Ton more testing on the way! Also starting to prep for the AMD 9070 cards (sounds like that'll be March). Any test requests for the RTX 50 series? Is there more interest in latency or production testing? Watch our thermal engineering & PCB discussion! th-cam.com/video/-p0MEy8BvYY/w-d-xo.html Watch our NVIDIA RTX 5090 review & benchmarks! th-cam.com/video/VWSlOC_jiLQ/w-d-xo.html
Definitely am interested in seeing latency/stability comparisons due to the PCIE and display port interconnects. That's one of the main things that worries me with these cards.
@@edumeli02 Memory hitting 90C+ doesn't exactly suggest great engineering. Overly complex heatsink design requiring exotic solutions like liquid metal, and connectors for PCI-E that can corrode with time and affect signalling imply poor design but great asthetics.
@@x86FTW Yeah I am really worried about the liquid metal (not that I will buy one) but I hope it does not leak like PS5 and its the melting connector all over again.
Only if nvidia will provide individual parts, so you can replace them. Also imagine the sweaty hands while replacing an essential part of your 2000+usd component..
The engineering on this card is incredible, I think the nicest thing is the swappable PCIE daugherboard. *Hopefully* it would disconnect and bear the damage before the mainboard portion of the connector. This could save a lot of money with cards that have died due to unaddressed card sag.
I mean...buy a GPU support bracket tho, they're like 10 bucks dude xD And like my 7900xtx came with one, wouldn't surprised if Nvidia is cheaping out and I don't think you're wrong about the design mitigating it, but like what? You think that's device failure? Nah. That's user error.
@@PutYourQuarterUpGaming thats not his point though. Most bricked 40 series cards were because the PCIE connectors were weak and snapped. Its user error, sure. But now you wont have to lose 2000 dollars every time one snaps and only spend, hopefully around 50 to fix
It's not great, that's for sure. Hot spot is very useful for identifying missing areas of coverage with liquid metal. It's harder to know if the re-application was good. Hoping they add it back in. I'd assume there is the ability to sense it, but that they aren't exposing it.
As a former phone repair tech, did anyone else tense up when Steve started to use the flathead screwdriver to unclip the LED cable and the ZIF connectors for the fans? I know I did. I was scared about the driver slipping and taking the connector with it. 15:18
@@SuperCloneRanger We here use "Conductive fabric over foam" a lot for these conductive gaskets, as there's also versions with inherently conductive foam. :)
@@pjpleiss it eats it essentially. but more accurately..for those on the youtube comment section... -Diffusion into the grain boundaries of the metal causing very rapid embrittlement of the metal. -Intermetallic formation - for the likes of copper a compound called CuGa2 can form and degrade the metal structure. -Recrystallization - for tin based solder it induces a phase change process and alters the micro structure of the tin making it brittle and prone to failure. Solder can become brittle over time and old hardware can often be fixed by a simple reflow of the dried solder, I believe the liquid metal would actually make that impossible in this case because it changes the tin's structure.
@@sinAnon6689 Gallium only does this with some metals, most notably aluminum, indium, tin, and zinc. So, a concern for the safer lead-free solders for sure.
honestly, once nvidia started doing even decent coolers the partners were in trouble. most of them are pushing 'gamered' up pointy red jagged XXeliteXX progamer 420 cards. the good ones have solid coolers now with EVGA gone, and thats really the best that can be said for them. They were already on life support in my eyes, and with the silicon provider now being the one to take their lunch, their in for a world of hurt if they dont pick it up on the engineering - but that assumes a margin exists enough to do that, if nvidia isnt going to sell chips to itself at a discount.. if nvidia doesnt 'bill' themselves the same cost as the AIBs then their screwed even if they do try to compete, and they are already way behind the curve on the engineering knowledge.
Supply and demand will dictate when partners are in trouble. FE cards will always be scarce so people will buy what's available closest to MSRP and work their way up. AIB will markup to compensate and people will still buy.
@@fivemethoxy Maybe back in the 2000s. I'm sure nowadays they're placing an order for bare PCBs at the exact same outsourcing factories that the "partners" do.
Exactly. I think partners can maybe differ in OC capabilities, but knowing that Nvidia really doesn't like OC, there's slim chance. Only free market is in geography - FEs aren't sold everywhere.
I mean, if several bolt directly connected around the PCIE and the fact it only just 2 slot card still broke the PCIE, Nvidia would have class action lawsuit at this point
I've worked with a lot of gaskets and seals. Definitely need the 3 lip seals on the gasket for the liquid metal. It's (liquid metal) visibly gone through the first and seems to be getting under and being stopped by the second. The third being the actual PCB savior! With a $2k card in my hand, I'm replacing that thing (gasket) every time it gets cracked open! Not to, would be akin to reusing an oil filter gasket on your car, you can..., but now there's a lot riding on a rubber gasket that has been compressed and thermally cycled up and down!
hmmm you are right. that rubber gasket under thermal cycle is concerning. especially with 600 watt worth of heat around it. i am thinking about buying it for productivity purposes.. but a lot of projects, I would cycle through from 10% GPU usage to 100% GPU usage every 2 minutes, then back down to 10% usage for a few seconds. then back up. for +10 hours at a time.
That PCB looks like a 20 layer board... almost impossible to change any part on it. They have to be vapor phased off the board. And they have 2 different solder temperatures for each side of the board. So if you heat the high heat side the low melt parts fall off the other side of the board.
I've been seeing some info about CPU being heated with air coolers while running 5090. The 9800X3D going from 60s to over 90 degrees compared to the 4090 on the same setup. Did you get a chance to test this? Or notice any high CPU temps?
From what I've seen from someone (genuinly cant remember who it was sorry) they said that their cpu went up by about 5 degrees, but I guess it also depends on how good your case airflow is as if the case is blowing out the gpus hot air fast enough it won't really affect it wheras if your case doesn't have much airflow then it will probably have a drastic affect, looking forward to seeing this be tested tho
I'd be curious to see the thermal pads for the memory swapped out. On the 30 series doing that reduced memory temps by 20C, and it looks like their material is the same as that generation.
My thought was the exact same swap those out and retest if it doesn't realign to meet expectations. During the thermal video I could've sworn Magnus said the just prefer them for longevity or something to that effect.
@vfgrestaurantes2595 the upsides to theirs is closer die contact since they squish so well, and if you transfer less heat from the memory, more of the cooling capacity goes to the core. If you replace the pads, you'd see much cooler memory but slightly warmer core. But I don't like parts running near 90C lol
Nope. Nobody in their right mind is going to do that. They're custom, they're only for the 5090, they require taking the card apart to a decent extent, and would generally just be a more inconvenient PCIE riser cable.
I miss EVGA, but don’t miss how I couldn’t disassemble or reassemble one of their cards without breaking at least one of the plastic tabs holding the shroud to the cooler. I appreciate how a card like one from ASUS is all screws.
I took apart my Asus TUF OC Gaming RX 7800 XT to do a PTM7950 application, the dismantling process is so simple that my 9-year-old daughter could do it.
Still using the same thermal pads as the 3080 I think they even used them on 10 or 20 series? , I remember changing the pads on 3080 drastically reduced vram temps , and still going strong today
Steve: "We keep liquid metal separate because stray droplets can destroy electronics". Also Steve: swings q-tip full of liquid metal over the board of the only 5090 they have for testing.
Gallium is extremely damaging to aluminum, to the point where it infects the entire piece and turns it into essentially tortilla chip brittleness. Really odd stuff.
The removable PCIE connector might actually be a good thing to prevent damage to the main board in case of damage to the connector, making that part easily replaceable without having to re-solder broken connection, reballing chips or even needing to repair broken pads. Could also result in some nice custom designs and an alternative to the Riser cable.
Igor from Igors Lab said he will NOT do a teardown of the FE card, but he definetaly has an audience that would want to see it. Maybe you can reach out to him and work together with him somehow. Like saying: "Hey Igor, you can link our video for your viewers, just send them here so they can have a look."
This has to be my favorite GPU cooler design of all time! Though I don't really value compactness, I do really respect the efficiency of the design - ever since the short PCBs of the R9 Fury (non-X) cards, it has been obvious what great potential flow-through designs have, and it's really nice to see a design that goes all-in on this. Also, bonus points for a truly elegant look, and not a mess of angles and RGB!
My god I don’t think people are talking (with the exception of you guys) enough about just how impressive this design is. I mean this is almost a 600 watt 2 slot card and temps are good and so is the noise.
Liquid metal used in thermal interfaces like this is most famous for not quite corrosion, but for things like penetrating other metal's crystal lattices and causing embrittlement. Galinstan alloys (of which most liquid metal cooling solutions consist of as far as I am aware) and aluminum is the most common example, where if the oxide layer of the aluminum is scratched off and the galinstan is allowed to make contact with the bare aluminum, it is soaked up like a sponge and the aluminum turns as brittle as a potato chip.
I think i'd be cautious with it as it will degrade nickel too just much more slowly. while slower once it breaks through that nickel plating(time...a lot of it or faulty manufacturing introducing a weaker area)..it will decimate the copper cold plate underneath. I've always avoided it despite the possible thermal benefits because I just don't want the hassle that come come with it.
As electronics hobbyist i can say that the amount of decoupling is unreal. That just shows how advanced consumer gpus have became. (actual gpu as chip, not whole card). Yeah there are lots of memory chips which require good decoupling but still impressive.
wouldve been great to re-pad it witrh performance thermal pads and compare the temps, considering the liquid metal reapplication and especialy if new pads impact if at all the memory temps
I'm actually amazed at how dense the PCB is populated. Could you imagine the reaction inside Nvidia when they realized they could finally make such a tiny PCB possible?
Personally my GTX1080 has horrible coil whine nowadays at high frame rates but I can't hear it at all if I put any pair of headphones on, which is 99% of the time I'm gaming.
MAN... adding a custom waterblock to this GPU would be amazing.
8 ชั่วโมงที่ผ่านมา +8
What's to worry about? They rarely, almost never sell the FE outside the US. The partners can sell their 4 slot cards at +30% prices with ease, cause there often is no alternative outside the US.
The day when Nvidia will start selling GPUs directly is one step closer: I think Jenson explicitly said that he wants Nvidia to become something like the Apple of GPUs... so no more board partners.
The USA is probably a big market, looking at what wages are like there. I think the cost of living in the EU is probably lower overall, but the number of people with enough money to burn for a card like this is probably smaller as well (per capita, anyway).
I dunno, here in Poland I was easily able to get a 4090 FE from Nvidia site and we are pretty poor by EU standards. I even RMA'd few of them beacuse of the coil whine (didn't help btw). I hope it will be the same for 5090 FE.
I am glad that the PCI Express can be replaced because I've seen lots of cracks in that area at Northwest repair. This may be a $2,000 video card but I believe that Nvidia finally went all out in designing and making it.
I get their strategy - they are gonna over-engineer the competition out of the market, become sole manufacturer, sole card supplier, jack prices even more, and make even more money.
@@MrFallenone It is about eating the scraps that "partners" currently make. This could be money in nvidia's pocket, the moment they can meet demand, and keep short supply for even higher demand and prices and move into the 90% margins...
Yep. There's a reason EVGA left the Nvidia board partner group chat, it's just not worth it with Nvidia making such good FE cards and being so controlling about what board designs are deserving of their GPUs.
The cooling doesn't make sense. It's a '' blow through '' design. That's going to put extra heat on the cpu. Why not reverse the flow and have air being pulled through the card and not have the extremely hot air being cycled by the cpu cooler?
already loved how in the 4090 you could replace a fan just by removing the backplate and snaking in a cable. Now you can replace a cracked PCIe connector just by removing the backplate.
Igor by the way had a great point for consumer safety. I am not sure about the US but in the EU/Germany hot surfaces over a certain temperature need a warning sticker "caution: hot surface". And this would possibly be nessecary because he measured surface temps over 70°C on the 5090!
21:25 I think they're called fiber-free/lint-free swabs? I found some companies making those for medical applications but they don't list pricing so it must be expensive lol
Oh, it's great that they have a separate part for the PCI-E connector - I managed to damage mine even on a 3080 and had to do some welding to bring it to life. Service centers don't usually do such things, so it's been quite the adventure. And considering the weight of these new high end cards, good call. Also output might be as important if the card tries to detach itself from the MOBO.
You can feel the quality of that cooler through the screen based on just the sounds it makes as he's disassembling it. People say some things just feel expensive, this is one of those things. (I owned a 3090FE and felt the same way about that)
At this point I kinda wish there were no partner cards. They are more expensive these days and the FE is the only one with this level of engineering and zero GAMER marketing. Just turn all the chips into FEs.
Ah yes. The classic Monopolist enjoyer... in case you dont know here are some reasons why its beneficial to have more then one Reference Model: -A Variety of Models fit more personal preferences, be it an asthetic nature or a performance nature like noise development, cooling power, alternativ cooling solutions, dimensions, secondary BIOS -Different Partner Models ensure a competition and "need to innovation" as we see on this Model. I dont know how old you are but a lot of us still remember the horrific axial fan designs of the 2010s. Nvidia and AMD produced literally the worst cooling solutions for GPUs that you can think(for the average Gamer) -Some partner cards use different more expensive power delivery components which is needed for (extreme) overclocking. While this isnt the majority of customers its still a relevant minority, that also is responsible for developing some software tools for GPUs
this factory 5090 is dumping a ton of heat into the case, it doesn't even attempt to blow out the back like most video cards, so i want a water cooled card, can only get that from partners.
@@predestruction8235 yeah nvidia beating out partners on design is NOT a good thing for consumers. they only do this BECAUSE it is a competitive market. EVGA dropping from the competition is a bad thing for us. we have less options now. if nvidia beats out all competitors, you can guarantee their coolers will no longer be innovating year over year. but, this cooler is impressive. it's good to see. i hope it keeps getting better
@@predestruction8235 1) Then allow AIBs to still make their own coolers that can be retrofitted but keep all cards FE only. Now due to shortages of FE, the aftermarket is full of 3-4 slot bricks ugly designs that most people are forced to get instead. These designs are that way cos its cheaper to just create bigger traditional heatsinks cos there is less engineering involved. 2) Thats speculation. If AIBs were never in the picture, you cant say cooling would have not innovated. Afterall, the competition is AMD and Intel and not AIBs. AIBs are used cos Nvidia would rather let them deal with the mass production of putting the chip together into components. Plus their long standing relationships. 3) Overclocking is extremely gimmicky now days. With the advent of computed automated systems, GPUs and stock CPUs are almost at their peak efficiency out of the box. Or moreover, safe peak efficiency. Having an OC card with 5-10% improvement and a 20% markup price and 10-20% further power consumption is just ridiculous and unnecessary. Undervolting is the way to go nowdays.
Your cotton swabs you prefer remind me of Cotton Cleaning Swabs / Technical Cotton Swabs. They don't shed like drugstore ones, and usually have a tighter weave and wood handles, they also come in various sizes / lengths.
I could scream when US TH-camrs say "Aluminum". It's like saying "It's a Comuter" (communication) instead of "Computer" (computing). It's 2 i in _all major western languages_ , but for some reason the USA decided it's "Aluminum"
"I'm not seeing any screws on the back." It is at this point that I, as someone who also likes DIY, would nope the hell out. I might like taking things apart and seeing how they work...but my curiosity is just not worth the risk of bricking 2,000$! EDIT: Okay, not too bad, other than the liquid metal part - that I would never risk! Sure some scary magnets threatened a bad time, but I think they just put those in to give Steve a scare lol.
The confidence does appreciate over time as you gain experience. Me, nowadays, I am in the unfortunate position of disassembling €10000 worth of audio gear in a rack unit without second thought. it's usually fine. Usually.
In a few years, these are going to be more affordable in the used market, but yet again, at that point maybe there's going to be a newer card that's cheaper that matches the performance, who knows
Liquid metal is actually a pretty easily made compound. 68.5% (Ga), 21.5% (In), and 10% (Sn) by weight, its actually relatively easy to make at home even with a hot air station. I personally made 100g for about 50$. Gallium is very expensive however.
Sounds like he's disassembling a pistol. That modular PCIe and display output connector could leave the placement of the card in a case/build rather flexible. If you find extensions that have good signal integrity. A modular PCIe power connector would've been helpful for any meltdowns. At least it has some fat solder points. The modular PCIe slot helps when builders break the interface during shipment due to not rigidly mounting the card.
Hear me out! A 25% higher price for 30% performance gains, while also consuming 30% more power, sounds like a tough sell at first glance. But let’s be real, this cooler and design are an absolute marvel of engineering. A 600W, 2-slot GPU in 2025? That’s insane! And on top of that, it looks stunning. In my opinion, this is hands down the best-looking RTX 5090.
The other day I took the shroud off my 2070 Super to clean the dust out of the blower fan and cooling fins. Took like 10 minutes from taking it out of my PC to putting it back in and the end. It’s wild how much that has changed
The rubber strips on the the metal back plate may also be for NVH. I imagine there's plenty of vibration to make just about everything rattle if you'd let it.
Ton more testing on the way! Also starting to prep for the AMD 9070 cards (sounds like that'll be March). Any test requests for the RTX 50 series? Is there more interest in latency or production testing? Watch our thermal engineering & PCB discussion! th-cam.com/video/-p0MEy8BvYY/w-d-xo.html
Watch our NVIDIA RTX 5090 review & benchmarks! th-cam.com/video/VWSlOC_jiLQ/w-d-xo.html
Thanks for all of your and your team's work
Definitely am interested in seeing latency/stability comparisons due to the PCIE and display port interconnects. That's one of the main things that worries me with these cards.
Thermals in smaller form-factor compared to traditional cooling design would be nice (Since NVIDIA went heavy on the SFF-ready claim) :)
Why is there a low freq. noise in the first 7 minutes of the video? It's a bit annoying 😅
Really interested in benchmarks for the 5080, 70ti and 70.
Thanks Steve!
The cooler is by far the most impressive thing about this generation
For sure. Nvidia really has some of the brightest minds in the engineering department. Absolutely world-class
@@edumeli02 Memory hitting 90C+ doesn't exactly suggest great engineering. Overly complex heatsink design requiring exotic solutions like liquid metal, and connectors for PCI-E that can corrode with time and affect signalling imply poor design but great asthetics.
@@x86FTW Yeah I am really worried about the liquid metal (not that I will buy one) but I hope it does not leak like PS5 and its the melting connector all over again.
Agree. I think 2 slots was them flexing, they could go up to 3 for the 6090 and fix basically all issues it has
Yeah the cooler on my 4090 suprim is pretty cool aswell o.O
intriguingly this means that if the PCIE module is damaged, it should be simple to replace.
Excellent point.
Ohhhh you are right!
Very easy all for just 500usd.
Only if nvidia will provide individual parts, so you can replace them. Also imagine the sweaty hands while replacing an essential part of your 2000+usd component..
Unless it's custom made.
The amount of engineering in that design is actually impressive.
They’re worth as much as apple. I’d hope so.
@jonathanjones7751
Except Apple does not play games
@@YRRD_R17 Why are you crying on the internet
@@YRRD_R17 servicing a graphics card? wat.
Petition for T-shirt with Steve holding blow torch with crazy eyes? Back just says "Tear Down"
Add me to the pre-order list, buddy.
Here here
Amen
(Rip and) Tear Down
@krisc1684 I second this motion.
I gotta say, the airflow animations are SO useful in not only education but build planning for a new PC.
PC Building Simulator needs to add this as a feature
12:52 At least you do not brick your GPU when there is a crack on the PCI connector.
Assuming spares are available...
Now that's an interesting thought! Hadn't thought about that.
i had northwestrepair flashbacks 😁
its crazy that we have gone for so long without a single video card manufacturer making then part of a ribbon cable
@SL4PSH0CK NWR is exactly the reason why I thought about it!💡😂
The engineering on this card is incredible, I think the nicest thing is the swappable PCIE daugherboard. *Hopefully* it would disconnect and bear the damage before the mainboard portion of the connector. This could save a lot of money with cards that have died due to unaddressed card sag.
I mean...buy a GPU support bracket tho, they're like 10 bucks dude xD
And like my 7900xtx came with one, wouldn't surprised if Nvidia is cheaping out and I don't think you're wrong about the design mitigating it, but like what? You think that's device failure? Nah. That's user error.
@@PutYourQuarterUpGaming thats not his point though. Most bricked 40 series cards were because the PCIE connectors were weak and snapped. Its user error, sure. But now you wont have to lose 2000 dollars every time one snaps and only spend, hopefully around 50 to fix
I really wonder if no hot spot sensor on this card is gonna become an issue.
No it won't. Stop complaining.
Hope board partners didn't remove hotspot sensor.
It's not great, that's for sure. Hot spot is very useful for identifying missing areas of coverage with liquid metal. It's harder to know if the re-application was good. Hoping they add it back in. I'd assume there is the ability to sense it, but that they aren't exposing it.
@@FO0TMinecraftPVP that's you saying it.
@@FO0TMinecraftPVP so you don't know what it is got it 👍
As a former phone repair tech, did anyone else tense up when Steve started to use the flathead screwdriver to unclip the LED cable and the ZIF connectors for the fans? I know I did. I was scared about the driver slipping and taking the connector with it. 15:18
I imagine the stiffer leaf spring is also to try and ensure a seal for the liquid metal gasket.
Great point.
Stiffer leaf springs also means that it'll handle corners better.😮😮😂😂
@@jsackett42160 That would have been useful for GTX.
14:30 that 'bumper' pad is a conductive grounding pad for EMI.
Thanks! Any shorthand name that they are commonly known by?
@@GamersNexus soft ground contact and EMI gasket are both used as shorthand.
@@SuperCloneRanger We here use "Conductive fabric over foam" a lot for these conductive gaskets, as there's also versions with inherently conductive foam. :)
That's a pretty long for a shorthand term 😂
@@kevinlloyd3047 any shorter and it would become less useful!
Fun fact: Founders Edition card production is limited to the amount of blood they are able to harvest from Robert Patrick
So proud of that joke you posted it twice.
The Galleria?
@@Seacle14 it got your attention
Have you seen this boy?
The Gallium in the liquid metal will also eat away solder, and once it makes contact the damage is done.
That's cool to know. Does it function as a catalyst to oxidize the lead/silver/tin?
@@pjpleiss it eats it essentially. but more accurately..for those on the youtube comment section...
-Diffusion into the grain boundaries of the metal causing very rapid embrittlement of the metal.
-Intermetallic formation - for the likes of copper a compound called CuGa2 can form and degrade the metal structure.
-Recrystallization - for tin based solder it induces a phase change process and alters the micro structure of the tin making it brittle and prone to failure.
Solder can become brittle over time and old hardware can often be fixed by a simple reflow of the dried solder, I believe the liquid metal would actually make that impossible in this case because it changes the tin's structure.
@@sinAnon6689 Gallium only does this with some metals, most notably aluminum, indium, tin, and zinc. So, a concern for the safer lead-free solders for sure.
@@ragzillaz yup, doesn’t affect all metals, some to varying degrees as well.
honestly, once nvidia started doing even decent coolers the partners were in trouble. most of them are pushing 'gamered' up pointy red jagged XXeliteXX progamer 420 cards. the good ones have solid coolers now with EVGA gone, and thats really the best that can be said for them. They were already on life support in my eyes, and with the silicon provider now being the one to take their lunch, their in for a world of hurt if they dont pick it up on the engineering - but that assumes a margin exists enough to do that, if nvidia isnt going to sell chips to itself at a discount.. if nvidia doesnt 'bill' themselves the same cost as the AIBs then their screwed even if they do try to compete, and they are already way behind the curve on the engineering knowledge.
The reason Nvidia sells chips in the first place is because they can't fabricate enough of their own cards to satisfy the demand.
Supply and demand will dictate when partners are in trouble. FE cards will always be scarce so people will buy what's available closest to MSRP and work their way up.
AIB will markup to compensate and people will still buy.
@@oZiiix Astral 800 dollar markup...
@@fivemethoxy Maybe back in the 2000s. I'm sure nowadays they're placing an order for bare PCBs at the exact same outsourcing factories that the "partners" do.
Exactly. I think partners can maybe differ in OC capabilities, but knowing that Nvidia really doesn't like OC, there's slim chance. Only free market is in geography - FEs aren't sold everywhere.
Yes, I would like to see the A-B comparison with thermal paste, please.
considering some cards broke due to gpu sag and internal fractures at the pcie port, the removable pcie connector is a really nice touch
dunno man, since it's a separate piece and its smaller it might just sag and break faster if they go with thicker coolers
@@Rov-Nihil or it just unplugs itself at the connector. xD
Maybe, more expensive!
I mean, if several bolt directly connected around the PCIE and the fact it only just 2 slot card still broke the PCIE, Nvidia would have class action lawsuit at this point
Ya, actually is a really good point.
This card is so thin, it is a Flounders Edition!
Signal boosting this joke
@ RTX 5090 FLOUNDERS EDITION:
- FLAT
- QUICK
- HARD TO FIND
- FISHY DEALS AHEAD
1:04 Since I've already seen the teardown of the card, I would like to add: MAGNETS, HOW DO THEY WORK?!
th-cam.com/video/alI12mhWZ2Q/w-d-xo.html
I've worked with a lot of gaskets and seals. Definitely need the 3 lip seals on the gasket for the liquid metal. It's (liquid metal) visibly gone through the first and seems to be getting under and being stopped by the second. The third being the actual PCB savior! With a $2k card in my hand, I'm replacing that thing (gasket) every time it gets cracked open! Not to, would be akin to reusing an oil filter gasket on your car, you can..., but now there's a lot riding on a rubber gasket that has been compressed and thermally cycled up and down!
hmmm you are right. that rubber gasket under thermal cycle is concerning. especially with 600 watt worth of heat around it. i am thinking about buying it for productivity purposes.. but a lot of projects, I would cycle through from 10% GPU usage to 100% GPU usage every 2 minutes, then back down to 10% usage for a few seconds. then back up. for +10 hours at a time.
That PCB looks like a 20 layer board... almost impossible to change any part on it. They have to be vapor phased off the board. And they have 2 different solder temperatures for each side of the board. So if you heat the high heat side the low melt parts fall off the other side of the board.
I've been seeing some info about CPU being heated with air coolers while running 5090. The 9800X3D going from 60s to over 90 degrees compared to the 4090 on the same setup. Did you get a chance to test this? Or notice any high CPU temps?
Working on that! Great testing request. Open to more like this!
From what I've seen from someone (genuinly cant remember who it was sorry) they said that their cpu went up by about 5 degrees, but I guess it also depends on how good your case airflow is as if the case is blowing out the gpus hot air fast enough it won't really affect it wheras if your case doesn't have much airflow then it will probably have a drastic affect, looking forward to seeing this be tested tho
who in gods name buys a 5090 and has no money for AIO??
@@medovk you shouldn't have to upgrade a cooler for a GPU, really.
Also, some people may not know of the effects hence the request for testing.
@@medovk People that dont know what they're doing.
I'd be curious to see the thermal pads for the memory swapped out. On the 30 series doing that reduced memory temps by 20C, and it looks like their material is the same as that generation.
My thought was the exact same swap those out and retest if it doesn't realign to meet expectations. During the thermal video I could've sworn Magnus said the just prefer them for longevity or something to that effect.
@vfgrestaurantes2595 the upsides to theirs is closer die contact since they squish so well, and if you transfer less heat from the memory, more of the cooling capacity goes to the core. If you replace the pads, you'd see much cooler memory but slightly warmer core.
But I don't like parts running near 90C lol
With the PCI-E slot detachable be cool to see some aftermarket ones for mounting in different orientations.
Vertical mount without massive add-on
When I saw the detachable tab, i thought about repairability.....not customizability. An interesting thought
Nope. Nobody in their right mind is going to do that. They're custom, they're only for the 5090, they require taking the card apart to a decent extent, and would generally just be a more inconvenient PCIE riser cable.
@@Dexx1s Taking apart "to a decent extent"? The only thing really extensive to the process is to remove the "x" cover...
If it weren’t custom that would be a new way to do the riser cable and lead to some really unique custom mounts.
It's amazing that they have made this so much smaller and at the same time somehow easier to dismantle.
the dual 3 1/2" floppy drive on the side is neat!
I miss EVGA, but don’t miss how I couldn’t disassemble or reassemble one of their cards without breaking at least one of the plastic tabs holding the shroud to the cooler. I appreciate how a card like one from ASUS is all screws.
I took apart my Asus TUF OC Gaming RX 7800 XT to do a PTM7950 application, the dismantling process is so simple that my 9-year-old daughter could do it.
@ Yes, same here when I slapped a water block on mine. Nice.
"...magnets...we still don't know how they work"
This was a reference I absolutely was not expecting this morning 😂
Anyone got a link to that video?
@@heavyhauler426 th-cam.com/video/_-agl0pOQfs/w-d-xo.html
@@heavyhauler426 th-cam.com/video/alI12mhWZ2Q/w-d-xo.html
You guys have the biggest balls to take this thing apart. I like break most things down, but the no screws on the back would NOPE me the F out.
It's a win-win for for them. If it's tough, good revenue from the video
Now imagine everyone who buys these needing to repaste the liquid metal within a years time. Terrible decision to use liquid metal on this card.
Still using the same thermal pads as the 3080 I think they even used them on 10 or 20 series? , I remember changing the pads on 3080 drastically reduced vram temps , and still going strong today
Yeah I'd want to see how they do if they are replaced, I swapped mine to reduce the temps by a *lot*.
I cant help but chuckle at every Hyte case ad referring to its "cut corner" design
Steve: "We keep liquid metal separate because stray droplets can destroy electronics". Also Steve: swings q-tip full of liquid metal over the board of the only 5090 they have for testing.
Gallium is extremely damaging to aluminum, to the point where it infects the entire piece and turns it into essentially tortilla chip brittleness. Really odd stuff.
the amount of SMD caps on that circuit board is insane!
GALAX taking notes for the single slot 5090 KATANA 😁
Folded over 10000 times!
F***ing Magnets, how do they work? *raises hands in questioning fashion
Maaaaaaaagic
The removable PCIE connector might actually be a good thing to prevent damage to the main board in case of damage to the connector, making that part easily replaceable without having to re-solder broken connection, reballing chips or even needing to repair broken pads. Could also result in some nice custom designs and an alternative to the Riser cable.
Igor from Igors Lab said he will NOT do a teardown of the FE card, but he definetaly has an audience that would want to see it. Maybe you can reach out to him and work together with him somehow. Like saying: "Hey Igor, you can link our video for your viewers, just send them here so they can have a look."
This has to be my favorite GPU cooler design of all time!
Though I don't really value compactness, I do really respect the efficiency of the design - ever since the short PCBs of the R9 Fury (non-X) cards, it has been obvious what great potential flow-through designs have, and it's really nice to see a design that goes all-in on this.
Also, bonus points for a truly elegant look, and not a mess of angles and RGB!
Nice to see a teardown of the 4090 Ti.
My god I don’t think people are talking (with the exception of you guys) enough about just how impressive this design is. I mean this is almost a 600 watt 2 slot card and temps are good and so is the noise.
Liquid metal used in thermal interfaces like this is most famous for not quite corrosion, but for things like penetrating other metal's crystal lattices and causing embrittlement. Galinstan alloys (of which most liquid metal cooling solutions consist of as far as I am aware) and aluminum is the most common example, where if the oxide layer of the aluminum is scratched off and the galinstan is allowed to make contact with the bare aluminum, it is soaked up like a sponge and the aluminum turns as brittle as a potato chip.
Fun fact: Founders Edition card production is limited to the amount of blood they are able to harvest from Robert Patrick
I think i'd be cautious with it as it will degrade nickel too just much more slowly.
while slower once it breaks through that nickel plating(time...a lot of it or faulty manufacturing introducing a weaker area)..it will decimate the copper cold plate underneath.
I've always avoided it despite the possible thermal benefits because I just don't want the hassle that come come with it.
@@sinAnon6689 PS5 as well.
14:54 the design is f’ing beautiful steve, i’m really really impressed with the engineering this time. they invested heavily this cycle
The PCB is surprisingly small, I can't wait to see what the water blocks will look like
Never thought Id be impressed by a GPU cooler. The PCB is impressive too though, its so smol!
No technology was harmed in the making of this film.
Steve was really having fun with the disassembly
I appreciate the want to make the card small again
As electronics hobbyist i can say that the amount of decoupling is unreal. That just shows how advanced consumer gpus have became. (actual gpu as chip, not whole card). Yeah there are lots of memory chips which require good decoupling but still impressive.
Casual ICP reference at 5:30 is WILD 🤣
Honestly dude. I was expecting Pinhead to come out of that thing.
"You opened the 5090. WE CAME!"
So happy that I have turned on the notifications for your channel. Always happy to watch your videos, Steve! Keep up the great work!
Thank you!
This is probably the best designed cooler Nvidia has made in a while. Super cool!
wouldve been great to re-pad it witrh performance thermal pads and compare the temps, considering the liquid metal reapplication and especialy if new pads impact if at all the memory temps
I'm actually amazed at how dense the PCB is populated. Could you imagine the reaction inside Nvidia when they realized they could finally make such a tiny PCB possible?
Thoughts on coil whine? Biggest factor in whether I buy or not!
Personally my GTX1080 has horrible coil whine nowadays at high frame rates but I can't hear it at all if I put any pair of headphones on, which is 99% of the time I'm gaming.
Derbauer's had some pretty bad coil whine.
my 1070 ti has so much coil whine its wild but its an evga card so par for the course
Igor's Lab has sound samples of Suprim X SOC vs Founder's Edition and the FE has both much noisier fans but also audible coil whine.
Steve’s teardown videos are by far my favorite thing about new hardware releases.
21:03 those black cotton swabs are kinda common. Amazon has them.
How do you call them?
Yeah what're these referred to as?
MAN... adding a custom waterblock to this GPU would be amazing.
What's to worry about? They rarely, almost never sell the FE outside the US. The partners can sell their 4 slot cards at +30% prices with ease, cause there often is no alternative outside the US.
americans dont know how good they have it compared to the rest of us 😅
The day when Nvidia will start selling GPUs directly is one step closer: I think Jenson explicitly said that he wants Nvidia to become something like the Apple of GPUs... so no more board partners.
The USA is probably a big market, looking at what wages are like there. I think the cost of living in the EU is probably lower overall, but the number of people with enough money to burn for a card like this is probably smaller as well (per capita, anyway).
I dunno, here in Poland I was easily able to get a 4090 FE from Nvidia site and we are pretty poor by EU standards. I even RMA'd few of them beacuse of the coil whine (didn't help btw). I hope it will be the same for 5090 FE.
There should be competition between AIBs, no?
Whenever someone mentions liquid metal I automatically remember the way that Ahnuld pronounced the term in Terminator 2.
I am glad that the PCI Express can be replaced because I've seen lots of cracks in that area at Northwest repair. This may be a $2,000 video card but I believe that Nvidia finally went all out in designing and making it.
"Can be replaced" doesnt mean they will sell you their custom part to do it yourself.
watching this teardown is amazing actually i love the process of exploration and silliness involved
I get their strategy - they are gonna over-engineer the competition out of the market, become sole manufacturer, sole card supplier, jack prices even more, and make even more money.
"jack prices even more" My friend... they can already do that. They supply the chip and set the "recommended" price.
@@MrFallenone It is about eating the scraps that "partners" currently make. This could be money in nvidia's pocket, the moment they can meet demand, and keep short supply for even higher demand and prices and move into the 90% margins...
Yep. There's a reason EVGA left the Nvidia board partner group chat, it's just not worth it with Nvidia making such good FE cards and being so controlling about what board designs are deserving of their GPUs.
That modular PCIE contact is a great plus. With all the sagging and broken PCI lock that has been happening.
Doesnt mean it will not break somewhere else and who says Ngreedia will sell it as a repair part since it is custom made?
The cooling doesn't make sense. It's a '' blow through '' design. That's going to put extra heat on the cpu. Why not reverse the flow and have air being pulled through the card and not have the extremely hot air being cycled by the cpu cooler?
hot air rises the fans would be fighting the natural airflow of just about every case
No@@theq4602
damn. the quick cut away from the ad read was perfection
already loved how in the 4090 you could replace a fan just by removing the backplate and snaking in a cable. Now you can replace a cracked PCIe connector just by removing the backplate.
the thing that I like the most is the ability to replace the PCI-E connector slot
That is one dense PCB, holy.
Insanely dense! And a lot of layers on the PCB.
@@GamersNexus No repairs possible, i think.
Can't wait to see these on Northwest Repair's channel
Igor by the way had a great point for consumer safety. I am not sure about the US but in the EU/Germany hot surfaces over a certain temperature need a warning sticker "caution: hot surface". And this would possibly be nessecary because he measured surface temps over 70°C on the 5090!
21:25 I think they're called fiber-free/lint-free swabs? I found some companies making those for medical applications but they don't list pricing so it must be expensive lol
Teardown starts at 5:56
Oh, it's great that they have a separate part for the PCI-E connector - I managed to damage mine even on a 3080 and had to do some welding to bring it to life. Service centers don't usually do such things, so it's been quite the adventure. And considering the weight of these new high end cards, good call. Also output might be as important if the card tries to detach itself from the MOBO.
No LTT screwdriver?
They aren’t “friends.”
@dillonh321
I know 🤣
You can feel the quality of that cooler through the screen based on just the sounds it makes as he's disassembling it. People say some things just feel expensive, this is one of those things. (I owned a 3090FE and felt the same way about that)
My first impression about 50series is this: ANTI-REPAIR
I love how every bit of the cooler is metal. Super expensive sure but that machining though damn
At this point I kinda wish there were no partner cards. They are more expensive these days and the FE is the only one with this level of engineering and zero GAMER marketing. Just turn all the chips into FEs.
Ah yes. The classic Monopolist enjoyer... in case you dont know here are some reasons why its beneficial to have more then one Reference Model:
-A Variety of Models fit more personal preferences, be it an asthetic nature or a performance nature like noise development, cooling power, alternativ cooling solutions, dimensions, secondary BIOS
-Different Partner Models ensure a competition and "need to innovation" as we see on this Model. I dont know how old you are but a lot of us still remember the horrific axial fan designs of the 2010s. Nvidia and AMD produced literally the worst cooling solutions for GPUs that you can think(for the average Gamer)
-Some partner cards use different more expensive power delivery components which is needed for (extreme) overclocking. While this isnt the majority of customers its still a relevant minority, that also is responsible for developing some software tools for GPUs
this factory 5090 is dumping a ton of heat into the case, it doesn't even attempt to blow out the back like most video cards, so i want a water cooled card, can only get that from partners.
@@predestruction8235 yeah nvidia beating out partners on design is NOT a good thing for consumers. they only do this BECAUSE it is a competitive market. EVGA dropping from the competition is a bad thing for us. we have less options now. if nvidia beats out all competitors, you can guarantee their coolers will no longer be innovating year over year.
but, this cooler is impressive. it's good to see. i hope it keeps getting better
This cooler looks like a nightmare for dust cleaning, the partner cards will probably be easier to disassemble for cleaning.
@@predestruction8235 1) Then allow AIBs to still make their own coolers that can be retrofitted but keep all cards FE only. Now due to shortages of FE, the aftermarket is full of 3-4 slot bricks ugly designs that most people are forced to get instead. These designs are that way cos its cheaper to just create bigger traditional heatsinks cos there is less engineering involved. 2) Thats speculation. If AIBs were never in the picture, you cant say cooling would have not innovated. Afterall, the competition is AMD and Intel and not AIBs. AIBs are used cos Nvidia would rather let them deal with the mass production of putting the chip together into components. Plus their long standing relationships. 3) Overclocking is extremely gimmicky now days. With the advent of computed automated systems, GPUs and stock CPUs are almost at their peak efficiency out of the box. Or moreover, safe peak efficiency. Having an OC card with 5-10% improvement and a 20% markup price and 10-20% further power consumption is just ridiculous and unnecessary. Undervolting is the way to go nowdays.
Your cotton swabs you prefer remind me of Cotton Cleaning Swabs / Technical Cotton Swabs. They don't shed like drugstore ones, and usually have a tighter weave and wood handles, they also come in various sizes / lengths.
I could scream when US TH-camrs say "Aluminum". It's like saying "It's a Comuter" (communication) instead of "Computer" (computing). It's 2 i in _all major western languages_ , but for some reason the USA decided it's "Aluminum"
AL you mini yum......
Nah, it's all lumen num. :P
In Portuguese, is "alumínio" two "I"
You have an extra syllable for no reason.
it's so funky with the pcb parts ....that now u have to disassemble a partner card to check a single pcb card
I would like to see this liquid metal after some time with a vertically mounted GPU.
We haven't heard any problems from the ps5.
@@poppyrider5541 Yes, but the ps5 doesn't have ~600W chip.
@@tomtomkowski7653 what does that matter. It's the heat that matters.
@@tomtomkowski7653 Bare patches would still be a problem on it.
Levering against the PCI is the boldest move I've ever seen
"I'm not seeing any screws on the back."
It is at this point that I, as someone who also likes DIY, would nope the hell out. I might like taking things apart and seeing how they work...but my curiosity is just not worth the risk of bricking 2,000$!
EDIT: Okay, not too bad, other than the liquid metal part - that I would never risk! Sure some scary magnets threatened a bad time, but I think they just put those in to give Steve a scare lol.
The confidence does appreciate over time as you gain experience. Me, nowadays, I am in the unfortunate position of disassembling €10000 worth of audio gear in a rack unit without second thought.
it's usually fine. Usually.
The waterblocks for these cards are gonna be very interesting. I imagine they can do a super small one or a normal over the top one.
Yeah another GPU I will never be able to afford that the avg gamer/consumer will never own. I care so much about it...
The more you buy, the more you save
In a few years, these are going to be more affordable in the used market, but yet again, at that point maybe there's going to be a newer card that's cheaper that matches the performance, who knows
4090 is currently selling higher than it was at launch.
Liquid metal is actually a pretty easily made compound. 68.5% (Ga), 21.5% (In), and 10% (Sn) by weight, its actually relatively easy to make at home even with a hot air station. I personally made 100g for about 50$. Gallium is very expensive however.
So early, god damn
Should try applying thermal paste and test it to see how the thermals compares to the liquid metal.
Dude the modular PCIE slot to make replacements easier is pretty sweet. Also allows for custom extension mods for weird mounting locations
Could you please copper shim mod the memory instead of pads and check out the result? Please?
Sounds like he's disassembling a pistol.
That modular PCIe and display output connector could leave the placement of the card in a case/build rather flexible. If you find extensions that have good signal integrity.
A modular PCIe power connector would've been helpful for any meltdowns. At least it has some fat solder points. The modular PCIe slot helps when builders break the interface during shipment due to not rigidly mounting the card.
Hear me out! A 25% higher price for 30% performance gains, while also consuming 30% more power, sounds like a tough sell at first glance. But let’s be real, this cooler and design are an absolute marvel of engineering. A 600W, 2-slot GPU in 2025? That’s insane! And on top of that, it looks stunning. In my opinion, this is hands down the best-looking RTX 5090.
5:35 I’m glad you guys still haven’t worked out magnets, that shit is still alien tech to me 😂
Such a cool video, loved the tear-down.....felt nervous throughout.
This is an actual very impressive card, they definetly went all in with this project
The other day I took the shroud off my 2070 Super to clean the dust out of the blower fan and cooling fins. Took like 10 minutes from taking it out of my PC to putting it back in and the end. It’s wild how much that has changed
Funny, they actually improved repairability
The rubber strips on the the metal back plate may also be for NVH. I imagine there's plenty of vibration to make just about everything rattle if you'd let it.