A new test by Der8auer made him change a Asus ROG Astral LC RTX 5090. He made it use more power which let it perform a bit better than the $10,000 RTX Pro 6000. Yet, this kind of change is risky and is not for those who are new to this.
Changing a GPU this way means messing with its bits to skip the power rules set by the maker. This lets the GPU pull in more power than planned. This can make the GPU work faster, but any slip can break it or make it fail on the spot. Also, pulling in up to 800W power adds stress to parts like the 16-pin power plug.
Der8auer picked the Asus ROG Astral LC RTX 5090, a cooler GPU type, for his work because it cools well. He saw that the card was more quiet than others and let him tweak and track it well with Asus GPU Tweak III.
First, he checked how it did before the change. The card usually met its 600W power use when working hard, showing that this was holding back its full jump in speed.
The mod changed the bits linked to the plug. Now, the GPU's brain would think it's getting less power than it really was. Der8auer's changes aimed to raise power use by about 30% more than the card would say. A tool, WireView, helped measure the real power use. Also, the card's 16-pin plug gave another power readout.
After the change, WireView showed the card used 660W to 700W in easy tests, with GPU-Z showing about 500W. This meant it had room to use more power before hitting the new max.
In bigger tests and with set changes, the card hit its new top, often using about 750W while keeping cool and quiet.
In the end, the power-changed RTX 5090 did a bit better than the RTX Pro 6000. But, it used far more power compared to both its original form and the high-tech RTX Pro 6000 (with 96GB VRAM).
Der8auer liked the outcome, yet he stressed that changing such pricey GPUs is very risky. These changes can void warranties and can quite easily wreck them.
