Lower than two weeks after its launch, the primary report of a melting Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 has surfaced on-line. Whereas a third-party energy cable was used, it’s unclear proper now what precipitated the fault, with the graphics card, energy provide, and GPU energy cable all affected by harm.
It’s unlucky timing, nevertheless, coming simply weeks after Nvidia made claims concerning the RTX 5090 energy connection, saying that it “didn’t anticipate” a repeat of points with melting RTX 4090 playing cards to reoccur with the RTX 50-series. That’s regardless of the brand new greatest graphics card available on the market drawing much more energy than the RTX 4090 it replaces, with a 125W energy draw enhance in comparison with the older card.
This unlucky incident was shared in a Reddit publish within the r/nvidia subreddit, the place ivan6953 shared their story. The Redditor had simply upgraded from an RTX 4090 Founders Version to the RTX 5090 FE, and based on them, the cable was “securely fixed” into each the GPU and PSU at each ends.
After noticing a “burning odor” whereas enjoying Battlefield V, and claiming the facility draw on the time of the incident was round 500-525W, ivan6953 powered down the PC to examine the harm. The photographs shared on Reddit present harm to each the RTX 5090’s energy connector and the socket on the Asus ROG Loki energy provide, together with a third-party Moddiy cable with a melted connector and wiring. The Redditor claims that the identical cable powered their RTX 4090 with out situation for 2 years previous to this incident.
Sadly, that is removed from the primary Nvidia graphics card to have suffered from this situation. Points with melting RTX 4090 playing cards pressured the corporate to make modifications to the 12VHPWR connector design on their top-spec GPUs, altering the form and size of a number of the socket pins to extend the reliability of the connection, leaving the cable design intact.
Ivan6953 isn’t blaming Nvidia for this one, no less than circuitously. With the harm seemingly heaviest on the facility provide finish, they’re chalking this as much as an issue with the cable or energy provide, reasonably than with the RTX 5090 itself, though it’s unclear presently what actually precipitated the fault and what part deserves the blame. Nonetheless, with these sorts of excessive energy calls for and with loads of third-party cables available on the market, it’s unlikely that this would be the final RTX 5090 to see a meltdown in the course of the product’s lifetime.
The Redditor didn’t use an official cable right here, so whereas they’ve filed a guaranty declare with each Nvidia and Asus for his or her broken {hardware}, they aren’t assured of success. Whereas it’s too late for ivan6953, in the event you’re spending $1,999 (or extra) on a top-spec GPU, we’d advocate utilizing both an appropriate 16-pin GPU energy cable made by your PSU producer in your PSU, or utilizing the official Nvidia energy cable adapter provided together with your card to attach your GPU to your PSU with 4 8-pin PCIe energy connectors as a substitute. If nothing else, this can assist make sure you’ve acquired the perfect probability of a declare below your present guarantee protection.
Dangerous luck for ivan6953, and we hope he will get himself a brand new RTX 5090 quickly, though it is likely to be tough if he has to purchase a alternative himself. After a less-than-ideal launch, RTX 5090 inventory has been virtually inconceivable to search out. In case you’re eager to get your arms on one, be sure to take a look at our the place to purchase 5090 inventory information for each day retailer updates, though you’ll need to be fast, as we anticipate any inventory that seems to expire rapidly.
You can even take a look at our RTX 5090 evaluation for our ideas on this brand-new, top-spec Nvidia card. Don’t neglect to additionally observe us on Google Information for each day PC {hardware} information, opinions, and guides, and be part of our neighborhood Discord to remain within the know.
