So, after some stories that surfaced online about the melting issues of the 12VHPWR power cables for the RTX 5090 and the RTX 4090, I’ve decided to check the one we’ve been using these two years for the RTX 4090. So, what has happened to that power cable? Has it melted? Let’s find out.
Before continuing, I want to make it crystal clear that we’ve been using the official power cable for the RTX 4090 for over two years. We haven’t removed it when testing different GPUs. For instance, for benchmarking the RTX 3080, we’ve been using its own power cable. Same applies to the RTX 5080 and the RTX 5090. Moreover, the power cable is still working, and we haven’t encountered any stability issues.
Here are the full specs of our main PC system.
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D
Corsair CPU Cooler H170i iCUE Elite
G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo RGB 32GB DDR5 RAM at 6000Mhz
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Founder’s Edition
Corsair PSU HX Series 1200W
Corsair 7000X iCUE RGB TG Full Tower
Gigabyte Motherboard X670E AORUS MASTER
Windows 10 64-bit
So, here are some screenshots from the power cable. As you can see, it has signs of degradation. The plastic around one connector has been slightly melted. So yes, the melting issues are real.
Since some of you may have trouble seeing the melting issue, here are two additional closer shots. You can clearly see it here. If I had to guess, the plastic melted and then “broke”.
As I said, the power cable and the RTX 4090 GPU have been working without issues. They still work without issues. And yes, when I installed the cable, I made sure it was plugged properly. Moreover, the melted connector is not as bad as those you might have seen online. However, we can all agree that there are things that need to be improved here.
For science, I also tried the power cable with the RTX 5090. I did not experience any crashes or stability issues. The RTX 5090 worked fine, and it ran games at full speed without any throttling issues or crashes.
So, at least for now, even though the plastic around the connector has melted, the power cable works. In case you’re wondering, no. During our benchmarks all these years, I have never removed the power cable of the RTX 4090 (to use it with any other GPU). For the other GPUs (RTX 3080, RTX 4090 and RTX 5090), I’m using their own official cables. I don’t know what may happen in the next two or three years. I’ll be using this power cable when using the RTX 4090 for our tests. So, I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Right now, the power cables of the RTX 5080 and the RTX 5090 are completely fine, without any issues of degradation. Then again, we’ve only used these GPUs for a month. So, things might change in one or two years.
We’ve already informed NVIDIA about our findings. Plus, NVIDIA is investigating the issues of the melted RTX 5090 issues that surfaced earlier this month.
Finally, here is an interesting video about the evolution of the NVIDIA 12VHPWR connector. I don’t know if this is 100% legit. However, it falls in line with what we’ve all seen so far. Der8auer also had an interesting video about this. So, make sure to watch both of them.
Stay tuned for more!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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