In today’s story of “GPUs burnt wrong”, the potential fire hazard revolves around an NVIDIA RTX 5090. The victim here, though, wasn’t the GPU, but a PCIe 5.0 riser cable that got a little too close for comfort, literally.
The card in question was an ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 5090 owned by one RareSiren292. As per their post on the pcmasterrace subreddit, the card was vertically mounted inside their system, which in turn means that they would need to use a PCIe riser to have it standing upright.
Now, the case of the melted PCIe 5.0 riser wasn’t discovered in any sort of dramatic manner. Rather, RareSiren292 says that they were doing a bit of spring cleaning with their PC when they noticed that the insulation on the riser — the side that was directly behind the GPU, to be precise — had been melted by the GPU’s backplate. This was evidenced by photos of the insulation’s material having transformed into plastic goop on the rear of the card.
That, and the riser cable actually had to be peeled away from the back of the card in order to be clean.
So, if it wasn’t already clear, GPUs have a tendency to run hot, especially when you consider their nature. Sure, custom cooling solutions by different brands are capable of dissipating heat, but even then, we’re looking at some cards hitting average sustained temperatures of 70°C at load, which is still pretty toasty.
So, while GPU backplates do not reach boiling point, those aforementioned temperatures are still hot enough to melt any sort of non-PCB plastic over prolong exposure. Also, for those of you wondering what the human threshold is for high temperatures: in Malaysia, the highest point in your shower is 48°C. If you’re able to withstand anything higher than that, you’re either abnormal or an onsen egg.
(Source: Reddit, Videocardz)
