Some of Nvidia's RTX 4090 power adapters are, err... melting

Bad news for RTX 4090 owners this morning. Reports are coming in that the 16-pin power adapter for Nvidia's flagship RTX 40 series GPU is getting so hot it's actually melting the hardware, which is... err... not something you want happening inside your PC case.

The RTX 4090 has only been out for a few weeks, launching on October 12th earlier this month, but owners of the power-hungry GPU have been flocking to Reddit to share their experiences of their overheating power adapters. Industry testers are also now starting to share their own findings online, with HardwareLuxx, Igor's Lab and TecLab reporting similar issues.

Part of the problem seems to stem from users bending the adapter at home - sometimes a necessary evil when you're trying to fit the darn thing inside your case. However, this bending is causing some cables to become loose, which in turn is leading to temperature problems. Indeed, WccfTech are reporting temperatures of 100 degrees Celsius+ in their testing, which is *checks notes* yep, definitely too high.

Now the designs of the individual manufacturers are also increasingly coming into focus. Three community members with a 12VHPWR PSU adapter from be quiet! have already posted in the forum. Individual pins came loose from the connector. No fire started! pic.twitter.com/L0sEEqZVoX

— Andreas Schilling 🇺🇦 (@aschilling) October 25, 2022

The horror has a face - NVIDIA’s hot 12VHPWR adapter for the GeForce RTX 4090 with a built-in breaking point. Cut open, analyzed and disposed of in the trash. A feast for the fire fighters #nvidia #rtx4090 #meltinghttps://t.co/EDK1dMw0GM pic.twitter.com/YsWxyBykqv

— Igor Wallossek (@IgorWallossek) October 27, 2022

Fortunately, Nvidia seem to be aware of the problem and are calling for third party manufacturers to send their damaged cards in for inspection.

Also fortunately, our hardware editor James hasn't (yet) encountered any of these prolems himself in his testing, but he found plenty of other problems in his RTX 4090 review that gave him cause for concern, including its high price: "How much? For a GPU that gets confused and upset running at resolutions below 4K, and seems to have trouble with older DLSS versions unless it's paired with similarly bleeding-edge CPU? There might be a tiny core of enthusiasts hungry for the best performance at any cost, but for everyone else, the RTX 4090's barriers to entry will rule it out as a serious upgrade option."