Worrying Report: Are RTX 50 Graphics Cards at Risk of Premature Failure
New graphics cards are always met with enthusiasm regarding performance gains. But a report from Igor Vallossek at Igor's Lab is throwing a shadow of concern over what could be extensive issues with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50 series that could compromise their longevity.
Hot Spots Can Be a Problem
According to Igor's findings, the issue would seem to be the physical placement of certain components on virtually all RTX 50 series boards. Key power delivery components like chokes and FET transistors are reportedly positioned too close to one another. The close proximity is supposedly causing them to heat much more than they should under load, creating dangerous "hot spots" in the circuit board itself.
Igor subjected single cards, including a PNY RTX 5070 and a Palit RTX 5080 Gaming Pro OC, to load and made measurements. The results were highly enlightening. On the RTX 5080, a hotspot near the output ports and GPU of 80.5°C was recorded even though the GPU chip itself was a cooler 70°C. It was even worse on the smaller RTX 5070, where the same area soared to a concerning 107.3°C, as opposed to the GPU at 69.7°C. It suggests that manufacturers pushing for smaller form factors may be part of the problem.
A Missing Link in Cooling
Another thing noted in the report is the apparent absence of thermal pads between these hottest areas of the board and the backplate in these models. Thermal pads are typically used to help transfer the heat from components to a larger surface like the backplate for better dissipation. Without them, that heat simply builds up locally.
To see if this was so, Igor experimented with the addition of thermal paste and pads to the hottest spots. The result was positive: the RTX 5080's hotspot temperature was dropped from 80.5°C to a more modest 70.3°C. The RTX 5070 saw its scorching 107.3°C dropped to 95°C and below. This matters because temperatures above 80°C consistently tend to be a point where the aging of electronic components can be accelerated, and the longevity of the card possibly shortened.
Questions About Design Guidance
In addition to the specific board designs, the report also implied that there might be problems with NVIDIA's own thermal design guidelines to manufacturers. The guidelines might be based on idealized conditions and not cover sufficiently worst-case operating conditions or the limits of small board designs.
NVIDIA has so far not publicly commented on the findings reported by Igor's Lab.
Based on a report by Igor Vallossek of Igor's Lab.
