. Triple the fins, triple the materials. Not to mention manufacturing costs for a more complex process are likely higher. Though MSI did tell me that in theory you could use a much smaller heatsink than your usual aluminium one found in today's graphics cards and still get decent temps.

The next concept was to use a TEC, or Thermoelectric cooler, called Arctic Blast. The TEC plate is covering the GPU and memory and liquid coolant transfers the heat away to a radiator. There's potentially the issue of dealing with the condensation that often occurs with this sort of cooler, but CPU TEC blocks deal with that part pretty well, so that might be rosy. And in return this option does offer the benefit from sub-ambient temperatures, which is better than any heatsink can manage, though does requite a fair chunk of power to operate.

MSI