In the past week, several owners of Nvidia's new RTX 5090 Founders Edition GPUs have reported burning cable issues. One such case was shared on Reddit, where a user who upgraded from an RTX 4090 to an RTX 5090 reported “a burning smell while playing Battlefield 5” and later found their GPU cable burned on one side. Interestingly, this isn’t the first time this issue has surfaced.

The RTX 4090 FE, which introduced the new 16-pin (12+4 pin) 12VHPWR power connector, suffered from similar melting cable problems before Nvidia adopted the newer 12V-2×6 standard. For the RTX 5090 series, Nvidia assured users that “such issues will not occur with the RTX 50 series” and that they believed “these problems have been resolved.” However, despite these assurances, RTX 5090 FE GPUs are facing the same issue, though it doesn’t seem to affect all variants of the card equally.

GIGABYTE RTX 5090 reportedly shows no burning cable issues

This comes from Twitter/X, where user Andreas Schilling shared uneven current distribution in the RTX 5090 FE and RTX 4090 FE, both showing severely spaced-out current levels across all six pins. For instance, in the RTX 5090, Pin 1 was outputting 2.7 A, while Pin 5 was at 7.6 A. A similar situation was seen in the RTX 4090, where the first pin was delivering just 3 A, while the second pin was outputting 8.7 A, showing a difference of more than 5 A between the two.

However, unlike the FE edition, the Gigabyte AORUS RTX 5090 was also on the list, and that graphics card showed no uneven current distribution. In fact, all six pins were close to each other in current levels, with Pin 1 delivering 7.7 A and Pins 2 and 3 both outputting 7.8 A, while the rest showed only gradual and slight increases. This uneven current distribution could explain why the RTX 5090 FE is experiencing burning cable issues and why the Gigabyte RTX 5090 appears to be safe.

Reseating might help, but Nvidia could have offered an even better fix

Soon after their first post about uneven distribution, Andreas Schilling provided an update, stating that they reseated the cable on both ends (PSU and GPU) with the GeForce RTX 5090 FE, which resulted in perfect distribution across all six pins. However, that fix didn't work for every RTX 4090 owner, nor did it for every RTX 5090 owner. The Reddit poster who first mentioned the burning cable issues had already addressed this reseating fix, stating, “I am not distant from the PC-building world and know what I’m doing. The cable was securely fastened and clicked on both sides (GPU and PSU).”

So it seems like a more proper fix should have been implemented from Nvidia's side, and leaks suggest there was one behind the scenes. Recently leaked engineering samples show that RTX 5090 and RTX 4090 prototypes used four 12V-2×6 cables, yet the final production cards included only one. Given the RTX 5090's 600-watt TDP, using multiple cables could have distributed the load more effectively, minimizing the risk of burning issues. But for some reason, they didn't go that route. While the Green Team has introduced new ways with the RTX 5090 FE to address this issue, such as angled power connectors, it seems like a more reliable solution was left out.

About the Author

Hassam Nasir

Hassam boasts over seven years of professional experience as a dedicated PC hardware reviewer and writer.