In yet more troubling Nvidia news, an owner of a new Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 has reported that their graphics card set itself on fire. According to the owner, their Asus ROG Astral RTX 5090, a card with a $2,799 price tag, completely burned out after an afternoon of gaming, destroying the graphics card and damaging the motherboard in the process.
This incident is yet another power-related issue for Nvidia to investigate with its new graphics cards. While the RTX 5090 is now the best graphics card you can buy, its launch hasn’t been smooth sailing, with extremely low stock availability and problems with melting power cables leaving the company in a difficult position.
In a post on Reddit, user Impossible-Weight485 shared the story of their burning card. According to the Redditor, their PC suddenly shut down while they were “browsing websites” after an afternoon playing games. Once they restarted, the RTX 5090 caught fire, billowing out smoke.
An inspection afterwards showed burn marks on both the card and the motherboard, with one area around one of the GPU’s capacitors looking particularly burned out.
However, YouTuber Buildzoid suggests in a video that the problem might lie with one of the GPU’s power stages instead, responsible for regulating the voltage and ensuring a stable current supply to the GPU’s components, suggesting that it somehow failed here.
This incident doesn’t appear related to the RTX 5090 melting power cable issue that some RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 owners have reported over recent weeks. In additional images provided by the Redditor, both the power connector and the cable look intact with no damage, suggesting that they aren’t the guilty parties behind the damage in this instance.
Given the extreme power demands of a card like the RTX 5090, which has a total graphics power rating of 575W, it’s not hugely surprising to see a power failure like this occur, but it’s surprising to see it happen so early in the product’s lifecycle.
While Asus hasn’t commented on the issue so far, YouTube channel Gamers Nexus did reach out to make arrangements to buy the card from the Redditor to conduct an independent investigation. However, in an updated post, Impossible-Weight485 confirms that they’ve since declined that offer, and they’re instead initiating the Asus RMA process.
While a third-party investigation of this burned-out GPU would have been helpful, it’s understandable that this Redditor simply wants their GPU (and other components) replaced as quickly as possible. It’s unfortunate to see any graphics card like this burn out so quickly, especially on a top-end model with a $2,799 price tag such as this one from Asus, but with any luck, it’s an isolated incident.
If you’re curious to learn more about this new flagship Nvidia card, make sure you check out our RTX 5090 review for our in-depth thoughts and testing. You can also follow us on Google News for daily PC hardware news, reviews, and guides, or join our community Discord to stay in the know.