Nvidia is considering adopting a socket design for at least some of its upcoming Blackwell B300 GPUs for AI and HPC applications, according to a report from TrendForce that cites Economic Daily News and MoneyDJ. The company is said to adopt the new socketed design for something codenamed GB300, and for now, the information looks unconvincing, to put it mildly. Yet, given the fact that there is supply chain chatter, it is at least worth considering. MoneyDJ reports that considering the failure rates of AI GPUs under high loads, the replacement costs of motherboards, and cooling challenges, Nvidia and other AI GPU designers might consider using socket designs for their next generation of GPUs instead of soldering GPUs to motherboards. EDN cites Chen Shuowen, an analyst with CLSA, as saying that based on supply chain checks, Nvidia has been designing GPU sockets for its products, possibly starting with the GB200 Ultra. Chen reportedly mentioned a 4-way Nvidia GPU design with one Nvidia CPU. Neither of the reports mentions anything called GB300, so TrendForce has added this part, possibly based on some additional chatter. Several things about the reports should be noted. Socketed designs would instead add to power and cooling challenges rather than help solve them, so the first report is inaccurate. The most power-hungry GPUs usually use BGA packaging.

Full news : Blackwell B300 AI GPUs that could be removed from the motherboard, similarly to CPUs.