If you recall a couple of years and several centuries ago when the RTX 4090 launched, a bunch of them melted. Okay, that’s hyperbolic, but a small but notable number of 40-series cards had issues with the new 12VHPWR connector setup that caused cards to short out and fail. Nvidia says that won’t happen with the new RTX 50 series.
Company representatives said as much to an audience at the RTX AI PC Day (woof, alphabet soup) conference in South Korea. According to QuasarZone.com (machine translated, spotted by VideoCardz.com), representatives say the switch to a slightly newer, tweaked power connector for ATX version 3.01 solved the issue.
“It is expected that such a phenomenon will not occur in the RTX 50 series. We made some changes to the connector to respond to the issue at the time, and now, about two years later, I understand that such problems do not occur.”
So there you have it, the slight adjustments in the 12V-2×6 power connector setup have the problem licked. Of course, there’s no guarantee that entirely new and equally disastrous issues won’t befall these new Nvidia cards. But you could say the same about any new design. It’s good to see that Nvidia has made note of the 40-series issues and tested things, though, at least according to them.
Author: Michael Crider, Staff Writer, PCWorld
Michael is a 10-year veteran of technology journalism, covering everything from Apple to ZTE. On PCWorld he's the resident keyboard nut, always using a new one for a review and building a new mechanical board or expanding his desktop "battlestation" in his off hours. Michael's previous bylines include Android Police, Digital Trends, Wired, Lifehacker, and How-To Geek, and he's covered events like CES and Mobile World Congress live. Michael lives in Pennsylvania where he's always looking forward to his next kayaking trip.