NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50-series Blackwell Availability

[iroboto]

Just got mine. Gigabyte gooo.

Managed to get the one at the price point I wanted: 5080 FE price. 1450 CAD.

What a rush. I live 15-17 minutes from Brampton CC, but only 2 stop lights and a highway inbetween. Managed to get the last one of 3. The dude came in 30 seconds right after me.
My heart is still thumping, more fun than playing video games. Who knew driving around the city chasing down video cards would be so euphoric.

 

[DegustatoR]

It's fascinating that you could cut 5/6 of the load bearing conductors in a 12V-2x6 (H++) cable and you wouldn't know anything is wrong until you smelled the melting plastic.

Yeah cause you'd cut them in your sleep so you wouldn't know that you have actually done something wrong.

 

[homerdog]

Yeah cause you'd cut them in your sleep so you wouldn't know that you have actually done something wrong.

To word it differently, 5/6 of the pins could be making poor/no contact and you wouldn't know anything was wrong. a 3090Ti would not turn on in that situation.

 

[DegustatoR]

To word it differently, 5/6 of the pins could be making poor/no contact and you wouldn't know anything was wrong. a 3090Ti would not turn on in that situation.

That's brand new information! We've only spent several months on that topic during Lovelace launch so it is definitely time to return to that now because there's one plug which has melted somewhere.
Also this is completely different from cutting off wires in the cable. With a bad contact you don't need to cut anything.

 

[iroboto]

lol. Oh I can see why this narrative is playing out.

The store asked me if I wanted to pay for warranty incase I effed up my 12v. Now I have to think about PSU being sufficient. I think a 750Gold should be ok. But these are big cards. A bit worrisome to know people’s connectors are melting.

is there software to test your card before you decide to really work it out in a game ??

 

[homerdog]

I would urge anyone to watch the der8auer and buildzoid videos and draw their own conclusions. Buildzoid even has nice wiring diagrams that explain what is different with the 4090/5090 vs older 12VHPWR cards and why those changes are problematic.

It is still unclear what is wrong with der8auer's setup. It's probably not the case that he is just an idiot or he built his test bench in his sleep. Hoping he does some further investigation.

 

[DegustatoR]

A bit worrisome to know people’s connectors are melting.

Just plug it in completely and preferably don't bend the cable too much.
We're at a third year of people worldwide using these cables without any outstanding amounts of issues and that's with the old 12VHPWR sockets.

 

[Florin]

I would urge anyone to watch the der8auer and buildzoid videos and draw their own conclusions. Buildzoid even has nice wiring diagrams that explain what is different with the 4090/5090 vs older 12VHPWR cards and why those changes are problematic.

It is still unclear what is wrong with der8auer's setup. It's probably not the case that he is just an idiot or he built his test bench in his sleep. Hoping he does some further investigation.

Yeah I do find Buildzoid's claims worrying. It does not look like a very foolproof design.

On the other hand, Andreas Schiller is a legend, and his measurements on the power distribution across the 6 12V wires look solid (and he also has one for the same 5090 Aorus Master I'm using).
I guess it's something of a relief that it does not use the Nvidia reference PCB. I can see at least 2 shunts/power delivery channels on teardowns.

Overall, I remain of 2 minds on this issue. I've used 4070Ti/4080 with both Nvidia branded and OEM 12vhpwr adapters. My 5090 is plugged into a Corsair HX1000i which has 12v2x6 support.
Never had any problems (knock on wood). I reckon 4090 and 5090 owners do need to be paying close attention. Cards below that, well, far less of a concern.

 

[DegustatoR]

power distribution across the 6 12V wires

These wires are connected in the plug. There is no "power distribution" on them because of that, they all should get about the same amount of current. The only way for that to be different is if the connection inside the plug is somehow broken and all the power flows through just one of the pins - which is obviously not an intended behavior.

 

[homerdog]

On the other hand, Andreas Schiller is a legend, and his measurements on the power distribution across the 6 12V wires look solid (and he also has one for the same 5090 Aorus Master I'm using).
I guess it's something of a relief that it does not use the Nvidia reference PCB. I can see at least 2 shunts/power delivery channels on teardowns.

If the current is properly distributed across the wires then there is no problem. The problem is, if the current is not evenly distributed (for whatever reason) you wouldn't have any way to know. Some of the AIB designs may warn you but this is unclear. der8auer had to use thermal imaging and a clamp meter to figure out what was going on. His system would have functioned normally until it melted or caught fire. And even by the end of the video he didn't seem to know why this was happening. Hope he figures it out and lets us know.

 

[iroboto]

Prices just went up in Canada $300 per AIB card. I just lucked out. The same card I just bought earlier is now 1750CAD

 

[Florin]

These wires are connected in the plug. There is no "power distribution" on them because of that, they all should get about the same amount of current. The only way for that to be different is if the connection inside the plug is somehow broken and all the power flows through just one of the pins - which is obviously not an intended behavior.

Yeah so that begs the question, why are people seeing large differences in current flowing across the separate 12V wires?
There isn't any active balancing to complicate the matter. The only thing preventing (close to) equal distribution would be poor connections - or indeed actually broken wires.

Now, quite aside from the fact that ideally you'd want a design that would detect such a case and refuses to work (i.e. something like the 3090Ti), I think we can assume der8auer has made a good faith effort to check that his cable is faultless and is plugged in correctly.

 

[DegustatoR]

Yeah so that begs the question, why are people seeing large differences in current flowing across the separate 12V wires?

So far I've seen just two results with only one of them showing this behavior. It is quite a bit early to say "people" here.

The only thing preventing (close to) equal distribution would be poor connections

Not in case of wires.
Poor connection would put all the current on just some pins in the plug - this is why plugs are melting when not inserted properly (fully).
With wires connection shouldn't matter. The only way they would be overheating is if all the current in the cable between two plugs goes through just some of six (this number could be less or more probably) wires. And this could happen if the connection of all wires inside the plug is broken for some reason.

Honestly I think this is an even less likely failure scenario than the badly inserted plug.

 

[Kaotik]

The only way they would be overheating is if all the current in the cable between two plugs goes through just some of six (this number could be less or more probably) wires. And this could happen if the connection of all wires inside the plug is broken for some reason.

Honestly I think this is an even less likely failure scenario than the badly inserted plug.

Yet this is exactly the scenario happening in Der8auers video

 

[Ext3h]

These wires are connected in the plug. There is no "power distribution" on them because of that, they all should get about the same amount of current. The only way for that to be different is if the connection inside the plug is somehow broken and all the power flows through just one of the pins - which is obviously not an intended behavior.

Quite the opposite. It happened in both cases with exceptionally short, thick cables, and high quality connectors that were still within their rated plug cycle count.

We are talking about 5-6 mOhm of total resistance per wire (20cm, 16AWG) including connectors when it connects perfectly well.

A "mediocre" connection (minor oxidation, less contact area, imperfect press fit etc.) that's still well within tolerances could easily go up to 50 mOhm of resistance. That gives you already a 10:1 ratio in resistance and leads just to that 10:1 ratio in amperage observed.

This wouldn't happen with a longer wire, but it's fatal to run a bundle of short wires when there is no current balancing circuit at either end, and the baseline resistance ends up below the expected tolerances.

 

[DegustatoR]

Yet this is exactly the scenario happening in Der8auers video

We have no idea what exactly is happening in Der8auer's video.
I can think of a hundred ways to burn a GPU. Doesn't mean that any of them are an actual danger to the cards out there.

when there is no current balancing circuit at either end

The ends are fused, there is no need for any current balancing.

 

[homerdog]

BTW it was mentioned earlier there are two shunts on the 5090, and while that is apparently true on some models look at this:



They are in parallel?

At least the FE says YOLO and only has one instead of having 2 for no reason.

 

[iroboto]

I just figured out what a 12V2x6 is.

So, something that comes to mind is that all HDMI connectors can work into another. But not all HDMI cables are equal. Some can handle more bandwidth than others. Some with only 4K and HDR but no DV. Some 8K. Some 4K120.

Cables matter.
And I’m wondering if 3rd party cables designed in the past are not compatible with the 2025 cards. Which is Effed up, but worth considering. The PSU with an12V2X6 may have had enough juice to support a higher power draw, but if the cable was the older spec and not the newer spec we may be seeing that issues on burning.

Choosing to use the cables that come with the card should keep you safe from this. It’s just going to be ugly until you are told specifically that these 3rd party cables are up to 2025 spec.

 

[Ext3h]

We have no idea what exactly is happening in Der8auer's video.
I can think of a hundred ways to burn a GPU. Doesn't mean that any of them are an actual danger to the cards out there.


The ends are fused, there is no need for any current balancing.

The ends are only fused on the PCB side of the connectors. Not on the wire side. So you have 2 connectors in addition to the wire in each parallel strand. Just do the math what happens when the connectors vary between <1 and 20 mOhm of resistance each, but the wire only adds another fixed 5 mOhm. Remember that the power dissipation on parallel resistors is inverse proportional to their individual resistance, so the lowest resistance path gets the hottest. Total losses are still reasonable for both average and worst case distribution, but it's easily enough to go beyond the rating for the individual wire or pin. If my math isn't totally wrong Der8auer had a minimum of 70W of power dissipation on the hottest wire due to simply unbalanced currents.

Fun fact, the WireView toy of his own brand actually shares that design fault of directly bridging the connector on the PCB side, while also failing to detect either a single wire taking all the load, nor detecting a single pin overheating.

 

[DegustatoR]

The ends are only fused on the PCB side of the connectors. Not on the wire side.

The wires are connecting to the PCB so why does that matter?
The only way this would be an issue is if the wires would come off or be torn/cut off, and this has been the first theory which was debunked back when the plugs started melting at 40 series launch.
IMO this whole test is incomplete and tells nothing of value without testing other cables with the same card.