This factory tour has the be one of the best ( if not the actually the best) factory tours on the TH-cam, as an industrial electronic technician i trained under a pcb manufacturer ( they are specialized in ipc level 2 & 3 electronics) This tour had it all, from the components getting first visual inspection when it's arrived to the factory, R&D on new products, manual reworking on ICs/ chips to the packaging ( quality control is whole another story ) Using Mantis ( its like a microscope ) to inspect visual deformation in SMD or THT components ( usually that's goes through least 3 inspectors to verify absolute best quality products )
Or, more accurately, if something does break, it doesn't get multiplied 100x over in the entire process. If they're running the line 100x slower, they're more likely to find the bug he creates.
Yup - there was a protective tape around the STOP button on the oven, most likely specifically to avoid Linus shutting down equipment that would take days to restart.
I work in a small machine shop making tooling for manufacturing. We have a smaller flat stone like that. It is so satisfying when you make a part and it’s just completely flat.
you can see at 9:50 the time on the PC is 10:13A, assuming its in CST (UTC+8, or 2:13 UTC), and the video was released 22:22 (UTC), that would be 20 hours, to finish the rest of the tour, get the footage, edit and upload
It’s so nice to have SMT covered so clearly. I supervise SMT Lines in the USA. I work on Medical, and Defense boards so I can’t simply show the people in my life what it is I manage(it would be a felony haha). I will now be referring them to this video. Awesome job!!!
I used to work at a motherboard placem operating a pasting machine and also doing visual QA after the ovens. It amazes me how much better these facilities have got over the years.
I worked for 12 years in electronics manufacturing. This factory seems to have pretty good pick and place machines but everything else is pretty standard and the shop floor is not that nice. And i'm a bit puzzled why they still wear mask.
@@dtibor5903whats your issue with the shop floor not being "nice"? It could be a lot worse, I work at SMT lines that are way less organized and have way more clutter. The masks are likely to decrease chances of FOD defects, I doubt its a full clean room because this is just class 1 for consumers.
@@clerooth i work in quality for a small electronics aircraft manufacturer. We make life critical electronical actuators and have a huge process for cleanliness. Seems like they are doing a good job. i wonder if the floor is esd safe. Seems like everything else (chairs, desk, equipment) but we have esd floors that cost a small fortune.
Holy crap, this is incredible. Framework is a G for getting you the opportunity to temporarily reduce production for a GPU manufacturer. Huge props to you guys for sharing this really interesting behind the scenes of the process that creates our computers! ❤
we need more of this type of content and the "solder waterfall" as you put it is known as "wave soldering" and its extremely efficient for large volume stuff as long as your solder application height is near perfectly even across the board.
This video honestly sold me on PowerColor products lmao I love the transparency in the manufacturing process. Not to mention, the consumer usage testing to ensure the cards will run well for normal usage.
Seriously. For some reason, I was under the impression that PowerColor was some sketchy, low-quality brand. This tour really changed my opinion. I had no idea how significant they were in the industry.
Now I see why Linus went to Computex. I thought Linus avoided traveling for work if he can avoid it but I’m sure u cannot get too bored of factory tours. Very cool to see the process and hope there is a more in depth discussion on the WAN show.
Ha yeah. I had wondered the same… he must have traveled for something more compelling than a few product videos. I also wonder if LTT are looking to bring out PC components of their own and Linus was talking to ODMs or involved in Framework related discussions. I’ve really enjoyed the videos this week. Feels like classic LTT content, energetic and engaging :)
It's remarkable how similar the fabrication process these GPUs are to most other PCB fabs. My previous job was configuring and training PCB fabs on a brand of automatic solder inspection machines, and the production lines are almost identical ! Just scaled down/less fast here and there.
What did you think they were? You must not have worked there for long. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Yes GPUs are PCBs. Any part in your computer that has electricity going through it thats not a cable is a PCB. Without PCBs there are no computers. Its hard to remember who they identify as deep down, but beneath all the plating, cases and large fans, they identify as PCBs too. 😂
Granite surface places are wild: the lab grade ones are flat to the millionths of inches over several feet. The calibration tools are even wilder detecting stuff smaller than white blood cells.
They are amazing. The reference plates for calibrating HASS CNC mills are so precise that it’s equivalent to the width of a human hair against the height of the Empire State Building.
I visited one of our manufacturers that had one of these types of plates with a big gantry over it with a measuring probe for checking accuracy of the parts they were producing. Not really thinking about it I put my hand against it as I was standing there listening and immediately got told to take my hand off the table. Reason being that the slight change in temperature would throw their measurements off. The whole room was temperature controlled as well.
Is there a reason granite is used for this? More mechanically stable in that it holds measurement better/longer? I understand not using metals with corrosion and the temperature changes it's dimensions
0:55 Missed opportunity to have the tagine be "Restore to factory settings" or something along those lines. Other than that, awesome, very interested in seeing how things are made like this
This is so cool to watch, and seeing just how many times every single card gets checked in practically each stage of the production process really instills a feeling of "I can buy a GPU from these guys with confidence". One of my favourite videos of the year, easy
I think Linus asked for some bad units to be placed on the table for demonstrative purposes in the video and I suspect the person giving the tour knew exactly where this was going and accepted it
Being able to put something like this on the internet for public viewing is so great. These are the kinds of jobs and industries you don't normally get exposure to, but are absolutely necessary. Thank you to everyone involved for making this tour happen and put on TH-cam.
I love seeing these factory tours, they really make you appreciate the specific vendors. Pretty solid way to pull new customers. Would love to see Sapphire's factory as well
I’ve been looking for a good card for gaming in Antarctica tbh so this is a helpful video….. Also I really do love these it’s so cool to see the manufacturing process! I remember working at a few places when I was like 18-20 yrs old and the best part was seeing how stuff like this works or how the tech is set up in these kinds of places. It’s awesome to see this coordinated and made available to you all to film!
I mean it makes sense, beyond factory tested environments, being able to stress test in the same way as the consumer to prove card reliability makes perfectly good sense.
Thanks for making these videos, there are not many times you get to actually see what these factories are like and understand the possesses that go into making things that we use every day. These videos always answer questions I have had and thank you
Thank you Linus and team for this video tour. I worked in the PCB fabrication industry for 28 years, so I've seen that first hand, (I worked in the wet process areas of this industry. Thankfully, I'm retired from that work, the chemicals involved are pretty nasty. I have scars from chemical burns.) However, I've never seen how components were installed using modern methods. Very cool stuff. PCB worker, 1983-2012, I guess that's 29 years. Do I miss it? Noooo.
@@jamieknight326 I'm only 60 yo, I'm not old enough to retire. I've worked at HD for over 11 years now, and couldn't be happier. I'm going for my 20 year patch, and then I'm out. I'll be 69, and still in great shape physically, do to my activity level at work.
Thanks Linus for the video! I'm also in electronics manufacturing, and this isn't the craziest line that I've seen. Anti theft tags or Sim cards are basically small PCB and the machines are astonishingly fast. The bare PCB comes in a spool which is unwound, solder is placed, then components are baked on, its gets die cut and rollend into a new spool, ready to go. It does at a few miles per hour and lloks like a H R Giger giant cassette player
@@sinesaii lol the pay is ok as far as im concerned. The issue with this kind of electronics is that its high volume, low margin, so it's high risk low reward compared to professional audio or military stuff for example
I've been an Nvidia guy for the past 25 years but they're just too expensive anymore. At Christmas when I built a new system for my nephew I went with a PowerColor RX7800 XT Hellhound, good board. When it comes time to replace my 3080 I'll probably replace it with a PowerColor GPU. The granite table brought back memories. We had one of those at my old job. We used it to test springs in a test rig that had to be perfectly balanced and level. The springs took 10 minutes to build and 2.5 hours to test. The scary part was the test rig was running on a 20 year old PC that required Windows XP to work. So glad I got laid off before that PC broke.
I wish I could go down the AMD path. I really want them to succeed. The issue is CUDA support, OpenCL is great but it’s not supported by many of the application I use within my work. The AMD option can easily be 4-8x slower for the same tasks. I’m hoping AMD’s increased focus on AI will result in improvements to their GPU Compute performance. I wonder if the US government may move to force NVIDIA to open up CUDA to other platforms in the future due to concerns around monopoly or in the interest of national defence & avoiding a single supplier situation.
Old OS needing to be used is a hilariously sad part of a lot of engineering. I was in an university lab where a piece of equiment literally needed a PC with windows 98 on it to work. Next to it was a new win 10 PC(this was a couple years ago) to do everything else other than run that one piece of software.
Same here. Had been an Nvidia and EVGA customer going back to the GeForce 2 I believe. With EVGA out of the picture, I ended up with a RedDevil and I love it. Would buy again 100%.
PowerColor came a long way, they are the best AMD partner, super innovative, others just slap coolers around, they dont even care much about details. PowerColor for example is the only AMD partner that actually have a trully all white card, with white pcb, heatsink, cables... all the details.
That machine at 4:15 is called a pick and pluck. It picks up chiplets chips caps and whatever else’s you want and places them on boards to be soldered Ive never seen a modern one, you were right Linus.
As a general rule of thumb in Canada, if there's a difference pronunciation between the US and the UK both are correct here. Same for spelling, generally, we will do things the American way because many more Canadians interact with Americans than with Europeans so it's just easier to do with the American way. However, you can absolutely find Canadians that will say everything the European way. They're just quite rare
7:28 It kinda reminds me a technique used in 1960's and 1970's during soldering computer boards. Here, in Poland, we are calling this technique "Lutowanie na fali gorącej cyny" which translates to "Soldering on a wave of melted solder"
I work in a US based PCB manufacturing facility and I'm surprised they don't have a robotic arm for the through-hole components after SMT, I guess they just need more manual precision and know-how for a process as precise as making GPUs Also those ORT rooms are brutal. Glad you got to feel it
@Yomammafatboiiii last time I checked no consumer bought multiple GPUs a week or even month. we literally stick with our GPUs until either a new line up that we really want comes or we have to upgrade because we didn't want to for multiple years. Edit: so yes, low volume.
For a sense of scale. The entire dedicated GPU market is around 40 million units per year and each unit has a single large GPU die and normally a single board. Toyota sell around 10 million cars a year, each car has 20-30 silicon dies across dozens of boards. I wouldn’t be surprised if more SMT components are placed on boards for Toyota than the entire GPU market. The AI market is very profitable, but the actual volume of silicon is remarkably low. It’s been reported that around 3% of TSMC’s 7nm or smaller capacity is going to AI chips. It’s not like for like (as a GPU due is huge and much more complex!) but in terms of units, the volume is still considered very low.
It's actually quite awesome that you happen to be touring this exact manufacturer because I'm in the process of building a current gen PC and was looking at a PowerColor GPU!
Use to intern for lighting company. We made all our power supplies in the states and they were smart controlled powersupplies. We had pretty much all of this equipment runing to build light smart psu's in Urbandale, IA.
It absolutely blows my mind how each step in the process has been thought out and designed down to intricate details. And it's someone's job to design and build machines that perform all these tasks.
@brianb6653 yupp the expansion bay has an 8 lane pcie connection and the idea is to be able to put all kinds of things there. Being able to upgrade/replace the GPU is just the primary purpose. Im hoping for an extra battery actually lol
If it's NVMe-only it will have no active components. Exactly the type of thing hobbyists would have been making and selling on Tindie if they weren't already.
It's crazy that "future" tech that consumers will be able to buy in 2+ years currently exists and running in RD labs. That state of the art 4090 gpu that just came out actually existed when the 3080 was released. Hell, there's probably a 6080 in a lab somewhere.
Well, gotta test that stuff properly prior. I just hope they don't put out more and more power tho, running a modern PC honestly has gotten somewhat expensive at this point, if we keep that up and expand on it too fast we'll end up with a line up that no one wants at some point for the sole reason of it not being worth it anymore
2+ years out most of the time it's not even at the silicon stage, they're still running a bunch of simulations on the design typically. It's possible you have the first silicon iteration at that point but it will definitely be revised by the time it gets to the release product.
I’ve not worked with GPUs so it’s not quite the same, but for broadcast chain equipment what’s currently being sold is normally at least 2 generation behind what’s in the lab. Back in ~2010 HD broadcasts were still fairly new, but we had 4K & 8K tech in the labs at my old job. It was a surreal experience to be playing with fibre optic connected storage systems for cameras which could read and write data faster than system RAM in my laptop. A few years ago the same tech was used for the Glasgow Games. The video gallery was in London, but it was working as if it was on site in Glasgow. Each frame could get to London faster than the 16ms it took to display the same frame on the viewfinder screen on the back of the camera. It’s an exciting process seeing tech come to life.
@@jamieknight326 This is the entire reason things get better though, both consumer side and manufacturer side. Because things are getting better and they need more powerful support structures. Imagine if there wasn't a need to increase internet speeds, we'd still be on dial-up, and the reason internet speeds increased is more than likely probably because of both widespread usage and manufacturers finding uses of high speed/bandwidth applications.
wow this was awesome. I love stuff like this, there's so much that goes into the things we use every day, and we have no idea about the processes behind it all. This goes a long way to show people who think board partners don't do anything except slap a gpu on a pcb and ship it out the door. and omg i want one of those sakura edition GPU's so bad!!!!
Haha, i remember writing a Manufacturing Execution System (MES) for Dolby Labs back in the day that handled the manufacture/movement/tracking of boards all through production. I remember interfacing to all those machines (pick/place, ICT (testing), Flow solder, SMT (top/bottom). Testing was done with a Scorpion Flying Probe test machine. We had to knock a hole ion the side of the building to get it in. We also had fault tracking to enable heat mapping of failures on the boards at testing stations. Wow, this brings it all back. Nice video.
This is one of the coolest videos you have ever done! And I don't even use Powercolor GPUs. I use XFX. I have used AMD/ATI cards since 1997 when I had an All-In-Wonder Pro, which was a graphics card and TV card "all-in-one".
Man, it’s incredible how much have tech youtube channels done for tech enthusiasts. Before, tours like this would never happen, and now these companies clearly want to do them. There’s something magical about seeing how and where this stuff is made.
These fab tours are some of LTTs best work, I feel. With the combined experience of the crew, it's great to see how the tools of their trade get made, as it were.
Nice Video , it was a very nice gesture from the factory to let you show us how a GC is made , it helps to understand the price of a GC is linked to the production line , the solder waterfall is OMG WoW
A few years ago I was chatting to an automation engineer who explained that small light things & big heavy things are fast with a robot. However small heavy things (like a GPU cooler) are very hard to do with a robot. It’s to do with the ration between the mass of the object being placed and the mass of the moving parts of the robot. The small motors don’t have the torque needed to move dense objects, and the large motors are hard to control accurately when the ratio of object mass to robot mass gets too low He did tell me the name for the concept but I can’t remember it. Was a neat chat, he travels the UK helping companies set up automated production lines. I kinda wish I’d done mechatronics at uni as it seemed like a cool and varied job.
Acshually, this didn't cost them anything. Every production facility runs at less than 100% capacity and they can increase performance temporarily to fill warehouse and stop production for days, to make needed repair, maintenace and upgrades.
4:57 It's a shame these guys don't watch the LinusTechTips channel. They would have known that Linus tends to drop "The really good stuff" "The Linus effect" was there even before Linus arrived. He had already dropped factory production.
I'm super surprised just how much of the process is still manual! Big shout out to all the workers and the incredible skill it takes to be so precise to reproduce the same steps over and over again so reliably at scale! ❤
powercolor is quite confident I saw another video showcasing their factory and that video convinced me to buy a red devil 6600xt. still working like out of the box 2 years later.
7:46 the fact that a factory of this caliber uses a piece of scrap wood with 4 other more different pieces of scrap wood screwed into it to carry around the GPU's is amazing. I appreciate the jank. Edit: yes, I too have realized that it's not actually scrap wood. I was high and probably saw what I wanted to see. So the correct statement would be: I'm disappointed by the lack of jank
i dont think that is wood scraps..... It doesnt have any wood texture. probably some kind of plastic or coated metal alloy cause like that thing went through the fountain of solder which would probably burn and deform the wood
I've seen pick-and-place machines before, but never one that fast. That's wild. All of this is wild. The testing processes alone are awesome. The BGA station. The lazy river of molten Terminator. So, so cool, and the kind of thing we'd never normally get to see.
In my previous role I was a commodity manager which entailed procuring a lot of PCBA and raw components, this brings back a lot of memories touring factories with SMT lines.
This was sick. Watching tours like this and seeing the quality control procedures gives me a lot of confidence in the product. It's like when gamers nexus toured a PSU factory and they wouldn't disclose the brands they built for. I would have been much more likely to buy those brands after seeing the quality control procedures.
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Hi omg I’m first this is so cool and the video hi Linus can we get another studio tour please 🙏
i already have an account
wow
How is your comment 5 minutes older then the vid?
Bet
That solder waterfall is some of the most willy-wonka shit I've ever seen
Forbidden silver chocolate
It smells horrible. When those things get cleaned it's like a toxic waste spill
07:17
07:17
I want one next to my pc
This factory tour has the be one of the best ( if not the actually the best) factory tours on the TH-cam, as an industrial electronic technician i trained under a pcb manufacturer ( they are specialized in ipc level 2 & 3 electronics)
This tour had it all, from the components getting first visual inspection when it's arrived to the factory, R&D on new products, manual reworking on ICs/ chips to the packaging ( quality control is whole another story )
Using Mantis ( its like a microscope ) to inspect visual deformation in SMD or THT components ( usually that's goes through least 3 inspectors to verify absolute best quality products )
you should see their tour of the intel fab in Israel, this one is also very impressive
If you haven't seen the factory tour videos by GamersNexus, it sounds like you'd love those.
I'm pretty sure they shut down the factory to minimize what Linus could accidentally break
PowerColor Linus edition. When you buy 1 it's already a door stop 😂.
Or, more accurately, if something does break, it doesn't get multiplied 100x over in the entire process. If they're running the line 100x slower, they're more likely to find the bug he creates.
Yes he almost broke the die😅
Yup - there was a protective tape around the STOP button on the oven, most likely specifically to avoid Linus shutting down equipment that would take days to restart.
I can see that happening
I work in a small machine shop making tooling for manufacturing. We have a smaller flat stone like that. It is so satisfying when you make a part and it’s just completely flat.
We sold one at my work that was like 10m long. Insane thing to just exist.
9:50 - start time 06/06/2024
This was actually recorded, edited, and uploaded in 24 hours. Dang
you can see at 9:50 the time on the PC is 10:13A, assuming its in CST (UTC+8, or 2:13 UTC), and the video was released 22:22 (UTC), that would be 20 hours, to finish the rest of the tour, get the footage, edit and upload
@@unicodefox pretty good considering most videos are 1 month or so after they record
holy lack of tape delay batman
This is genuinely impressive!
Hope they aren’t rushing that much on their other vids…
Phenomenal video. These factory tours are by far my favorite. So much fun to see.
I love factory walkthroughs like this, I watched a lot of How It's Made back in the day
I was ADDICTED to How It's Made. Best part of the Discovery network that ever existed.
How it's made and popular mechanics magazine shows how amazing and super duper precise humanity truly is.
That and Modern Marvels were awesome!
Stole my comment before i knew it.
They're hands down the best videos LTT does. I get why they are uncommon, but's its always a treat to see them.
It’s so nice to have SMT covered so clearly. I supervise SMT Lines in the USA. I work on Medical, and Defense boards so I can’t simply show the people in my life what it is I manage(it would be a felony haha). I will now be referring them to this video. Awesome job!!!
Imagine some one asks you "whats your job?" And you just reply with "i am a baller, a professional baller at a GPU factory"
Hes balling
crazy that northwestrepair reballs GPUs in his dinky little room with his own gadgets and tools
It's just that maybe Linus wishes he was a little bit taller.... /jk
I used to work at a motherboard placem operating a pasting machine and also doing visual QA after the ovens. It amazes me how much better these facilities have got over the years.
I worked for 12 years in electronics manufacturing. This factory seems to have pretty good pick and place machines but everything else is pretty standard and the shop floor is not that nice. And i'm a bit puzzled why they still wear mask.
@@dtibor5903whats your issue with the shop floor not being "nice"? It could be a lot worse, I work at SMT lines that are way less organized and have way more clutter. The masks are likely to decrease chances of FOD defects, I doubt its a full clean room because this is just class 1 for consumers.
@@clerooth i work in quality for a small electronics aircraft manufacturer. We make life critical electronical actuators and have a huge process for cleanliness. Seems like they are doing a good job. i wonder if the floor is esd safe. Seems like everything else (chairs, desk, equipment) but we have esd floors that cost a small fortune.
Only in Taiwan. Don’t expect factories to be this good in China
@@rollingthunderinho most china electronics factories look way better than most european equivalents.
Holy crap, this is incredible. Framework is a G for getting you the opportunity to temporarily reduce production for a GPU manufacturer. Huge props to you guys for sharing this really interesting behind the scenes of the process that creates our computers! ❤
They probably had some inspection or maintenance going on having to cut production anyway but yeah still pretty cool
I doubt they stopped production just so they could film a youtube video lol
It's advertising for them.
FURRY UwU
@@IBims1Mark This was truly an incredible video from the team. Super interesting, and really informative
we need more of this type of content
and the "solder waterfall" as you put it is known as "wave soldering" and its extremely efficient for large volume stuff as long as your solder application height is near perfectly even across the board.
I fully expect someone who has never heard of Linus getting that signed card wondering if they got a used one.
That's exactly what came to mind when he said they wouldn't want it
Couldn't imagine some buying a GPU and not knowing LTT, then I could
@@KevwePatani Customer service likely isn't going to RMA the card, they'll just say "wipe it with alcohol, it comes right off".
@@fitybux4664He literally said that RMA will handle it.
@@fitybux4664 Of they can tell them to sell it on ebay for 50% extra on purchase price since someone would want it.
They literally said they'll handle the rma....
Thanks for the tour(LTT Team) this was great, it gave a layout of how things are done in the background.
This video honestly sold me on PowerColor products lmao I love the transparency in the manufacturing process. Not to mention, the consumer usage testing to ensure the cards will run well for normal usage.
Seriously. For some reason, I was under the impression that PowerColor was some sketchy, low-quality brand.
This tour really changed my opinion. I had no idea how significant they were in the industry.
@@trajectoryunown They make some of the best AMD GPUs with their Red Devil and Liquid Devil lines.
@@trajectoryunown most people think that because they are one of a few amd only card makers. they got fed up with nvidia's stuff and went full amd.
this was the point of them shutting the factory down for 3 hours
@@trajectoryunown"for some reason" I wouldn't fault you if it was because of the name 'PowerColor' 😅
Now I see why Linus went to Computex. I thought Linus avoided traveling for work if he can avoid it but I’m sure u cannot get too bored of factory tours. Very cool to see the process and hope there is a more in depth discussion on the WAN show.
Ha yeah. I had wondered the same… he must have traveled for something more compelling than a few product videos.
I also wonder if LTT are looking to bring out PC components of their own and Linus was talking to ODMs or involved in Framework related discussions.
I’ve really enjoyed the videos this week. Feels like classic LTT content, energetic and engaging :)
like if linus should do the thug shake oiled up
Linus could astronomically increase GPU prices again if he isn't careful
What the-
We Taiwan are facing earthquakes everyday, a tiny drop from Linus isnt a big impact.
@@woixv You underestimate his power.
linus drop tips
It's remarkable how similar the fabrication process these GPUs are to most other PCB fabs.
My previous job was configuring and training PCB fabs on a brand of automatic solder inspection machines, and the production lines are almost identical ! Just scaled down/less fast here and there.
What did you think they were? You must not have worked there for long. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Yes GPUs are PCBs. Any part in your computer that has electricity going through it thats not a cable is a PCB. Without PCBs there are no computers. Its hard to remember who they identify as deep down, but beneath all the plating, cases and large fans, they identify as PCBs too. 😂
Granite surface places are wild: the lab grade ones are flat to the millionths of inches over several feet. The calibration tools are even wilder detecting stuff smaller than white blood cells.
I had to use one to measure tools I put in a 3axis CNC mill. It was amazing just what you find out when you have a surface like that to work with.
They are amazing. The reference plates for calibrating HASS CNC mills are so precise that it’s equivalent to the width of a human hair against the height of the Empire State Building.
I visited one of our manufacturers that had one of these types of plates with a big gantry over it with a measuring probe for checking accuracy of the parts they were producing. Not really thinking about it I put my hand against it as I was standing there listening and immediately got told to take my hand off the table. Reason being that the slight change in temperature would throw their measurements off. The whole room was temperature controlled as well.
Is there a reason granite is used for this? More mechanically stable in that it holds measurement better/longer? I understand not using metals with corrosion and the temperature changes it's dimensions
@@widdly-scuds For this case it would be rigidity and high dimensional stability.
I used to work in one of these factories in Belgium. Unfotunately the competition from abroad was high.
Still nice to see this again.
7:24 the fact you didn't call this a liquid solderfall is a huge missed opportunity
Genius
And now here's Solderfall...
"I said maybeeeeeee....."
My favorite part!
This was really awesome to see! Thankyou for letting LTT visit and make this video :)
1:37 "Keep Door Closed At All Times". Linus proceeds to pimp walk in and leaves door open.
For temperature stability reasons. Linus just introduced some more randomness into their batch testing. 😆
I saw that and was like wait a sec WHAT
0:55 Missed opportunity to have the tagine be "Restore to factory settings" or something along those lines.
Other than that, awesome, very interested in seeing how things are made like this
This is so cool to watch, and seeing just how many times every single card gets checked in practically each stage of the production process really instills a feeling of "I can buy a GPU from these guys with confidence".
One of my favourite videos of the year, easy
This is a highly sanitized version of the reality of the manufacturing process not like it actually is in production.
This is the type of content that keeps me subscribed. Very few other tech content creators have the clout and reputation to be able to do this.
yea man
7:11 the security guard freezing like “crap I just walked into the shot” 😂
NO WAY THIS IS ACTUALLY HAPENNING !
I love theses factory videos, thank you so much guys !
12:56 aahh yes. the good ol' SMD Hot plate station.
though im not too sure i want a hot plate station anywhere near my junk.
2:38 ... Linus: it's done, it's out! Worker in back: -_-
Nothing wrong with being Asian
@@Irondragon1945 Lmao I see what you did there...
I think that was a security guard or something
I think Linus asked for some bad units to be placed on the table for demonstrative purposes in the video and I suspect the person giving the tour knew exactly where this was going and accepted it
Being able to put something like this on the internet for public viewing is so great. These are the kinds of jobs and industries you don't normally get exposure to, but are absolutely necessary. Thank you to everyone involved for making this tour happen and put on TH-cam.
I love seeing these factory tours, they really make you appreciate the specific vendors.
Pretty solid way to pull new customers.
Would love to see Sapphire's factory as well
I’ve been looking for a good card for gaming in Antarctica tbh so this is a helpful video…..
Also I really do love these it’s so cool to see the manufacturing process! I remember working at a few places when I was like 18-20 yrs old and the best part was seeing how stuff like this works or how the tech is set up in these kinds of places. It’s awesome to see this coordinated and made available to you all to film!
9:42 that's crazy that they use consumer load testing applications in a factory
If it ain't broke...
Don't fix it
Wonder if they need and paid for commercial licenses 😅
I mean it makes sense, beyond factory tested environments, being able to stress test in the same way as the consumer to prove card reliability makes perfectly good sense.
It makes sense. I mean, what better way to know a product is going to work on consumer software than to run consumer software on it?
Thanks for making these videos, there are not many times you get to actually see what these factories are like and understand the possesses that go into making things that we use every day. These videos always answer questions I have had and thank you
Thank you Linus and team for this video tour. I worked in the PCB fabrication industry for 28 years, so I've seen that first hand, (I worked in the wet process areas of this industry. Thankfully, I'm retired from that work, the chemicals involved are pretty nasty. I have scars from chemical burns.) However, I've never seen how components were installed using modern methods. Very cool stuff. PCB worker, 1983-2012, I guess that's 29 years. Do I miss it? Noooo.
Thanks for sharing. That sounds like a heck of a career. Did you move into something else after or have you retired now?
@@jamieknight326 I'm only 60 yo, I'm not old enough to retire. I've worked at HD for over 11 years now, and couldn't be happier. I'm going for my 20 year patch, and then I'm out. I'll be 69, and still in great shape physically, do to my activity level at work.
@@stumpythedwarf8712 thanks for the info. Hope the next 9 years with HD go smoothly and you enjoy your retirement when it comes. Best wishes :)
Thanks Linus for the video! I'm also in electronics manufacturing, and this isn't the craziest line that I've seen. Anti theft tags or Sim cards are basically small PCB and the machines are astonishingly fast. The bare PCB comes in a spool which is unwound, solder is placed, then components are baked on, its gets die cut and rollend into a new spool, ready to go. It does at a few miles per hour and lloks like a H R Giger giant cassette player
Is it true you guys get bad pay because the job is cool?
@@sinesaii lol the pay is ok as far as im concerned. The issue with this kind of electronics is that its high volume, low margin, so it's high risk low reward compared to professional audio or military stuff for example
I've been an Nvidia guy for the past 25 years but they're just too expensive anymore. At Christmas when I built a new system for my nephew I went with a PowerColor RX7800 XT Hellhound, good board. When it comes time to replace my 3080 I'll probably replace it with a PowerColor GPU. The granite table brought back memories. We had one of those at my old job. We used it to test springs in a test rig that had to be perfectly balanced and level. The springs took 10 minutes to build and 2.5 hours to test. The scary part was the test rig was running on a 20 year old PC that required Windows XP to work. So glad I got laid off before that PC broke.
I wish I could go down the AMD path. I really want them to succeed. The issue is CUDA support, OpenCL is great but it’s not supported by many of the application I use within my work. The AMD option can easily be 4-8x slower for the same tasks.
I’m hoping AMD’s increased focus on AI will result in improvements to their GPU Compute performance.
I wonder if the US government may move to force NVIDIA to open up CUDA to other platforms in the future due to concerns around monopoly or in the interest of national defence & avoiding a single supplier situation.
Old OS needing to be used is a hilariously sad part of a lot of engineering. I was in an university lab where a piece of equiment literally needed a PC with windows 98 on it to work. Next to it was a new win 10 PC(this was a couple years ago) to do everything else other than run that one piece of software.
Same here. Had been an Nvidia and EVGA customer going back to the GeForce 2 I believe. With EVGA out of the picture, I ended up with a RedDevil and I love it. Would buy again 100%.
PowerColor came a long way, they are the best AMD partner, super innovative, others just slap coolers around, they dont even care much about details. PowerColor for example is the only AMD partner that actually have a trully all white card, with white pcb, heatsink, cables... all the details.
Enjoyed seeing the excited little kid, in Linus come out to play, like a small child in a candy store, made my day, thanks LLT for the video!
imagine footage getting corrupted for such an important shoot.
why would you even say something so awful
?
I just use Untrunc.
Their is always a backup....if u dont know.
That machine at 4:15 is called a pick and pluck. It picks up chiplets chips caps and whatever else’s you want and places them on boards to be soldered Ive never seen a modern one, you were right Linus.
7:30 I'm glad Canadians also call it "sodder" :)
i am too
Poor L, he must be feeling lonely
They're "'Murica with British characteristics."
What else is it called
As a general rule of thumb in Canada, if there's a difference pronunciation between the US and the UK both are correct here. Same for spelling, generally, we will do things the American way because many more Canadians interact with Americans than with Europeans so it's just easier to do with the American way. However, you can absolutely find Canadians that will say everything the European way. They're just quite rare
7:28
It kinda reminds me a technique used in 1960's and 1970's during soldering computer boards. Here, in Poland, we are calling this technique "Lutowanie na fali gorącej cyny" which translates to "Soldering on a wave of melted solder"
I always love the factory tour videos!
This was awesome. To more production/ assembly line videos like this in the future.
Wait a minute, the LTT backpack doesn't have a water bottle pocket on the outside??? New, smaller backpack leak?
Could have been a production sample
Would that not be a downgrade then?
@noobulon4334 no, they always intended on having the water bottle on the inside for the original backpack
Damn you're right, that's definitely not the LTT backpack but the accent orange looks very LTT. It looks really sleak. 00:27
Linus said on the last WAN that he was going to be field testing the smaller backpack prototype.
11:39 "everyone gets a souvenir GPU today, right" lol
I work in a US based PCB manufacturing facility and I'm surprised they don't have a robotic arm for the through-hole components after SMT, I guess they just need more manual precision and know-how for a process as precise as making GPUs
Also those ORT rooms are brutal. Glad you got to feel it
Think it's more because consumer GPUs are a low volume product at the end of the day, so it don't make a ton of sense for such a robot.
@Yomammafatboiiii Compared to other PCBs and commercial grade GPUs, consumer grade GPUs are nothing but a tiny fraction in terms of volumes.
@Yomammafatboiiii last time I checked no consumer bought multiple GPUs a week or even month.
we literally stick with our GPUs until either a new line up that we really want comes or we have to upgrade because we didn't want to for multiple years.
Edit: so yes, low volume.
@Yomammafatboiiii AMD gpus are low volume compared to Nvidia.
For a sense of scale. The entire dedicated GPU market is around 40 million units per year and each unit has a single large GPU die and normally a single board.
Toyota sell around 10 million cars a year, each car has 20-30 silicon dies across dozens of boards. I wouldn’t be surprised if more SMT components are placed on boards for Toyota than the entire GPU market.
The AI market is very profitable, but the actual volume of silicon is remarkably low. It’s been reported that around 3% of TSMC’s 7nm or smaller capacity is going to AI chips.
It’s not like for like (as a GPU due is huge and much more complex!) but in terms of units, the volume is still considered very low.
13:22 lol that hand-written "dont touch"
Today I Learned: Apparently, I'm now Linus's friend? Sorry, Linus, My truck is permanently parked, and no I won't help you to move.
It's actually quite awesome that you happen to be touring this exact manufacturer because I'm in the process of building a current gen PC and was looking at a PowerColor GPU!
Use to intern for lighting company. We made all our power supplies in the states and they were smart controlled powersupplies. We had pretty much all of this equipment runing to build light smart psu's in Urbandale, IA.
It absolutely blows my mind how each step in the process has been thought out and designed down to intricate details. And it's someone's job to design and build machines that perform all these tasks.
Dude Framework 16 SSD carrier confirmed! Crazy they let that get shown like that. SO GLAD the Expansion Bay is getting more parts!
I literally came here to ask WTF that is lol. I assume this is something that would possibly be used in lieu of discrete GPU
@brianb6653 yupp the expansion bay has an 8 lane pcie connection and the idea is to be able to put all kinds of things there. Being able to upgrade/replace the GPU is just the primary purpose. Im hoping for an extra battery actually lol
@@koijoijoeI didn’t realise this. That’s epic. I’m really tempted to go the framework route for my next machine :)
If it's NVMe-only it will have no active components. Exactly the type of thing hobbyists would have been making and selling on Tindie if they weren't already.
well It's free promotion
Been working in a tech-lab for a while now and I always thought it would make an awesome video. Happy to see it finally happen!
It's crazy that "future" tech that consumers will be able to buy in 2+ years currently exists and running in RD labs.
That state of the art 4090 gpu that just came out actually existed when the 3080 was released. Hell, there's probably a 6080 in a lab somewhere.
Well, gotta test that stuff properly prior.
I just hope they don't put out more and more power tho, running a modern PC honestly has gotten somewhat expensive at this point, if we keep that up and expand on it too fast we'll end up with a line up that no one wants at some point for the sole reason of it not being worth it anymore
Actually i'm 100% sure that there is no 6080 in that lab, because PowerColor works only with AMD kkkkkkkkkkkkk (but I got what you said)
2+ years out most of the time it's not even at the silicon stage, they're still running a bunch of simulations on the design typically. It's possible you have the first silicon iteration at that point but it will definitely be revised by the time it gets to the release product.
I’ve not worked with GPUs so it’s not quite the same, but for broadcast chain equipment what’s currently being sold is normally at least 2 generation behind what’s in the lab.
Back in ~2010 HD broadcasts were still fairly new, but we had 4K & 8K tech in the labs at my old job. It was a surreal experience to be playing with fibre optic connected storage systems for cameras which could read and write data faster than system RAM in my laptop.
A few years ago the same tech was used for the Glasgow Games. The video gallery was in London, but it was working as if it was on site in Glasgow.
Each frame could get to London faster than the 16ms it took to display the same frame on the viewfinder screen on the back of the camera.
It’s an exciting process seeing tech come to life.
@@jamieknight326 This is the entire reason things get better though, both consumer side and manufacturer side. Because things are getting better and they need more powerful support structures. Imagine if there wasn't a need to increase internet speeds, we'd still be on dial-up, and the reason internet speeds increased is more than likely probably because of both widespread usage and manufacturers finding uses of high speed/bandwidth applications.
wow this was awesome. I love stuff like this, there's so much that goes into the things we use every day, and we have no idea about the processes behind it all. This goes a long way to show people who think board partners don't do anything except slap a gpu on a pcb and ship it out the door.
and omg i want one of those sakura edition GPU's so bad!!!!
This is why LTT is the best tech youtuber,
•good sponsor segues
•and is able to have a factory go at 1/3 speed for him
they dont want to rush him or he might drop something into their expensive machinery
@@WayStedYou true lol
Seeing the quality control and care that is put into PowerColor gpus makes me happy to be the owner of a PowerColor Red Dragon RX 6800XT.
I love the factory walk throughs! I know they are hard to arrange, but "how it's made" style content is captivating.
Nice to see where my 7800 XT Sakura Helhound is being made (I still haven't ordered it yet)
I had no idea there were hellhounds in Sakura.
Haha, i remember writing a Manufacturing Execution System (MES) for Dolby Labs back in the day that handled the manufacture/movement/tracking of boards all through production. I remember interfacing to all those machines (pick/place, ICT (testing), Flow solder, SMT (top/bottom). Testing was done with a Scorpion Flying Probe test machine. We had to knock a hole ion the side of the building to get it in. We also had fault tracking to enable heat mapping of failures on the boards at testing stations.
Wow, this brings it all back. Nice video.
This is one of the coolest videos you have ever done! And I don't even use Powercolor GPUs. I use XFX. I have used AMD/ATI cards since 1997 when I had an All-In-Wonder Pro, which was a graphics card and TV card "all-in-one".
always love the factory tour videos!
Man, it’s incredible how much have tech youtube channels done for tech enthusiasts. Before, tours like this would never happen, and now these companies clearly want to do them. There’s something magical about seeing how and where this stuff is made.
That was an awesome walkthrough, I hope there is more like this one in the future!
These fab tours are some of LTTs best work, I feel. With the combined experience of the crew, it's great to see how the tools of their trade get made, as it were.
as a Red Devil 7900xtx owner, this is flippin' awesome to watch!
This was a lot of fun and a really enjoyable video! Thanks for the behind the scenes look!
Sick video, always awesome to see behind the scenes of hardware manufacturing.
I just love watching this on my PowerColor GPU, while watching a video of how it was made, in possibly the exact factory it was made in.
Super awesome! Hopefully the one you signed ends up with a fan!
It had onlyfans.
Nice Video , it was a very nice gesture from the factory to let you show us how a GC is made , it helps to understand the price of a GC is linked to the production line , the solder waterfall is OMG WoW
I thought the heatsink and fan would have been put on via a machine not manually this was so informative.
A few years ago I was chatting to an automation engineer who explained that small light things & big heavy things are fast with a robot. However small heavy things (like a GPU cooler) are very hard to do with a robot.
It’s to do with the ration between the mass of the object being placed and the mass of the moving parts of the robot. The small motors don’t have the torque needed to move dense objects, and the large motors are hard to control accurately when the ratio of object mass to robot mass gets too low
He did tell me the name for the concept but I can’t remember it.
Was a neat chat, he travels the UK helping companies set up automated production lines. I kinda wish I’d done mechatronics at uni as it seemed like a cool and varied job.
Yeah they never seem to be, certainly not in any graphics card factory video I have seen.
Acshually, this didn't cost them anything. Every production facility runs at less than 100% capacity and they can increase performance temporarily to fill warehouse and stop production for days, to make needed repair, maintenace and upgrades.
4:57 It's a shame these guys don't watch the LinusTechTips channel. They would have known that Linus tends to drop "The really good stuff"
"The Linus effect" was there even before Linus arrived. He had already dropped factory production.
@5:15 wow, i am shocked that the parts are manually loaded.... seeing that done on CPUs/chips is like from back in 2004 timeframe...
Love these tours.
I just recently purchased a Powercolor Hellhound and honestly it’s so great to see all the hand workmanship and care that is taken in production.
I think they still need to stop production sometimes for equipment maintenance and other things.
I can't usually get to the end of factory tour vids but this one is brilliant. Love the energy, stayed to the end. Great work
1 minute in and Linus hasnt dropped anything yet - I feel a disturbance in the force.
This meme is needs to be dropped
There's nice video evidence so they can go back every machine he was near and make sure it is still calibrated correctly. 😆
I'm super surprised just how much of the process is still manual! Big shout out to all the workers and the incredible skill it takes to be so precise to reproduce the same steps over and over again so reliably at scale! ❤
2:33 Meanwhile, my GPU is curved like a surfboard
Awesome & unique video. Thanks for taking us along!
Honestly power color makes some of the best looking white cards for AMD and looks better then the Nvidia gpus too
I really appreciate you showing the rma part, which is usally ignored in such videos!
14:08
News: 7800 xt GPU sales increased by 100000%
true
powercolor is quite confident I saw another video showcasing their factory and that video convinced me to buy a red devil 6600xt. still working like out of the box 2 years later.
Linus can turn off anything, wow 👌
This is amazing! Thanks LMG for the incredible content. I can’t believe you guys made it! 🎉🎉🎉
7:46 the fact that a factory of this caliber uses a piece of scrap wood with 4 other more different pieces of scrap wood screwed into it to carry around the GPU's is amazing. I appreciate the jank.
Edit: yes, I too have realized that it's not actually scrap wood. I was high and probably saw what I wanted to see. So the correct statement would be: I'm disappointed by the lack of jank
where did you see such a thing?
@@Janis5555at the timestamp I tagged, 7:46. It's also on the table at 7:49
Yeah, I would have assumed they would just 3d print a jig. But wood scraps work too.
if it works
i dont think that is wood scraps..... It doesnt have any wood texture. probably some kind of plastic or coated metal alloy cause like that thing went through the fountain of solder which would probably burn and deform the wood
I've seen pick-and-place machines before, but never one that fast. That's wild. All of this is wild. The testing processes alone are awesome. The BGA station. The lazy river of molten Terminator. So, so cool, and the kind of thing we'd never normally get to see.
Ladies and gentlemen. We have spotted a new facial meme of Linus from Linus Tech Tips starting at 0:27 timestamp.
In my previous role I was a commodity manager which entailed procuring a lot of PCBA and raw components, this brings back a lot of memories touring factories with SMT lines.
Yooo a video of a GPU factory tour?? This gonna be hot (very hot if Nvidia hahahahhahahaha)
NGL, this was soooo fkn cool to watch! thanks to everyone and kudos to LTT team for doing this all in 3 hours!
Holy fuck that's cool
This was sick. Watching tours like this and seeing the quality control procedures gives me a lot of confidence in the product. It's like when gamers nexus toured a PSU factory and they wouldn't disclose the brands they built for. I would have been much more likely to buy those brands after seeing the quality control procedures.