Korean outlet QuasarZone conducted thermal testing on the NVIDIA RTX 5090 Founders Edition power connector while running Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K resolution with Ultra settings. The tests focused on the impact of DLSS 5 on hardware temperatures and power consumption over a 20-minute period.
With DLSS 5 enabled, the 12V-2x6 connector on the RTX 5090 reached 91.7°C on the sense-pin side, compared to 80.9°C without the technology. The latch side temperature rose from 77.1°C to 83.4°C. In contrast, the RTX 5080 Founders Edition remained significantly cooler, peaking at 52.2°C under identical testing conditions.
The thermal increase correlated with higher power draw. HWiNFO data showed the RTX 5090 average board power climbed from 509.2 W to 575.1 W. External PCAT measurements recorded even higher figures, with the RTX 5090 reaching a peak power draw of 658.0 W. The 16-pin connector alone pulled an average of 582.7 W with spikes up to 646.7 W.
