The increased number of 12VHPWR cables melting due to excessive heat prompted ASUS to introduce its ROG Equalizer . However, even though earlier tests have shown that it performs worse than a standard 12VHPWR cable, not to mention one incident where the ROG Equalizer ended up melting , one RTX 5090 gaming PC owner is thoroughly satisfied with his purchase. Showing various readings, the voltage drop has reduced by a whopping 87.5 percent.
The default PSU’s 12VHPWR cable powering the RTX 5090 had some brown discoloration, according to Redditor “sammyranks,” but he says the gaming PC functioned normally. It wasn’t until he started getting random system restarts, which he previously believed were due to Windows 11 updates, that he investigated further. After troubleshooting, he found that the culprit was fluctuating voltages, with the 3.3V rail dropping all the way down to 2.968V when under load.
Not wanting to further harm his pricey RTX 5090 and other components, he ordered ASUS’ ROG Equalizer. After playing games like PRAGMATA at full load, hovering between 600W and 635W, the 12VHPWR rail was stable at 11.9V to 12V. Before switching to the ROG Equalizer and while sticking to the default cable, the same voltage dropped to 11.2V. With the upgrade, even the 3.3V and 5V rails were showing better readings.
The Redditor didn’t have a temperature measurement tool, but the older 12VHPWR cable was claimed to be too hot to touch, with his guess being 80°C. In comparison, the ROG Equalizer was much cooler, showing how big a difference thicker copper wires can make in lowering resistance and producing less heat. In short, sammyranks appears to be thoroughly satisfied with this purchase and recommends that other RTX 5090 gaming PC owners make the same purchase.
He also notes that some RTX 5080 and RTX 5070 GPUs, whose 12VHPWR cables melted despite consuming only 250 to 350 watts, experienced both cable-quality and connector issues. However, given the increased number of these incidents, we sincerely hope that NVIDIA returns to the 6-pin and 8-pin PCIe power connectors, since we went for years without a succession of melting problems.
News Source: Reddit
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