Streamer’s $30K GPU Setup Fails Running DLSS 5

A Chinese streamer's attempt to showcase Nvidia's latest DLSS 5 technology ended in hardware failure when one of two RTX 5090 graphics cards melted after just 48 hours of use. The creator had invested $30,000 in the dual-GPU setup specifically to demonstrate the new Neural Rendering feature.

Post-failure analysis revealed that the card's 16-pin power connector had melted and fused to its socket. The root cause stems from DLSS 5's extreme power demands combined with known vulnerabilities in the RTX 5090's connector design. Enabling Neural Rendering increases total board power consumption by 100W to 150W, with benchmarks showing the feature regularly pushing power draw beyond 600W and peaking at 647W.

The failure occurred despite the streamer using a robust ASUS ROG Thor 1600W Titanium power supply, eliminating inadequate power delivery as a factor. Thermal monitoring data showed the 16-pin connector reaching temperatures between 91.7°C and over 150°C under DLSS 5 stress, sufficient to degrade and fuse the connector's internal components.

The incident highlights systemic design flaws affecting multiple high-end Nvidia cards. Reports indicate that some RTX 5080 models have also failed when running DLSS 5 Neural Rendering, particularly in demanding applications like GTA 5, suggesting the problem extends beyond the flagship 5090.