RTX 5090: Prototype leaked – power consumption of up to 2,400 watts!

A leaked image of an RTX 5090 prototype shows an unusual configuration with four 16-pin power connections. The destroyed engineering sample gives insights into Nvidia’s tests and indicates a gigantic hunger for electricity.

Supposed prototype of the RTX 5090 appeared

The Geforce RTX 5090 was presented as one of the first cards of the new Blackwell series from Nvidia at the beginning of January 2025 at the CES 2025. But until a graphics card comes onto the market, a number of prototypes are produced. And so appropriate copies keep appearing.

At the end of 2024, a user found a supposed test version of the RTX 4090 in the trash. Now there is also an image of an alleged prototype of the RTX 5090. The apparent engineering sample has a really extraordinary configuration and gives interesting insights into the technical design of the Blackwell flagship and its PCB structure.

Potential for gigantic power consumption

The early prototype PCB is built in many layers. This structure enables the integration of more components and can improve thermal and electrical power. The Blackwell chip used uses smaller manufacturing nodes and optimized architectures.

X-user yuuki_ans has shared a picture of the engineering samples. It is particularly striking that the total of four 16-pin connections are available. In theory, this not only reduces the load per connection and thus avoids potential overheating problems, but also offers more scope for extreme performance tests. With the four connections, the graphics card could theoretically record 2,400 watts of power. For comparison: The final sales version of the RTX 5090 comes onto the market with a TDP of 575 watts, which is already considered very high. This power consumption also requires a well thought -out housing creation in order to effectively remove the waste heat resulting.

Additional USB connections and diagnostic pins can also be seen in the picture. In addition to the memory modules on the top of the board, units are still installed on the underside, it could even be a prototype for a possible RTX 5090 Ti or the RTX Pro 6000 Blackwell.

Further development patterns

It is not the first prototype of the RTX 5090 that can be seen. An early version of the graphics card from the development was leaked in January. At that time, however, she ‘only’ had two 16-pin connections and an alleged TDP of 800 watts. The GB202 of the GPU was somewhat better equipped with 24,576 CUDA cores than the now available version of the graphics card that has 21,760 cores.