Overview
- A Monday report on the Hard Forum from a user known as erek says their MSI RTX 5090 melted its yellow 16‑pin (12VHPWR) connector and failed while testing NVIDIA’s DLSS 5 in NBA 2K27.
- Independent hardware labs and reviewers have measured DLSS 5 raising RTX 50‑series board power by tens to hundreds of watts, with some tests showing roughly 30–50% increases and sustained draws above 600 watts.
- Photos and the user’s account show melted plastic fused to the GPU socket and several scorched pins, but outlets stress the incident only proves correlation so far and does not by itself establish that DLSS 5 caused the failure.
- Technical context complicates attribution because reported figures are total board power, the 16‑pin connector is rated for up to about 600W while the PCIe slot supplies an extra ~75W, and factors like cable fit, PSU quality, and sustained current affect overheating risk.
- The report adds to prior community cases of 16‑pin connector overheating since the RTX 50‑series launch and raises immediate calls for NVIDIA, board partners, PSU makers, and independent labs to run controlled tests and advise users on safe configurations.