The facility cable for an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Version graphics card has been proven reaching a scorching temperature of 150°C in thermal checks, prompting concern that the times of melting energy plugs are very removed from over with the brand new gaming GPU vary. Within the check, one wire was proven drawing a large 20A present by itself, with the picture on a thermal digital camera glowing white.
You may learn all concerning the efficiency of this new Nvidia GPU in our RTX 5090 assessment, and we had no issues with hot-running cables after we have been operating our benchmarks. Nonetheless, not everybody has been so fortunate, with one Redditor already reporting a melted RTX 5090 energy socket, and now this excessive temperature consequence.
The check was carried out by Roman ‘der8auer’ Hartung, a famend PC tech skilled and overclocker on YouTube, who described it as “extraordinarily regarding.” Utilizing the water-cooled RTX 5090 that he’d demonstrated in a earlier video, hooked as much as a Corsair AX1600i PSU with a Corsair 2 x 8-pin to 16-pin cable, der8auer confirmed how two of the pins can get surprisingly sizzling.
He then hundreds the GPU with FurMark for a number of minutes and focuses the thermal digital camera on the cable. Shockingly, after simply 4 minutes of operating FurMark, the temperature of one of many wires on the PSU finish hits 153°C, whereas the top on the GPU hits 90°C. That’s severely sizzling for an influence cable, prompting der8auer to measure the present, which matches over 20A on one of many wires, which ought to be extra like 6-8A.
In the identical video, der8auer additionally exhibits the aforementioned melted RTX 5090, which he’d managed to acquire from the Redditor, together with the cable. In addition to the injury to the cardboard, der8auer particulars the injury to the cable, with a number of pins being broken on the PSU facet, and apparent injury to a single pin on the GPU facet of the cable. Not solely that, however the cable itself between the 2 broken pins on both finish has additionally been severely burned.
It’s nicely price looking on the video, the place der8auer places the broken cable pins underneath the microscope, exhibiting that the broken pin ‘made good contact with the plastic of the cardboard’ earlier than it was pulled out after the melting incident. This explicit pin isn’t a floor pin both – it’s one of many ones carrying the complete 12V to the GPU. In the meantime, on the PSU facet, which makes use of a 12VHPWR socket, relatively than the newer 12V-2×6 socket, 5 of the six 12V pins are broken.
“That is completely regarding,” says der8auer concerning the outcomes, “the unbalance between totally different cables utilizing totally different pins is a large drawback.” He additionally bats away criticism of the third-party cable after analyzing it, saying “‘I believe it’s just about a normal cable, it doesn’t appear to be unhealthy high quality.” Given the excessive present and temperatures he’s seen on his personal setup, der8auer speculates that ‘perhaps that one wire was carrying 30A’ on the melted cable.
Nvidia has already ensured a storm with melted RTX 4090 energy sockets, and der8auer states that “with the 5090, these issues in all probability simply turned loads worse.” Provided that the RTX 5090 has solely been out for a few weeks, this actually isn’t excellent news for Nvidia.
In case you’re trying to purchase a brand new GPU now, try our information to the very best graphics card, the place we take you thru all our suggestions to swimsuit a spread of budgets.
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