As time goes on, the evidence that NVIDIA may have rushed the release of their 5000 series GPUs continues to mount. The latest example comes from Hardware Luxx’s Andreas Schilling, who recently shared thermal camera images showing the 5090’s 12V-2×6 cable reaching over 150°C, more than 300°F.
With temperatures high enough to cause a third-degree burn in about a second, the hotspot was noticed at the Dark Power 13 PSU, while the GPU in question was a watercooled RTX 5090 Frostbite by Inno3D, with a power consumption of 600W. When asked about the cable’s mating cycles, Andreas mentioned that it had gone through “a handful” on the PSU side and “several hundred” on the GPU side – far exceeding the 30-cycle lifespan of the 12V-2×6 connector.
After shutting down and inspecting the setup, Andreas found that while the cable and plug were still intact, there was noticeable evidence of thermal stress, which wasn’t surprising given that the 150 centigrade temperature was registered on the surface, suggesting that temperatures inside the cable could have been even higher.
“This has nothing to do with the graphics card and can happen with every RTX 5090 pushing the power delivery to the limit,” the author noted. “This is no joke and will forever remain a weak point of this generation. I have zero trust in that solution of any kind.”
Previously, Reddit user ivan6953 also reported their RTX 5090’s power cable overheating, but they weren’t as lucky as Andreas, as their cable actually melted under stress. Further investigation revealed that user error and third-party cables weren’t the cause, with the issue likely being specific to the RTX 5090 Founders Edition models.
Don’t forget to join our 80 Level Talent platform and our new Discord server, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, TikTok, and Threads, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.
