Give me all you got... i am a Hulk, it makes me even stronger. Anyway, no... hate is not the absence of love, it is "love gone wrong".

How Nvidia made the 12VHPWR connector even worse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb5YzMoVQyw

Actually, even more insight related to the matter. Indeed, i think, after a lot of research the 3090 TI Founders Edition (or comparable, MSI used the same parts on a custom PCB, even with some own improvements...) was a very good and sturdy design... and in my mind a card that is designed to potentially last an eternity, one of the most reliable designs ever made on any GPU. Even the cable is probably not a issue there, not even at 450 W load because the power (the card is demanding) is distributed along the cables pretty well and it is as well not going above 450 W, another "security factor" limiting some potential odds. Even the controller is the top notch class, so in general it will prevent the card from getting burned in term of any malfunction.

However... unfortunately the quality of the design kinda has been depleted on the 4090 already, which has been proven and validated by a repair tech°°°... someone doing repairs on those GPUs with a totally unbiased view, but it was still working out in a "OK-manner" on the Founders Edition versions (and some more... dependable on the manufacturer).

Now... with the release of the 5090 the design and its security seems to have depleted even more... and i only point at the Founders Edition now as i got very few stories related to other designs and their quality. I can not even say if this is a sheer quality issue but to me it is clearly visible that the design is very "cramped" in order to put as many parts into a small PCB as possible... and on top of that even trying to "save up" on some parts with some critical functionalities, such as able to distribute and balancing out the power input in a good manner. It is the most pricey "consumer card" ever made, so i simply do expect a more mature design and a higher reliability... and not a prototype with a somewhat lean design.

°°°According to my judgement "KrisFix" is currently the most competent repair technician but "Northwestrepair" should be very competent as well. KrisFix was actually the one "judging" my 3090 TI design and he said "very good"... which is pretty rare if he is saying it in such a direct manner.

Anyway... a high price does not necessarily mean "better" or "more reliable" but with decreased pricing the risk of getting a bad design is in the same manner increasing, as those parts simply got a certain price and no one can afford (except Nvidia, Apple, MS and some other megacorporations... yet they are not doing it) to sell stuff "at a loss". Although, Nvidia is CERTAINLY NOT making losses... i guess this is clear to everyone.

It is not that the 4000 series are any better, as they all seem to lack current balancing, although, they usually need way lesser power vs. a 5090 or even a 4090... and most 4090 owners use very "beefy" PSUs and expensive wires... so in general it takes a lot for making something going very wrong or at least it takes years up to the point the material is slowly aging and becoming more vulnerable to design-issues... and no one knows at what time it may happen... this is the nasty thing.

3090 class cards are as far as i can tell pretty safe here as they usually will not exceed... in worst case... 150 W a cable... which is in line with the odds which may happen in a 3x8 PIN design (7900 XTX or alike).

The PSU CAN NOT make any load balancing as long as it does not have a separate rail (means it will run in a serial, not parallel condition) for every single power cable going to the GPU. Which would be very expensive and such a PSU surely will cost double the current price asked, for the same quality. Almost no one is going to pay it... so this stuff have to be handled by the extremely expensive GPU... in theory... in practice it seems to become a rarity.

At least we all can boast about AI and how great it is... despite such serious flaws in the background.

Perhaps we will see such a PSU at some point but less than 1% of all users will be buying it, making it a prestige object with very low profit, unless sold on the server market for 10 times the usual price asked.

An advertisement for a '5090' in a Dutch e-hardwarezine at 3700 euro got me mighty interest in pricing again....

~As high as 4000 euro's on all kinds of weird offerings and as low as 2400 euro's in the more common shops which are of course - out of stock

a couple of '5080's' between 1800 and 2200 euro

No '4080's' or '4090's' in sight except for one lonely 'AsuS ROG' white 4090 going for the sweet price of 3300 euros

i'm so happy with purchase of the 'Aorus 3090Ti waterforce' for 1500 euro's again i mean of course it seems to be really worthwhile to wait and make the occasional appointment with Lady luck and of course Mr price... alert

The GPU market is currently destroyed and nobody knows at what time it may become "healthy" again. For the "average customer" it is currently even out of reach getting a mid range card comparable to a 4070 up to a 4070 TI Super. Those cards got the price of a PS5 Pro now, while barely offering more performance.

Indeed the 3090 TI is not lean on power demand but it still got mid range performance and a very sturdy design, making it possibly last a lot of years. So... my best advise is simply to enjoy those mid range cards way longer and ignore the currently destroyed GPU market...

7900 XTX a good alternate card? Not anymore... almost any of those are now sold out and the few left got a price of around 1000 coins. I barely can believe the current shape... i think even worse than the situation we had at "the big crypto boom"... guess because of "the great AI boom".

My 3090 TI was a good investment, definitely... because it seems it will have to last a lot of years to come, and it can handle it.

Indeed... the 7900 XTX is a way better card than many customers got in mind in the previous years. Although, i still do believe... the very best quality can currently become achieved by DLAA... on the games supporting it (so obviously no classics). A 3090 Ti is great at DLAA when not exceeding 1080P (above this res it surely will struggle maintaining 60 FPS)... which is all i need for now.

As if it doesn't get worse...

https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/power-supplies/nvidia-rtx-5090s-16-pin-power-connector-hits-150c-in-reviewers-thermal-camera-shots

We're quite satisfied with both our AMD CPU & GPU. As for Intel and NVidia, in the rear-view mirror years ago, with no looking back.

I was very lucky to get mine for 760 Euros in January (used, with 3 years warranty left). In some games it is even close to RTX 5080. I have seen them go up in price lately on the used market. As predicted, it still has more power than the new 9070 XT, but missing some newer features like FSR4 and improved ray tracing performance. Still I am happy and will keep it, even though I could make a profit on it now. It's a fun toy to have. And 9070 XT starts at 750 Euros here, so the market is truly borked.

I'm still seeing brand new 7900 XTX cards in stock for cheaper than the scalped 9070 XT prices...NVIDIA is no better of course, 5070's going for the same price as an XTX lol.

9070 XT is more or less on par with 7900 XTX and 3090 TI, however... of course with higher efficiency.

So, it is kinda hard to believe that my old flagship card still is not "beaten" in performance by mid range cards 2 generations ahead. Ultimately, at least my card was surely "worth it"...

AMDs RDNA4 is roughly on par with Nvidias 4000 series, if it comes to efficiency. Which is actually very close to Nvidia now because, as we all know, Nvidia made close to zero "advancement" with the exception of AI (which is not always used in games or with many issues).

Pretty possible AMD may even become "on par with Nvidia" on the new UDNA architecture... if it is any real advancement.

I found a reasonably-priced 9070 OC model and picked one up.

Your review is about right. This plays like a "4070 Ti Super" for AMD with around 40W less power draw. Ray-tracing is more on par with the standard 4070 and FSR 4 is above DLSS 3 but not better than DLSS 4.

In other words, AMD is not yet better than NVIDIA just but they're knocking at the door. If they make another jump like this without NVIDIA improving much then they'll likely be indistinguishable.

The RDNA4 cards was a big success for AMD, apparently they had 10 times more sales vs. previous gen. So this means more than 50% market share at the current time, which is a record value for AMD not seen for a very long time.

It seems like Nvidia is now heading to the AI industry and slowly disappearing from the "gamer market". Just not sure how sustainable this AI market seems to be, because Nvidia may not stay the king forever.

If they "come back" to the gamers, they may not get the warmest welcome anymore, as AMD simply was able to put almost both legs into a territory previously known to be the hunting grounds of Nvidia.

It all depends on UDNA (the next AMD architecture) and what they may achieve there. If they can provide a good advancement then Nvidia for the first time could feel some fresh and... very cold air... and at least their GPUs may not overheat anymore... which is impossible if they are not able to visit a players "home".

We know what was happening to Intel... they was a long time ruler of the CPU market for several decades and almost everyone got in mind "no one can touch them, ever and AMD may be gone soon"... and now... their home is burning, to say it pretty direct and truthful.

Such stuff is usually caused by the lack of humbleness and in many terms the resulting decadence.

Doubt Nvidia will pull out of gaming, they like being #1 too much.
It is true though relatively speaking there is no money in gaming,
and technically all players could shift to AI - which would be really bad for all of us :(

I guess they truly thought AMD was nowhere close. The fact they're doing the same VRAM limited cards is proof enough. When I bought my 9070, the 5070 alternative just made no sense. It's slower, uses more power, has less VRAM...

I own an MSI 6800 and thought AMD was in trouble when MSI stopped making GPUs for them because NVIDIA was their money maker. Now MSI is struggling with the 5000 series (all AIBs are) because NVIDIA basically abandoned them.

My biggest hardware-dream would be... if AMD may be able to release another behemoth comparable to the 7970 or even 7990, which was at that time ahead of what Nvidia had to offer (and prefered by many enthusiasts) but this time we see a new EVGA Kingpin called "our final card" coming back and creating a new massively OCd GPU that is crunching anything Nvidia got to offer with "honest calculations", so without AI... and without "burning issues".

Whats for sure... most likely, if nothing is going to burn, we may see another "flagship grade" card for the next AMD gen and most likely it may come sooner than 2 years from now on. PS6 is pretty much to be released around 2027 and UDNA not sooner than end of 2026 or in the beginning of 2027.

And new rumor intel's flagship tier GPU's for Battlemage will never see daylight!!

Here i was hoping to buy a Celestial Star Ship to complement my new system, in a couple of years!!!!

Guess that's back to saving 50 euros a month to buy that supertier NVDIA GPU in 2027!!!!!!!

So, youre gonna apply as an engineer in order to fix their vulcano-like "special effects"? It would be a tough feat because those guys can be a bit stubborn, but who knows... perhaps the next gen will be back on its tracks.

Still not the full bag of issues, as even the drivers seems to be in need of some strong fixes now... so yeah... some more applicants seems to be required, good ones.

There is some luck needed, for sure.

I mean, the only 5090 i could even "barely" recommend... is the Asus Astral because it got at least a Ampere limiter at every single cable. However... this may only be able to save the PSU and the cables... as the card itself still is with the same "unified design" and with the same design such as any other card. This design is kinda "set by Nvidia" and i am not sure if a PCB manufacturer can change it without way to big engineering. It will need "power balancing" on the PCB, which is a bit tricky without native support it seems.

Sure, perhaps if i would limit the TDP of the 5090 to 70% (lowest possible it seems) the card may need 450+ W at the cost of around 15% performance. However... this card at this point is probably not even twice that fast vs. my 3090 TI with same power demand... and a price currently around 3-4 times bigger vs. a card i already was considering pricey... this is "no good deal" for me.

On top of that... driver issues may still screw up my good experience... at this point i am definitely out... just not worth it anymore. Lets see "how fast" they might be able to get ride of those critical issues.

Sure, the 3090 TI is a "leecher" but it still can keep up in performance with new mid range cards (9070, 4070 TI+) and it is a card that simply is not "giving up"... a honest and very loyal piece... this is the stuff i enjoy the most. I do not mind a "leecher card" as long as the design is failure-proof and sturdy in the best way possible.

I got me "a good set" of drives (SSD, HDD) now with the price i may have burned for a GPU upgrade... i do not regret it, as... good drives are important to me... for someone using hundreds of offline-installers, every single game installed all the time, with low reliance on "external servers".

And a disc-based PS5 Pro as a "archive backup", for games missing on GOG... as well a good investment for me.