RTX 5090 modded to draw 800W just about surpasses $10,000 RTX 6000 Pro in benchmark test
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German YouTuber and owner of Thermal Grizzly, Roman Hartung, also known as der8auer, has modded one of his RTX 5090s with a shunt mod to move its power limit. The RTX 5090, by default, has a TDP of 575W, but with this mod, that is shifted and now can max out at 800W.
With this extra power available to the graphics card, Roman can overclock it even higher. As a liquid-cooled model, it can surprisingly handle a significant thermal load and doesn’t require liquid nitrogen to achieve its full potential. All while still using the 12VHPWR power connector that many people were worried about burning up, as seen in plenty of Reddit posts.
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With this solution, the RTX 5090 was able to achieve over 3GHz in clock speed (the Astral OC is set to 2.6GHz by default) and draw over 760W, even though GPU-Z reports it as drawing 557W, which is the expected value for the card. With that power, the card was able to achieve a result of 158 FPS in 3DMark’s Speedway benchmark.
With this config, the card reaches core temps over 60°C and the memory gets to an even toastier 80°C. The sensor pins in the 12VHPWR connector go red with warnings as some of them get 13.5A surging through them, which could soon cause problems over prolonged periods of time. All of that, and the modded 5090 beats out the RTX 6000 Pro card by 0.6 FPS.
RTX 5090 3DMark Speedway results, Source der8auer EN, YouTube
RTX 5090 800W HWInfo stats and power connector amperage, Source der8auer EN, YouTube
RTX 5090 800W power draw on plug, Source der8auer EN, YouTube
RTX 5090 800W shunt mod, Source der8auer EN, YouTube
How does shunt modding work, and is it worth it?
On the PCB of the card, there are two resistors just by the power input of the card that are rated with just two milliohms of resistance. So with the known resistor value, the drop in voltage across the resistor will be dependent on the current, and therefore the controller knows the power draw and can adjust in accordance with what it can take.
So to modify the card, you can add resistors in parallel to the two already on board, and with that, the total resistance is increased. It is increased by about 30% with the ones that have been added, so it will fool the card into thinking it’s taking in less power than it can, fooling the card into drawing around 30% more than it is designed to do.
De8auer says it is possible to use the card daily, but only since it is a water-cooled card that can handle the extra thermal load the extra power creates. So, if you have the funds to get the Astral and have the finesse to mod it and overclock it, it could be possible. It also might require you to pay closer attention to your power connector.
der8auer’s mod video
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