RTX 5000 on too few cables: RTX 5090 goes with 3 × 8 PCIe pins, RTX 5080 but not with 2 × 8 79 comments
What actually happens if you don’t run the NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 5090 (test) with 575 watts TDP on a 600 watt 12V-2×6 cable or adapter with only three instead of four PCIe cables to 8 pin? Techtip tried it with two custom designs from ASUS and ZOTAC.
Nvidia officially says that
The Nvidia Geforce RTX 5090 comes with 575 watts TDP, the Asus Rog Geforce RTX 5090 astral in the performance bios even 600 watts. In order to provide this electrical output, either a 12V-2×6 (formerly 12VHPWR) connection with 600 watts (there are also 450, 400 and 150 watt variants) or a four-pin PCI Express 12V-2 × 6-L adapter The adapter is included with every RTX 5090 (FE and custom designs).
Detailed RTX 5000 gate: the right power supply for 5090 and 5080 (with 12V-2×6 adapter)
RTX 5090 on three times 8 PCIe pins: is it possible?
But what if your own power supply only offers 8 PCI Express pins three times? Does the graphics card still boot?
Yes, it boots, the computer base can be confirmed using the example of the ASUS ROG GeForce RTX 5090 Astral (test) and the solid Zotac GeForce RTX 5090 (test shortly). And not only that: the TDP is then capped at 450 watts – just as high as three times 8 pin PCI Express can provide specific specifications.
Depending on the game and settings, it costs the test RTX 5090 with 575, 450 and 400 W against RTX 4090: on average above the UHD benchmark it was 5% loss. But it works how this repetition proved the example.
It should be exactly the same on a 12V-2×6 connection specified with 450 watts, as the adapter with only three cables reports this exactly.
Twice 8 pin PCI Express are too few
By the way, only 8 PCI Express pins, that is, a maximum of 300 watts, do not work. The RTX 5090 can’t run manually under 400 watts TDP – so that’s no surprise. In this case, the screen (without error message) simply remains black.
Topics: dangercase danger rtx 50 dangerz rtx 5090 graphics cavens nvidia nvidia Blackwell
An engineer by training, Alexandre shares his knowledge on GPU performance for gaming and creation.
