A previously unannounced change to new Nvidia graphics cards such as the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 might make it harder to keep an eye on unusual GPU temperature spikes. With the new RTX 50-series GPUs, gamers can seemingly no longer check GPU hot spot temperatures, with Nvidia suggesting the data “isn’t relevant” for gamers anyway.
With less temperature data available, gamers with the best graphics card could now find it harder to spot overheating on the GPU die. Nvidia suggests that the change shouldn’t be much of a problem for gamers overall, but removing the data will make it harder to track these issues.
This change wasn’t publicly announced, but early RTX 5090 reviewers spotted an obviously incorrect figure for the hot spot temperature being reported in tools such as GPU-Z, with a figure of 491°F (255°C) shown. German hardware YouTuber and overclocker der8auer spoke about the issue in a recent video (which you can see below) and reached out to Nvidia for comment, but the GPU maker’s response was a bit confusing.
According to der8auer, Nvidia first told him that the new RTX 5000 series GPUs now report memory temperatures instead, but this was already possible with earlier cards, including the RTX 4090 and RTX 3090. After further probing, Nvidia reportedly told der8auer that API changes mean that the hot spot temperature is no longer accurate or relevant for gamers, but didn’t go into further detail.
There’s a reason why this could be problematic for gamers, however. First, the 5090 die size itself is huge, but the temperature you’ll see reported by tools such as GPU-Z is an average across the die, meaning the temperature recorded won’t be the same across the entire surface.
The hot spot temperature was a useful way to spot if there was a huge discrepancy in temperature compared to the average. Removing it makes it more difficult to troubleshoot instances where your GPU might become unstable because of overheating, perhaps if you’ve installed your own choice of waterblock on the GPU, where the heat dissipation between the GPU cooler and the GPU itself isn’t working as cleanly as you might expect across the chip.
Losing the GPU hot spot temperature means losing a useful early warning system for identifying those potential risks. Gamers, especially enthusiasts who wish to modify their GPU cooler, will need to carefully monitor their GPU performance and, in instances where instability occurs, take extra care to ensure that their card is getting the proper cooling.
For everyone else, much will rest on how well the cooling system performs on these new RTX 5090 graphics cards over the coming years and months. While this card isn’t available to buy just yet, you can check out our RTX 5090 review to see our thoughts on how well this new Nvidia powerhouse card performs.
