The launch of GeForce RTX 50 Series hasn’t been an easy road. Stock issues continue to plague availability of RTX 5090 and 5080 and now more serious problems are emerging. Turns out Nvidia’s flagship graphics card has another chapter to add to the ongoing 12VHPWR cable melting saga.
Following a Reddit post containing a melted GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition, 12VHPWR cable, and power supply, YouTuber der8auer contacted the user to request they send over the damaged components for analysis. Following a conversation and inspection, he concludes that user error is not to blame. Instead, this is more likely a hardware fault.
Examining the cable and its pins provide clues as to the cause, but it isn’t until der8bauer takes a thermal camera to his own GeForce RTX 5090 that the root cause of the problem potentially becomes clearer. Under a 575W load, two of the twelve wires feeding the card were unusually warm and their temperature at the PSU connection reached a worrying 150°C after four minutes.
Using a current clamp, der8auer was able to measure that 22A were passing through the problematic cables. If performing correctly, they should carry around 6-8A, so we’re talking a worrying increase. It’s unclear whether this problem solely affects Founders Edition models, or even a handful of defective models.
I imagine a formal investigation and response from Nvidia will follow in due course, Club386 is already liaising with the brand in response to issues the site experienced during its own GeForce RTX 5090 review. Here’s hoping that the company can deploy a non-invasive fix, perhaps via a firmware or driver update.
Given the massive difference in power draw between GeForce RTX 5090 and other RTX 50 Series cards, I don’t expect that similar problems will rear their head on RTX 5080. Similarly, RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5070 should be safe but only time can tell. At least there’s no chance of this issue appearing on RTX 5060 Ti and RTX 5060 given their rumoured 8-pin power connectors, so power to budget gamers I suppose.
