Nvidia's RTX 4090 May Consume too much Power for its Power Connector

$1,599 from Nvidia A very powerful graphics card, the GeForce RTX 4090 has a significant power draw in exchange for its performance. Similar to some of the RTX 3000-series cards, Nvidia supplies the card with power via a novel 16-pin 12VHPWR power connector. To save some board space, up to four 8-pin GPU power cables can be connected to the 12VHPWR adaptor, which then connects to the GPU's socket. The 12VHPWR connectors of at least two RT 4090 customers, however, have reportedly overheated and melted while in operation. We don't know the precise setup of each user's PC, so treat these concerns with a grain of salt as they come from Reddit. The power supply, the specific type of graphics card (a Gigabyte RTX 4090 Gaming OC for one user, an Asus RTX 4090 TUF Gaming OC Edition for the other), and a variety of other elements could have caused the connectors to overheat. Nvidia, for its part, told a researcher that it was "investigating the complaints," that it was "in communication with the first owner," and that it was going to get in touch with the other owner. Nvidia was contacted again, and if it has further information to give, we'll update this piece. Hardware hypothesizes that the problem might be brought on by a cable bend that is too close to the power connection, which could cause some of its pins to "misalign" or become unseated, potentially leading to an uneven power load across the pins. They will continue to monitor the situation until it is more certain whether these were isolated user errors or a symptom of a larger, systemic issue with the RTX 4090 series.