It’s hard to escape the feeling that GeForce RTX 50 Series graphics cards are as powerful as they are problematic as yet another issue concerning Nvidia’s latest stock has emerged. Unfortunately, this problem lies in the design of the pixel pusher’s hardware and affects a wide number of (if not all) models on the market.
The issue at hand is that of hotspots, separate from the GPU hotspot reporting problem resolved in a recent hotfix. Following an investigation by Igor’s Lab, it appears that GeForce RTX 50 Series cards are prone to creating ‘heat nests’ resulting in PCB temperatures in excess of 100°C in the worst case scenario.
Pointing a thermal camera at GeForce RTX 5080, 5070 Ti, 5070, and 5060 Ti, the result is the same. Igor provides images of a Palit RTX 5080 and PNY 5070, but claims to have observed similar behaviour on MSI cards as well as those from other board partners.
Igor states that the root cause of this hotspot stems from PCB layout, namely the small number of routes power takes through copper layers in tandem with insufficient cooling. While there’s nothing functionally improper about this design, such high temperatures naturally will have a detrimental effect on the longevity of the card’s materials. Mo’ heat, mo’ problems.
In a bid to demonstrate that a solution to this issue is possible with a small amount of tinkering, Igor crafted their own pad mod to alleviate temperatures. In doing so, they were able to reduce the temperature of the problematic hotspot by a welcome 8.8°C. I strongly recommend giving Igor’s piece a read for an in-depth look at this problem and their fix.
Here’s hoping that Nvidia and its manufacturers can take Igor’s findings and implement them into future designs, either as refreshes for existing models or next-generation cards. I’ve no doubt some internal review is taking place to mitigate further instances of cable melting and missing ROPs, so might as well throw this issue on the pile too.
For more on everything Nvidia, GPUs, and general tech gubbins make sure to follow Club386 on Google News. The team’s flying out to Computex later this year, so expect a bounty of stuff to check out in the coming weeks.
