DLSS 5 Testing Ends in a Melted RTX 5090 Connector, Power Shoots Past 600 W

A melted power connector on an MSI GeForce RTX 5090 Gaming Trio OC has been reported during DLSS 5 Neural Rendering testing in NBA 2K27, with power draw exceeding 600 W, according to Videocardz. The incident, documented by a reader named erek, saw peak board power reach 613.5 W, surpassing MSI's 575 W rating, and the card stopped working after the connector's plastic melted and fused to the socket.

DLSS 5 seems to be contributing to increased power draw, and we have our first victim here. Videocardz reports a new melted-connector case on an MSI GeForce RTX 5090 Gaming Trio OC, which surfaced during DLSS 5 Neural Rendering testing in NBA 2K27 https://www.techpowerup.com/352223/dlss-5-officially-goes-live-september-3-with-nba-2k27-exclusive-to-rtx-50-series-blackwell-gpus , currently the only officially supported game. A reader nicknamed erek documented the incident, noting DLSS 5 pushed the card's power draw from around 450 W to over 600 W, which is above MSI's 575 W rating. A GPU-Z screenshot showed a peak board power reading of 613.5 W, which erek says held steady rather than spiking briefly. Erek reported the card stopped working shortly after, and a burning smell led him to find that the connector's plastic had melted and fused to the socket. We already reported last week that DLSS 5 can push the RTX 5090's power draw https://www.techpowerup.com/352262/early-dlss-5-testing-suggests-the-rtx-5090s-single-power-connector-might-be-the-bottleneck unusually high, so this seems to be the first reported case where that added power draw has burned the notorious RTX 5090 power connectors. However, it should be remembered that GPU-Z tracks total board power rather than just the auxiliary connectors, since the PCIe slot also supplies power, so the reading doesn't necessarily mean the connector carried the full load.