You can learn a lot about PC hardware by checking out repair shops on YouTube. Some of these shops document their adventures in fixing the woes of their customers, showing you the guts of tech you might not often see and how to make it all better. But if you’ve spent a couple of grand on an Nvidia RTX 5090 Founder’s Edition GPU, maybe don’t take a look for yourself.
That’s the verdict fromNorthridge Fix, the official YouTube channel of a California repair shop (spotted byVideoCardz). Actually, what they say is more alarming: “Never in your life buy a 5090 Founder’s Edition,” referring to the Nvidia-branded reference cards that arehighly sought-after for standard retail pricesand clean branding. It is, according to the video, “one of the worst designs in the history of video cards.”
The technician had a customer with two RTX 5090 cards thatboth had a water block installed, a part that’s used for custom water cooling loops. Both cards failed after the water block was applied. The add-in-partner board (brand not specified) was repaired, but the Nvidia Founder’s Edition card couldn’t be saved. The culprit appears to be the 5090’s shockingly small physical design, which uses a proprietary connector (marked “JB05”) to connect it to a PCIe slot.
This itty-bitty connector uses dozens of pins, only two of which were broken, an issue so tiny it would be tough to spot with the naked eye. That’s not the problem itself, though—small and fragile connectors are part and parcel of modern electronics. The problem is that the repair shop couldn’t find a replacement part, as it doesn’t appear to exist anywhere online. (And they would have the experience and connections to find it, certainly). Ditto for the proprietary PCIe connection part.
Repairability is an issue for just about any modern electronic device. Some of them are fantastic, like Framework’s entirely modular designs; some are headaches, like most smartphones; and some are practically e-waste in waiting the minute you buy them, like most wearable tech. But having a $2,000 graphics card (closer to $3,000 for a lot of buyers) with zero options for repair after a niche-but-not-uncommon part installation is dismaying to say the least.
“If you take apart the card, you want to install a water block, you want to adjust the thermals, you want to clean it, you want to do whatever, chances are that card is not gonna work again if you are not extremely careful,” said the technician. “If you already have a 5090 Founder’s Edition, you made the purchase, do not open it.”
