Nvidia’s highly anticipated Blackwell GPUs, the foundation of its next-generation AI accelerators and RTX 50-series graphics cards, are encountering overheating problems in data center deployments, according to recent reports. These issues raise concerns about the architecture’s stability and potential impact on both data center performance and future consumer graphics cards.
The Blackwell architecture, initially delayed due to design flaws, has faced further setbacks as customers like Meta, Microsoft, and Google report overheating problems in densely packed server racks. Specifically, configuring 72 Blackwell AI accelerators within a single rack has led to significant thermal challenges, prompting Nvidia to request multiple redesigns from its suppliers. This situation contrasts sharply with Nvidia’s claims of significantly improved efficiency and performance compared to its previous Hopper architecture.
These overheating issues are particularly concerning given Blackwell’s importance to Nvidia’s future product lineup. The architecture is central to both the next generation of data center AI accelerators and the upcoming RTX 50-series consumer graphics cards. While the B100 and B200 GPUs have seen deployment delays, the potential implications for the RTX 50-series are now under scrutiny.
Nvidia claims Blackwell offers substantial improvements in training large language models, boasting 25 times lower cost and energy consumption and up to 30 times faster training speeds compared to Hopper. However, the reported overheating problems suggest that these performance gains may come at the cost of increased thermal demands.
The situation raises questions about the power consumption and thermal management of future RTX 50-series graphics cards. Although current-generation cards like the RTX 4090 offer impressive gaming efficiency, they have faced criticism for high power demands and occasional connector melting issues. Speculation suggests that the upcoming RTX 5090 could require up to 600 watts, and Corsair has confirmed that the next-gen cards will continue to use the 12V-2×6 connector, the same connector implicated in the RTX 4090 melting incidents.
While the scale of the overheating problem differs significantly between data centers and individual PCs, the challenges faced in the data center raise concerns about the thermal performance of Blackwell-based consumer GPUs. Gamers are unlikely to encounter the same density of GPUs as found in data centers, but the underlying thermal characteristics of the architecture remain a potential concern.
The implications of these overheating issues remain to be seen. Nvidia is expected to unveil its RTX 50-series GPUs at CES 2025 in January. Recent reports indicate that the company is winding down production of its RTX 40-series cards, likely paving the way for the next generation. The success of the RTX 50-series will depend, in part, on Nvidia’s ability to address the thermal challenges currently plaguing the Blackwell architecture in the data center.
