QuasarZone tests show the 16-pin connector on Nvidia's flagship hitting 91.7 degrees Celsius, hotter than the GPU itself, when DLSS 5 is enabled, while total board power climbs 13 percent and briefly exceeds the card's rated limit. The findings arrive as user reports of melted 12VHPWR connectors continue to surface on both Nvidia and AMD hardware, suggesting the connector standard remains a thermal bottleneck regardless of vendor.

The connector is the hot spot

In a 20-minute Cyberpunk 2077 run at 4K with DLSS Quality and Ultra settings, the GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition recorded 77.1 degrees on the latch side of the 16-pin connector and 80.9 degrees on the opposite side with DLSS 5 disabled. Enabling the feature pushed those readings to 83.4 and 91.7 degrees respectively. The GPU die, by comparison, peaked at 86.3 degrees. The connector became the hottest component on the card.

Power draw crosses the rated line

HWiNFO telemetry showed a 13 percent rise in average power consumption for the 5090 with DLSS 5 active, and a 17 percent rise for the RTX 5080 Founders Edition. Both cards remained within their official TDP ratings on paper, 575 watts for the 5090, 360 watts for the 5080. But QuasarZone's PCAT hardware measurements, which poll power directly from the board, recorded a 13 percent increase in average and peak draw that effectively exceeded the 5090's power limit. The two measurement methods diverged by 3 percent on average readings. PCAT logged 582.7 watts without DLSS 5.

The 5080 stays cool by comparison

The RTX 5080 Founders Edition ran dramatically cooler. Connector temperatures rose from 45.8 and 47.6 degrees to 52.2 and 48.6 degrees with DLSS 5 enabled, well within normal operating range. The gap reflects the 5080's lower power envelope and lighter current load on the same 12VHPWR interface.

Melting reports persist across vendors

Reddit threads and a handful of media outlets continue to document melted 16-pin connectors on both Blackwell and Radeon cards. The failures are not limited to early adopters; industry veterans have reported the same issue. DLSS 5 does not cause the connector problem, but the additional current it draws under heavy upscaling workloads pushes an already marginal thermal interface closer to its limit.