Second Reported Incident In Only One Week, Reliability Concerns Sparked For PNY GPUsPNY RTX 5070 Capacitor Goes Bang – Gamers Shocked
Another PNY RTX 5070 capacitor explosion while gaming has gamers fuming — TechSpot Though it’s almost impossible these days for a graphics card capacitor to explode, this would mark the second instance of this happening within a few days of each other and both times with PNY GPUs from the RTX 50 series lineup.
A Second Explosion in a Week
The first incident was only days ago when the capacitor on the PNY RTX 5090 ARGB OC edition reportedly exploded. Well, a Redditor revealed recently that his PNY RTX 5070 blew up while he was playing Marvel Rivals, with a bang and smell of burning. On closer examination, he found a capacitor blown off its seat.
The case is more worrisome because the RTX 5070 and RTX 5090 failures are similar. Both are PNY cards (with different heatsink designs) This differs from the PNY RTX 5070 capacitor explosion which uses RTX 5090 model rather, there is no heatsink contact concern for: Instead, the failure could indicate insufficient soldering or a bad cap close to the VRM power delivery.
What caused the PNY RTX 5070 capacitor to explode?
As seen in the photo from the PNY RTX 5070 capacitor explosion, the dozens of capacitors surrounding the GPU are located near the I/O area and within reach of the inductors. These are large power managing capacitors and in this case it seems one has blown on load. Fortunately, it was still able to operate after that which means the PCB itself was likely not damaged that badly. While this does add load to the remaining capacitors, which can make the GPU die faster.
The user has also requested an RMA, but that’s not the biggest problem, though — is this an isolated incident, or the tip of the iceberg of a larger PNY RTX 5070 capacitor explosion quality control problem?
Not an Overheating Problem
Based on the first statements released, the PNY RTX 5070 capacitor explosion is due to overheating, but not because the card overheated. Rather, the issue appears to originate from poor quality or manufacturing of capacitors. This however seems unlikely going by the sufficient gap between the capacitor and heatsink so thermal stress isn’t likely to be the issue.
As it turns out, another commenter mentioned having the same issue with a ZOTAC RTX 4070 Ti Super, though that’s the only non-PNY instance we’ve seen of this capacitor failure so far. Unfortunately, no reports from other AIBs (add-in board partners) regarding RTX 50 series capacitor explosions.
Should Gamers Be Worried?
Although only two incidents of PNY RTX 5070 capacitor explosions have been registered, both involving RTX 50 series cards from PNY, this fact alone looks suspicious. The chances of capacitors exploding is remote and so two such incidents in under a week, hopefully, indicates a lapse in quality assurance.
For now, PNY GPU owners—particularly those with RTX 5070 and RTX 5090 cards—should keep an eye (or ear) on their hardware for any strange sounds, smells, or performance issues.
FAQ
It cannot be heat that’s causing such a thing to happen, but instead it’s cheap capacitors or weak soldering to begin with in the VRM section.
The GPU can still work but some of the load falls on leftover capacitors which will likely reduce its lifespan.
No, blow up like a capacitor — not quite. It’s rare for two reports of PNY RTX 50 series cards to pop up in a week.
Now, these issues don’t appear to be widespread, but two back-to-back reports indicate PNY might want to reassess the quality control on its RTX 50 series GPUs.
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