A scorching potato: Energy supply-related controversy has surrounded Nvidia’s monstrous new flagship graphics card since earlier than it launched. Customers lately criticized the corporate after studies of melting energy cables, however Nvidia claims solely a handful of incidents occurred and that it was person error in charge.
Nvidia issued an official assertion in the present day relating to situations of melting energy cords for the GeForce RTX 4090. The corporate is conscious of about 50 circumstances worldwide, claiming they outcome from customers improperly plugging within the cables.
The difficulty began in late October when Reddit customers reported energy connectors for the 4090 melting on the tip of the cable and the GPU’s connection port. Suspicion shortly shifted towards the facility adaptors Nvidia shipped with the playing cards to make them appropriate with older energy provides.
The RTX 4090’s 16-pin 12VHPWR cables are meant for ATX 3.0 PSUs, however Nvidia knew many purchasers would not need to spend extra money upgrading from their ATX 2.0 fashions. A number of shops have criticized the corporate’s adapter answer.
In September, the Peripheral Part Interconnect Particular Curiosity Group (PCI-SIG) raised a possible over-current challenge with the adaptors that Nvidia claims it mounted. An investigation by Igor’s Lab discovered that the adaptors are so fragile that plugging or unplugging them can injury the connections. Cable provider CableMod warned that bending the cables at a brief distance is unsafe.
Nonetheless, a Players Nexus investigation arrived nearer to Nvidia’s conclusion. It mentioned issues solely happen when the connector is pulled at an angle or partially disconnected. The problem might additionally contain international object particles. Like Nvidia, Players Nexus estimates the 4090 has an especially low failure charge.
The controversy escalated additional when person Lucas Genova filed a class-action lawsuit towards Nvidia, accusing the corporate of committing fraud by distributing harmful, faulty adaptors. Regardless of findings blaming person error, Genova claims his expertise with GPU set up ensured he used finest practices.
Evidently Nvidia’s adaptors are secure for most individuals if appropriately linked. Customers who aren’t certain concerning the pack-in adaptors can discover third-party choices or improve to an ATX 3.0 PSU, which does not want an adapter for the RTX 4090. After spending over $1,600 for the graphics card, dropping lower than $200 on a PSU is a small additional step.
Whereas AMD tacitly admitted that none of its new RDNA 3 GPUs can immediately compete with the 4090, it will possibly declare that they do not want adapters to be used with ATX 2.0 energy provides. The Radeon RX 7900 XTX and XT launch on December 13 for $999 and $899, respectively.