#Bought a flowery Nvidia RTX graphics card? Verify your energy cable, stat

We could also be smack-dab in the course of an enormous new controversy surrounding Nvidia’s flagship-level GPUs: each the RTX 5000 and the RTX 4000 sequence playing cards. In what looks as if a rising variety of circumstances, customers uncover that the GPUs’ 12VHPWR cable is susceptible to excessive warmth buildup and burning.

As Nvidia customers will already know by now, the corporate moved on from the tried-and-true 8-pin PSU cables with the GeForce RTX 4000 sequence playing cards. The brand new standardized cable is the now-infamous 12VHPWR cable, and it’s been a poor exhibiting throughout. As of RTX 4000, customers have needed to double and triple-check that the connector is totally seated because of it being susceptible to meltdowns. The usual has since been up to date a tad to be safer, however the brand new RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 GPUs include their very own set of issues. In truth, latest stories recommend that the 12VHPWR is as soon as once more resulting in meltdowns, as per data from der8auer, of all folks.

Nvidia’s 12VHPWR energy cable might be a fireplace hazard for halo-tier GPUs

PC {hardware} engineer and YouTuber Roman Hartung, identified below his der8auer alias, has found that the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 with a 12VHPWER cable could also be susceptible to excessive overheating. Particularly, the connector itself reached temperatures of over 150 levels Celsius, and the difficulty could have one thing to do with the way it handles present distribution.

Observe, too, that der8auer’s report comes mere days after the primary identified instance of a 12VHPWR connector melting down in a Founder’s Version RTX 5090. The unfortunate consumer despatched over his broken {hardware} to der8auer for him to take a look at, which then led to the creation of the video featured above. It’s not a very good have a look at all, and it’s nonetheless too early to say the place the issue is with absolute certainty, besides.

The issue isn’t common, both. System integrator firm Falcon Northwest has posted on Reddit exhibiting proof that they haven’t been capable of replicate der8auer’s findings in any significant method. Which means we could also be taking a look at a localized difficulty of some kind (i.e. a defective batch of GPUs), however extra testing is critical earlier than we all know for positive.

In the event you’ve determined to skip the cutting-edge RTX 5000 GPUs since you’ve obtained a high-end RTX 4000 card, don’t be so positive that you just’re a-ok, both. Gaming web site DSO Gaming stories that their test-rig RTX 4090 has been having comparable issues, although its 12VHPWR connector has been totally seated. The poor factor melted down in its socket, solely to proceed working as if nothing occurred. Had they not checked their rig, they could by no means have identified one thing was amiss, so make certain that you do the identical simply to be protected.

Thus far, solely the highest finish of Nvidia’s product lineup seems to be affected. This is smart, too, as a result of the halo-level RTX merchandise draw an unholy quantity of energy whenever you take transient spikes into consideration. The extra energy a GPU attracts, the extra warmth it has to dissipate. It’s a tad ridiculous to see that the issue may very well be with the ability connector this time round fairly than the GPU itself.

On a closing observe, simply do your self a favor and test your GPU energy cables when the chance exhibits. It prices you actually nothing to take action, and because the DSO Gaming instance exhibits, it’s seemingly potential for the ability cable to energy by means of (ha-ha) the burning and proceed working with out the tip consumer ever noticing one thing was up. Home fires are an enormous no-no for apparent causes, and till we all know for positive what the heck is occurring, a tiny little bit of vigilance will be the approach to go. These issues don’t appear to be current on lower-end graphics playing cards (i.e., the 4070 lineup and under), however test simply to make sure as a result of the 12VHPWR energy cable is an increasing number of suspicious as time goes on.