Palit GameRock RTX 4080 and 4090 Midnight Kaleidoscope OC Review
Up Close
We have both the RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 cards here, and both are their respective flagship models in the Palit range, having a factory overclock and their fanciest GameRock Midnight Kaleidoscope cooler.
The 3000 series GameRock had clear ‘crystals’ in the design that perfectly worked with the G.Skill Royal DDR5. We know some people found that design to be a little bit OTT, and Palit have tamed things somewhat with the new Midnight Kaleidoscope cards, changing the clear crystals for black ones and swapping out the clear fans for black ones too.
The backplate has seen a heavy redesign after the 3000 series design. Nearly all cards these days come with a hole in the backplate designed to help pull cool air in from the bottom of your system and push it towards your CPU cooler. Given the sheer size of the 4000 series of Nvidia cards this is definitely a good thing. Even the largest cases will find these graphics cards performing the role of an ad-hoc dividing wall.
Both the RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 cards have identical coolers installed, so we’ll just look at one as we move through these pictures. If this particular photograph demonstrates anything it’s how grateful we are that SLI isn’t a thing anymore. Imagine trying to squeeze this setup in to your tower.
The newest version of the GameRock cooler has new fans when compared to the 3000 series cards. Called the Gale Hunter they are heavily curved to eliminate dead spots. Beneath those fans are new Y-shaped fin tops to help channel air across the card and ensure that your cooling airflow goes exactly where it’s needed.
The new design of the crystals on the fan surround is meant to pick out the light like stars in the sky, hence the midnight, whilst also refracting the onboard ARGB and any case lighting to be attention grabbing when everything is on. Which is where the Kaleidoscope part of the name comes in. As you can see here, and above, just with our studio lights there is still plenty of highlights and variance to be found.
The cooler is, as we’ve come to expect from the 4000 series, a seriously chonky boi. The kind of thickness that would be considered luxuriant in carpet and internet-breaking for Kardashians. What it does here is keep the cards as cool as possible with their heavy use of fins and heatpipes as well as plenty of space to vent the air away from the all-important chips on the PCB.
Like all of the RTX 4000 series of cards we’ve seen so far the Palit GameRock Midnight Kaleidoscope are triple slot ones. Make sure you’ve got plenty of room in your case, should you choose to get an Ada Lovelace GPU in your rig.
