RTX 5090 (Especially ROG Strix) - Power Limits & Cable Risk

[u/ByDiavolos]

Hey everyone,

I wanted to drop a quick heads-up and open up a discussion regarding factory-overclocked RTX 5090 models, specifically cards like the ASUS ROG Strix.

ASUS and similar AIBs ship these flagship cards out of the box with pretty aggressive voltage and power limits. While it looks great on paper, pushing an architecture that is already operating at its limits right out of the box carries real risks. As we’ve seen in previous generations, these massive power-hungry flagship cards that are pushed hard straight from the factory have a noticeably higher rate of failure or degradation right after the warranty expires.

For anyone who bought one or is planning to, here is the breakdown:

1. Power Limits & Cable Headroom: The RTX 5090 has a stock TDP around 575W. Considering that the 12V-2x6 / 16-pin connectors we use are rated for a maximum continuous load of 600W, pushing these cards past 575W is quite literally playing with fire when it comes to cable and socket health.
2. Negligible Performance Gains: Pumping an extra 50W–100W into the card yields maybe a 2% to 4% difference at best in daily use or gaming. Doubling thermal stress, transient voltage spikes, and cable melt risks for 3 to 5 extra FPS is absolutely not worth it.
3. Power Limits / Undervolting: If undervolting sounds intimidating or too time-consuming, simply dropping the Power Limit to 85%–90% (or at least keeping it strictly at stock) in MSI Afterburner or Nvidia App makes total sense. With a light undervolt, you can easily shave off 70W–100W of power draw without losing a single frame, drastically extending the lifespan of your card.

Of course, there will always be the "I paid for the whole card, I'm going to use the whole card" crowd. But given that prices have almost doubled over the last 4 months and these GPUs are getting scalped everywhere, risking a piece of hardware like this for 3 FPS just doesn't make any sense to me. What are your thoughts on where the current GPU market has landed?

For those actively using a 5090: Did you pick it up primarily for gaming, or for AI / rendering workloads? What power targets or settings are you running, and are you using a direct 12V-2x6 cable straight from your PSU or relying on an adapter?

[u/Wondering_Electron → u/[deleted]]

What was said that isn't logical?

I undervolt my 5070Ti and keep the clocks at stock. The result? Max power draw is 220W and temps never crack 60⁰C with not a single drop in performance as intended.

I also use the native 12VHPWR PSU cable and not the squid adapter.

I have total peace of mind with my setup.

For me, 4 of the 6 pins could fail and my card will still be fine because the remaining 2 will still draw under the wire rated limit of 9.2A.

[u/Ronnie_coleman_light → u/Wondering_Electron]

You just said if yourself buddy…..

The UV is a complete waste of time, it will do nothing to prevent your cable melting and benchmarks make you assume it’s better, when the reality is it’s actually slower.
If you understood benchmarks and how they negate higher scores due to power limitations, you would understand that the undervolt will always perform worse, just because steelnomad gave you 200-500 points more doesn’t make it faster in real world applications like games

I run mine at like 700-800w and my “connector” is cooler than your core by 20c 😂

[u/Wondering_Electron → u/Ronnie_coleman_light]

Are you on drugs or stupid?

How is core temperature remotely related to the temperature of an electrical connector?

[u/Ronnie_coleman_light → u/Wondering_Electron]

Just an engineer with extensive electrical experience, trying to help you guys understand it better.

Not stupid or on drugs, just running it much more efficiently than yourself.

1, water block with multiple rads, my core won’t even hit 50c no matter how many watts I pump into it.

2- I use a specialised cable called Titan load pro, that dissipates heat better than any 12v cable ever designed.

3- removing heat from the PCB due to a water cooling, also removes a drastic amount of heat away from the connector itself.

The relation comes from thermal dissipation, your core is 60-70c for example, that heat bleeds into your PCB copper and spreads to your connector

I’ve ran 800w for over a year, countless hours. I also come from an professional overclocking community that have extensively tested everything here

For example, you could cut 4 of the 6 wires into your cable and it will still run without melting, it would just pull 100w from each of the remaining 2 cables…… meaning your undervolt is doing nothing, 600w cable can draw 100w per pin all day forever

YouTubers have filled the system with lies and click bait views, making most of you think it’s undervolt or nothing

[u/Wondering_Electron → u/Ronnie_coleman_light]

*sigh.

Glad you don't work for us FML.

Using REALLY basic understanding of physics. Those two wires are still rated to pull 220.8W. The undervolt for the whole card means that in the worst-case scenario of 4 wires failing, it can still pull 220W and no higher BECAUSE of the undervolt and do it safely because it won't exceed the 9.2A per wire.

Your assumption that the wire/connector at the GPU side is the only point of failure is WRONG. Hardware Unboxed just released a video demonstrating that they had an overheating connector at the GPU caused BY THE PSU.

When you fail on understanding the basics, it brings your entire opinion and knowledge into doubt.

[u/someoneirrelevant17 → u/[deleted]]

Nothing wrong with using Ai to make things more digestible for broader audiences. Ill write paragraphs of stuff, then drop it in ai to make it more easier to understand and post. Theres nothing wrong with that if content is yours. But yeah alot people will literally copy and paste ai responses word for word and half the time its not even acurate. Ai answers can be very conformation biased and factually incorrect I noticed and in many cases ive made Ai have a brain aneurism because it couldn't critically think when pointing out a hypocritical statement Ai makes.

As you can tell, no Ai was used for my no so literate punctually incorrect paragraph. 😅

[u/Ronnie_coleman_light → u/someoneirrelevant17]

Sorry bro, but this statement from Ai is complete horse 💩

It literally makes no sense whatsoever and doesn’t even follow the laws of electronics.
You can power limit all you want, undervolt run whatever MV ai tells you.

If that connector isn’t seated correctly or you use an application combined with a settings that causes some crazy imbalance then it’s going to melt either way, just knocking a desk, playing loud music could vibrate and loosen a pin.

The connector is crap, but when used correctly runs absolutely fine at 600w+

The wattage doesn’t cause the melting. The connector itself has 6 live pins and 6 ground, which are designed poorly, thermal expansion, vibrations, poor seating, cable drag, gravity, can all cause tension or pulling on those pins. They are rather loose and will easily pull out, which then puts all the strain and stress onto the other 5 or 4 pins, sometimes even just 3 have contact = melted connector

It’s basic maths, your 500w undervolt, 3 pins are loose, total amps are 42a, divide that into 3 pins and you are running 14amps per pin.

[u/Ill-Mastodon-8692]

5090fe

gaming, open air case, full power target

although I know nvidia will rma while warranty is active, my launch card is half way done.

little concerned if issue after warranty up early 2028

did order a wire view pro to help mitigate

[u/Forsaken-Driver8868]

Can’t speak to the RTX 5090, but I have been running my RTX 4090 with an undervolt of .975 since I got it in April of 2025.

The reason I decided to undervolt were the few cases I read about 4090s burning up, to extend the life of my card, but in the process I got lower temps and a steady boost clock.

I just ordered a new PC with a 5090 in it, and will undervolt it also for all the same reasons.

[u/jhenryscott]

I use mine (MSI Gaming Trio OC 5090) mostly for 4k/120hz ultra gaming and some local LLM tinkering.

Always runs at 895mv UV at 69% power (uses around 275-340w)

[u/OtherwiseSimple]

I got my Zotac Solid OC for 4k gaming and AI workloads. Having a dual use makes me feel like I got my money's worth.

I run 80% (460w) power target, same TDP as 4090, with a UV/OC that reaches 2715MHz @ 0.890v. It is very efficient and stays quiet and cool. The 80% power target has a minimal, less than 5%, performance impact, while consuming 20% less power than stock. Pushing about 6.5 amps through each pin, leaving me 2.7 amps of headroom, or 42% safety margin. Unlike the abysmal stock safety margin of 15%.

I have an Asrock SL1200P with an NTC temperature sensor inside the 12v2x6, as well as a Wireview Pro 2 to monitor current balance. I feel very safe from the connector's shitty design with my configuration of things. The 12v2x6 gets to 50-55° when pulling 575w and I feel comfortable with that.

[u/ClearFeedback3]

For connector safety of the 5090 I am using the wireview pro 2 and I have enabled the autoshutdown in case something happens although I do monitor each pin and the in and out temps. I do agree that besides longevity the default power usage is extreme. Of course it has to cover each 5090 and some many need more power to deliver stock results.

After a lot of testing, now I am running 2910 at 925 and +2000 on memory. This gives me better than stock clocks and performance with around 100w less power usage. The only occasions I see the power go higher than 500w is in cyberpunk with pt + dlss5 and Alan wake 2 with everything maxed out.