The ongoing issues with power connectors in high-end graphics cards added a new chapter thanks to the modding community with the RTX 5090.

Following the well-known problems of overheating and burning of the 16-pin connector (12V-2×6) when handling high loads in high-power models, a Reddit user known as DallasGrave presented a rather crazy, but functional alternative: adapting a GeForce RTX 5090 to be powered by four traditional 8-pin PCIe connectors.

The modification, called Quad 2×8 Header Conversion, consists of a custom board soldered directly to the contact points of the motherboard’s native connector. This distributes the current through twelve 12V wires instead of the usual six used by the 16-pin connector. By doubling the number of active wires, the current per wire is reduced by almost half, to between 4.1A and 4.4A when the motherboard is operating at 600W.

This redistribution of the electrical load results in an immediate improvement in temperatures. According to data shared by the mod’s creator, the temperature in the cables drops approximately 20°C compared to the original connector. Furthermore, tests were conducted that pushed the board to a power consumption of 800W using shunt modifications, while maintaining the PCB temperature around 45°C without damaging the components.

The project aims to provide a lasting solution to the mechanical and electrical shortcomings that have plagued 16-pin connectors for generations. Given the community’s interest, the project leader confirmed that they are already working on custom backplates to achieve a factory-like finish, and are also planning the production of modules compatible with various card models, including Founders Edition variants.

In other news, modders have successfully extracted and optimized Nvidia’s latest DLSS 5 Neural Rendering model, delivering frame rate performance boosts of up to 40% in games that do not officially support it