Jumbo GeForce RTX 5090 design rumor shot down by noted leaker

The design of the Founders Edition (FE) of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 has been in the news lately, despite the card likely being months away from release (September has been mentioned as has end of 2024). Some rumored specs have already trickled through, and now it seems the idea that the RTX 5090 FE was going to be almost as big as a mini-PC has been challenged. There were some reports that a 3-PCB (Printed Circuit Board) unit like the RTX 5090 would need a huge case, a massive shroud, 4-slot requirement, and a whopping triple-fan cooler.

However, it appears these rumors have likely come from images of a prototype of an RTX 40-series cooler that featured three fans on separate layers: top, middle, and bottom. There had been a suggestion this design would be used for the Blackwell family GeForce RTX 5090 FE card, but kopite7kimi has come to the rescue to allay fears of a 4-slot-filling graphics card being inbound. The tipster specifically states that the “RTX 5090 FE has a 2-slot cooler” while also revealing it will consist of a dual-fan (not triple-fan) system.

In turn, this has led to some believing that the GeForce RTX 5090 FE might be a surprisingly slender unit, despite it reportedly featuring more memory modules because of the expected 512-bit memory bus (4090 FE: 384-bit). In addition, the Blackwell graphics card from Nvidia is supposedly utilizing three PCBs, as mentioned above, while also purportedly relying on the same 16-pin 12VHPWR connector that caused so many melting issues with previous generation Lovelace graphics cards. The ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4090 is available on Amazon for those who don't want to wait for the RTX 5090.