RTX 5090 burning cable concern reportedly not the identical for all fashions, and Nvidia may need been in a position to forestall it

Prior to now week, a number of house owners of Nvidia’s new RTX 5090 Founders Version GPUs have reported burning cable points. One such case was shared on Reddit, the place a consumer who upgraded from an RTX 4090 to an RTX 5090 reported “a burning scent whereas taking part in Battlefield 5” and later discovered their GPU cable burned on one aspect. Apparently, this isn’t the primary time this concern has surfaced.

The RTX 4090 FE, which launched the brand new 16-pin (12+4 pin) 12VHPWR energy connector, suffered from similar melting cable problems earlier than Nvidia adopted the newer 12V-2×6 customary. For the RTX 5090 collection, Nvidia assured customers that “such issues will not occur with the RTX 50 series” and that they believed “these issues have been resolved.” Nonetheless, regardless of these assurances, RTX 5090 FE GPUs are dealing with the identical concern, although it doesn’t appear to have an effect on all variants of the cardboard equally.

GIGABYTE RTX 5090 reportedly exhibits no burning cable points

This comes from Twitter/X, the place consumer Andreas Schilling shared uneven present distribution within the RTX 5090 FE and RTX 4090 FE, each displaying severely spaced-out present ranges throughout all six pins. For example, within the RTX 5090, Pin 1 was outputting 2.7 A, whereas Pin 5 was at 7.6 A. An analogous scenario was seen within the RTX 4090, the place the primary pin was delivering simply 3 A, whereas the second pin was outputting 8.7 A, displaying a distinction of greater than 5 A between the 2.

Nonetheless, not like the FE version, the Gigabyte AORUS RTX 5090 was additionally on the listing, and that graphics card confirmed no uneven present distribution. In actual fact, all six pins had been shut to one another in present ranges, with Pin 1 delivering 7.7 A and Pins 2 and three each outputting 7.8 A, whereas the remaining confirmed solely gradual and slight will increase. This uneven present distribution might clarify why the RTX 5090 FE is experiencing burning cable points and why the Gigabyte RTX 5090 seems to be protected.

Reseating would possibly assist, however Nvidia might have supplied a good higher repair

Quickly after their first submit about uneven distribution, Andreas Schilling offered an update, stating that they reseated the cable on each ends (PSU and GPU) with the GeForce RTX 5090 FE, which resulted in good distribution throughout all six pins. Nonetheless, that repair did not work for each RTX 4090 proprietor, nor did it for each RTX 5090 proprietor. The Reddit poster who first talked about the burning cable points had already addressed this reseating repair, stating, “I’m not distant from the PC-building world and know what I’m doing. The cable was securely fixed and clicked on each side (GPU and PSU).”

So it looks as if a extra correct repair ought to have been applied from Nvidia’s aspect, and leaks recommend there was one behind the scenes. Not too long ago leaked engineering samples present that RTX 5090 and RTX 4090 prototypes used 4 12V-2×6 cables, but the ultimate manufacturing playing cards included just one. Given the RTX 5090’s 600-watt TDP, utilizing a number of cables might have distributed the load extra successfully, minimizing the danger of burning points. However for some cause, they did not go that route. Whereas the Inexperienced Workforce has launched new methods with the RTX 5090 FE to handle this concern, equivalent to angled power connectors, it looks as if a extra dependable answer was not noted.