Not content with waiting for their 16-pin cable to potentially burn up, one intrepid modder has given their GeForce RTX 5090 supplementary 8-pin power connectors. In doing so, Redditor DallasGrave has managed to spread power across all three wires, lessening the operating temperature of that all-important 12V-2×6 in the process.
Sharing their work to the PCMR subreddit, DallasGrave explains this mod consists of soldering a PCB to the contacts of the 12V-2×6 header. Once connected, power from the dual 8-pin plus the original 12V-2×6 is transmitted via the same power lanes on the PCB. Through this approach, you could still continue to exclusively use the 12V-2×6, or the 12V-2×6 plus one 8-pin, and the card should still work.
The idea is to spread the 575W TDP of the RTX 5090 between all three connectors to reduce heat build up on the 12V-2×6. According to the modder, this change dropped the current load down to 3A on the 16-pin cable, which helped maintain temperatures below 40°C during a 48-hour 550W load.
Making modifications like this would absolutely void your warranty, but DallasGrave claims they’re partnering with PNY to offer this mod under warranty. Better still, the mod shouldn’t prove expensive. All being well, this may be one of the prime solutions for those worrying about melting Nvidia GeForce cards.
We’ve personally fallen victim to melting 16-pin power cables, destroying both our GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition and power supply, and welcome efforts from the community and manufacturers to stop this from happening. We’ve seen all manner of cables and adapters featuring temperature monitoring, system-shutdown capabilities, and more come to light, but these solutions still don’t remedy the inherent risk of the base design which most folks will use.
For more GPU chatter, check out our best graphics card guide.
