Nvidia’s RTX 4090 has just about everything going for it in terms of performance, as you’ll see from our RTX 4090 review benchmarks. One if its biggest problems (aside from the eye-watering price) would be its power draw, with a high 450W TDP. Custom models can even reach as high as 600W when overclocked, making the risk of melting connectors even higher.
One tech repair YouTuber claims that 4090s are on their list of repairs day in, day out. The issue of melting power connectors is nothing new to this flagship card, but you would’ve figured it would have been fixed once and for all by now. Even a change in connector from Nvidia hasn’t quite solved the problem.
Melted RTX 4090 connectors need fixing every day
NorthridgeFix is a popular YouTube channel centered around tech repairs, with GPUs being a big part of that. In a recent video regarding 4090 connectors, it is claimed that new RTX 4090 comes in to their store to be repaired every day – ‘not a single day goes by without us working on a 4090’.
The risk of melting has been persistent ever since Nvidia switched to the high-power 12VHPWR connector. They since remedied this by upgrading to the newer 12V-2×6 standard, but the melting problem has remained when using new CableMod adapters. CableMod recalled over 25,000 angled adapters recently, but NorthridgeFix blames the poor foundation rather than the adapters themselves.
The revised 12V-2×6 version of the 12VHPWR connector features shorter sense pins, limiting power if the cable is not fully connected, a common cause of the melting. Despite this, up to 200 connectors have needed to be replaced by NorthridgeFix in a single month – though it is not clear how many of these are using the new standard.
Should I worry about my RTX 4090 melting?
If you want the very best graphics card on the market, then the RTX 4090 is miles ahead of the rest. It’s flagship status has attracted many customers, despite many reports of the melting connectors issue. Nvidia generally put this down to user error due to users not fully and securely plugging in the connector, hence the need for the shorter sensing pins in the 12V-2X6 revision. If you haven’t already, make sure that these cables are properly connected.
It is recommended that you use the official Nvidia power adapters or cables provided with your power supply. At this point, third party connectors are much harder to trust – especially if you have plans to overclock or use a particularly beefy custom model. Given the problems we’ve seen so far, we’re keen to see what Nvidia changes in the upcoming RTX 50 series. It doesn’t seem like AMD or Intel have any incentive to switch to 12VHPWR or 12V-2×6 either way.
ASUS ROG Strix RTX 4090 OC
GPU
AD102
CUDA cores
16,384
VRAM
24GB GDDR6X
Memory bus
384-bit
Bandwidth
1,008 GB/sec
Base clock
2235 MHz
Boost clock
2610 MHz
