World's grainiest video purportedly shows an RTX 5090 under testing, but Zotac confirms it was simply an RTX 4070 Ti Super on a test bench | PC Gamer

Oct 24, 2024

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Update: Zotac has since released a statement confirming that the card shown in the video is an RTX 4070 Ti Super, not an RTX 5090. The statement is as follows:

"Over the last two days, we have noticed inaccurate speculation circulating regarding a rumored new graphics card product allegedly being manufactured by ZOTAC. We wish to seize this opportunity to provide clarification that the product showcased in the associated video source is, in fact, an existing product currently in production known as the ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER SOLID.

The video that has gone viral online pertains to an internal training recording of a trial production run at our facility in Indonesia, intended to test the performance of newly installed production equipments.

We reserve our right to claim against any unfounded speculation."

Original story: While reported leaked specs for Nvidia's upcoming next-generation halo GPU, the RTX 5090, have been causing much internet discussion of late, we've yet to see any pictures or footage of the card in action. Now a video has surfaced on Bilibili, purportedly showing two of the new GPUs installed on a rack of test benches.

The video is reportedly from a factory in Batam, Indonesia, making Zotac graphics cards. The facility is said to have been built to keep supply lines with China intact outside of US export restrictions. Two plus-sized GPUs are seen installed on test benches in front of a small crowd of employees, who clap and cheer when the system first boots (via Tom's Hardware).

Zotac is a brand owned by PC Partner, a previously Hong Kong based computer electronics contract manufacturer that has recently moved its headquarters to Singapore as part of an expansion into Southeast Asia. This factory appears to be the new Batam manufacturing facility announced earlier this year (PDF warning).

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So, what to make of all this then? Well, the cards in question here are certainly large—and the accompanying voiceover reportedly says that the cooler is slightly more substantial than that of the RTX 4090, but not by a huge amount.

That's to be expected for the RTX 5090, as while we're expecting it to need a significant amount of cooling, it's difficult to see how it could be much larger than current RTX 4090 sizes without severely limiting the cases in which it could be installed.

Otherwise, that looks like a pretty standard three fan cooler design to me. We in the PC Gamer hardware team had a scout around for something similar, and the closest cooler design we could find is the Zotac Gaming RTX 4070 Ti Super Solid OC.

That's an interesting graphics card in its own right, as it's based on a cut-down AD102 GPU, like the RTX 4090D—a GPU that was designed to avoid US government enforced export restrictions on high-performance hardware to China. Given that this factory is said to be doing much the same thing, it's possible that what we're looking at here is actually an RTX 4090D or similar, assembled and running on test hardware from this factory for the first time.

What's also interesting is the power connector, which looks to be a single 16-pin connection. Rumours have suggested that the RTX 5090 might make use of two connectors to satisfy its reported 600 W peak power requirements. While one 16-pin 12VHPWR connector can deliver a maximum of 600 W, it would make sense that a card capable of hitting that top limit would split its power delivery over two connectors to avoid potential issues.

Still, that's not a given, so we may actually be getting our first glimpse of an RTX 5090 "in the wild", or at the very least, in a graphics card factory in Indonesia. Not that a glimpse of a cooler tells us very much, other than the fact that the card is about as large as an RTX 4090, appears to be using a single power connection, and in this case makes use of three fans in this configuration.

The crowd reaction is somewhat telling, though. A smattering of employees, who may well be celebrating the first boot of an RTX 5090 on their test rig—or potentially, just the first boot of the test rigs in general. Really what we might be seeing here are the first fruits of a rushed facility taking its first steps in GPU production as a whole, despite what the voiceover claims.

Ifs, buts, maybes. As the current rumours suggest that Nvidia may be aiming for a simultaneous RTX 5090, RTX 5080 and RTX 5070 launch at CES 2025, it does seem likely that someone might spill the beans on what the cards look like before then—but this grainy footage has some pretty heavy question marks hovering above it for now.

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Andy built his first gaming PC at the tender age of 12, when IDE cables were a thing and high resolution wasn't. After spending over 15 years in the production industry overseeing a variety of live and recorded projects, he started writing his own PC hardware blog in the hope that people might send him things. And they did! Now working as a hardware writer for PC Gamer, Andy's been jumping around the world attending product launches and trade shows, all the while reviewing every bit of PC hardware he can get his hands on. You name it, if it's interesting hardware he'll write words about it, with opinions and everything.

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