NVIDIA 5000 Series Cards Are Having Serious Teething Troubles

The Rockiest Launch Ever?


Image Credit: NVIDIA

We were as excited as anyone for the launch of NVIDIA’s Blackwell cards, but if you’re raring to buy one it might be worth just hanging on a little until some small but important issues are sorted out. What issues? Glad you asked!


Melting Power Connectors Again? Really?

Image Credit: ivan6953/Reddit


You might remember stories going around about the RTX 4090 and its 12VHPWR connector melting or catching fire because of a combination of factors that include poor design, too much power, and in some cases honest user error.

Well, those issues are back again, and there are multiple reports on the web of melting power cables. YouTuber der8auer posted a video showing how there’s simply too many amps and wattage moving through some of those wires.

Then, other outlets have had a hard time replicating the issues he points out, but either way there’s enough confusion right now warrant holding off on buying a 5090, even assuming you coil somehow find stock of one.


Dying RTX 5090s


Possibly even worse than a melting power cable is an entire dead GPU! As reported in Techpowerup there are multiple reports of RTX 5090 cards dying after a driver update, seemingly bricked for good.

This issue is showing up regardless of board partner, and affects both the standard and modified Chinese export models. Early investigations show that this might be an issue with the implementation of PCIe 5.0 on these latest cards, but that’s not confirmed yet.


Missing ROPs!


Image Credit: NVIDIA


On a GPU you’ll find ROPs or Raster Operating Units that contain the processors that do the actual work of crunching those graphics numbers.

Some owners of 5090s, 5080s, and 5070Ti cards noticed that their GPUs were reporting fewer ROPs than the specs said they should. This wasn’t just a glitch, these cards actually perform worse than those who don’t have the missing silicon. So there’s a physical issue with these GPUs that can’t be fixed.


We Test Everything We Sell


Every new generation of hardware has some bumps at the start, but this might be the roughest NVIDIA launch we can remember.

However, if you buy a Blackwell-equipped workstation from us, you won’t have to worry about nasty surprises. We carefully burn-in and test every computer we ship, and even if your workstation develops issues once in your hands, we offer lifetime labor and support, and offer industry-leading turnaround times for warranty replacements, because we know your time is worth money.