Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 bursts into flames, turns gaming PC into charred mess

Another tale of a burned-out Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 has reached our ears, with a claim that a Zotac-branded RTX 5090 caught fire just 10 seconds into playing a match in the Battlefield 6 open beta. The card was reportedly aflame for at least 10 seconds before the fire could be put out, leaving behind a scorched mess in the owner's PC.

Tales of failing Nvidia graphics cards have been popping up since the RTX 5090 first launched back in January 2025. We've seen everything from melted RTX 5090 cables to fire-damaged RTX 5090 PCs since, but Nvidia hasn't publicly commented on the issue. The RTX 5090 sits in our best graphics card guide for performance, but with a 575W power draw this flagship GPU can cause some serious damage when it fails catastrophically.

The report of this RTX 5090 fire comes via a post on Taiwanese forum Gamer.com.tw, where it was spotted by X (formerly Twitter) user, UNIKO's Hardware. In their post, forum user york4517 claimed that their Zotac RTX 5090 Amp Extreme graphics card caught fire as they were playing the Battlefield 6 beta on a pre-built NZXT gaming PC.

The fire left the RTX 5090 and other components significantly damaged, with the motherboard, RAM, and tubing for the liquid cooling system all badly affected.

Analysis by UNIKO's Hardware suggests that the damage on the card's PCB hints at a failure on the MSVDD rail, which supplies power to the card's VRAM chips. This would be in contrast to previous incidents that have seemingly been triggered by issues with the RTX 5090's power connector. The user also claims the card was undervolted, which would have reduced the GPU's power demands, making this even more of a mysterious fire. Neither Zotac or Nvidia have commented on the failure so far.

This incident marks yet another unfortunate and dramatic chapter for Nvidia's flagship GPU. If you're an RTX 5090 owner, it might be wise to make sure you always keep your warranty details handy, along with your insurance details, just in case you ever need to make a claim.

You can check out our Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 review to see our launch day thoughts on this super-fast GPU. Our best gaming motherboard guide is a good place to start if you're thinking about building a new top-spec PC for a card like this, too, especially if you've not picked between an Intel and AMD build just yet.

You can also follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides. We also have a vibrant community Discord server, where you can chat about this story with members of the team and fellow readers.