An RTX 5090 owner has modified an MSI GeForce RTX 5090 to use two additional PCIe 8-pin power inputs alongside the card’s existing 16-pin connector, with the goal of spreading electrical load across more conductors. Reddit user DallasGrave says the modified card ran at roughly 550W for 48 hours without any of the monitored wires exceeding 40°C. The figures come from the modder’s own testing and have not been independently validated, so the modification should be treated as an experimental hardware project rather than a proven safety fix.
The design keeps the GPU’s original 12VHPWR/12V-2×6 connection in place rather than replacing it. A small pickup PCB is soldered to contacts around the original power header, with wiring running to a second board fitted with two conventional PCIe 8-pin sockets. That means the RTX 5090 receives power through three connections at once: the existing 16-pin cable and the two additional 8-pin inputs.
According to DallasGrave, distributing the load this way reduced current through each individual conductor to around 3A during testing. The modder said temperatures remained below 40°C even at the soldered joint while the card was operating at approximately 550W for 48 hours. Those numbers are notable, but they remain self-reported results from a custom modification with no independent long-duration validation or manufacturer approval.
The project is especially relevant because RTX 5090 power delivery has continued to attract scrutiny despite the transition from the original 12VHPWR specification to the revised 12V-2×6 connector. In September, Hardware Unboxed documented a failure involving an ASUS ROG Astral RTX 5090 in which thermal imaging showed cable temperatures reaching around 175°C. Follow-up measurements reportedly found severe current imbalance, with one conductor carrying roughly 22A while other power paths carried little or no current.
That incident helps explain the thinking behind the dual-8-pin modification. Rather than relying entirely on the high-current 16-pin connection, DallasGrave’s design adds parallel power paths intended to reduce the amount of current any one contact or wire must carry. In principle, spreading the load more evenly can lower resistive heating, but the effectiveness and safety of this particular implementation depend on factors such as solder quality, PCB design, cable specifications and current distribution under different loads.
The RTX 5090 has a Total Graphics Power of 575W in NVIDIA’s reference specification, placing unusually high demands on its power delivery system. NVIDIA’s Founders Edition can be powered either through a compatible high-capacity PCIe Gen 5 cable or through the supplied adapter using multiple traditional 8-pin PCIe connectors. The aftermarket mod effectively takes a different approach by allowing direct supplementary 8-pin connections to operate alongside the card’s native input.
The modification also underlines how far some RTX 5090 owners are willing to go to mitigate concerns around an extremely expensive graphics card. The GPU itself has already attracted unusual attention outside normal performance discussions, including cases such as additional purchase restrictions surrounding RTX 5090 systems. Power-connector reliability is a separate issue, but both illustrate how NVIDIA’s flagship has generated scrutiny beyond conventional benchmark results.
There are important limitations to the mod. Soldering directly around a graphics card’s power connector can damage the card, void warranty coverage and create new electrical or thermal failure points if done incorrectly. The reported 48-hour test is encouraging for this individual build, but it does not establish that the design is safe across different RTX 5090 models, power supplies, cables or sustained workloads.
DallasGrave has indicated that additional test data is planned. Until independent measurements are available, the most defensible conclusion is that the modification appears to distribute current effectively in this specific setup and produced comparatively low reported wire temperatures during a sustained 550W run. It is an interesting engineering response to continuing RTX 5090 connector concerns, but not yet evidence of a broadly validated alternative power-delivery solution.
