German-based tech site Igor’s Lab, Recently published a long post over potential “hotspot issues” found on several NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50 Series AIB partner cards. The site’s founder and tech paragon, Igor Wallossek, says that these issues seem to be a direct cause of power delivery components on the PCB being placed too close together and connected with fewer traces than normal.
Images from Igor’s Lab’s thermal imaging camera shows the VRAMs around the PCB of both an RTX 5070 and 5080 hitting temperatures in excess of 100°C during prolong use. Once again, the main concern here is that multiple components on these AIB partner RTX 50 Series cards are placed too close together, which results in the higher-than-average heat levels. These include FETs, coils, drivers, and traces, all which could potentially deteriorate and shorten the lifespan on these cards.
It also doesn’t help that the RTX 50 Series cards that were being subjected to Igor’s Lab’s stress tests were fitted with what the site calls inadequate cooling; neither card were using any sort of thermal pads on the power delivery portion of the PCB and more specifically, where the hotspots were located. Wallossek ultimately dealt with the issue by applying his own thermal modifications, which in turn led to a massive reduction in their operating temperature.
Now, Igor makes it clear that their research wasn’t done with the purpose of fearmongering but to help raise awareness with several parties involved manufacturing process. It’s a fair point, as pointing out these issues could and may prompt NVIDIA’s AIB partners to revise the design of their RTX 50 Series PCBs for the next shipment of Blackwell GPUs. For that matter, it is unlikely that your own GPU from the generation will suffer any catastrophic burnout of failure.
(Source: Igor’s Lab)
