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Nvidia's RTX 5090 GPUs with blower-style coolers appear in China — design optimizes Nvidia's fastest gaming GPUs for use in AI workloads

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Leaked photos raise questions over unauthorized distribution and cooling feasibility.

Alleged photos of a blower-style RTX 5090 spotted in China
(Image credit: @Olrak20_ on X (formerly Twitter))

A blower-style version of the RTX 5090 GPU has emerged online courtesy of hardware leaker Olrak20_ on X (formerly Twitter). The photos, which seem to be from a facility in China, show multiple units of the GPU packed in boxes and ready for shipment. Curiously, the GPU has a serial number sticker which mentions ‘RTX5090 32G D7 Turbo’, suggesting that the GPU in question is not the RTX 5090D, officially meant for the Chinese market.

To date, Nvidia partners have not announced any blower-style variant of the RTX 5090. A blower-style GPU includes a single fan to draw in air, and hot air is exhausted from the back of the case. This makes it suitable for systems with limited space and servers, workstations, or multi-GPU setups where managing internal heat is important. Unlike open-air cooled GPUs that tend to recirculate warm air inside the case, blower cards can help lower ambient temperatures by removing all the hot air.

Last month, a similar-looking blower-style RTX 5090D was spotted on Chinese video platform Bilibili. It featured a two-slot design, a rear-mounted 16-pin power connector, and a large open section at the bottom. The video also validated that it included the GB202 chip paired with 32 GB of GDDR7 VRAM. This new leak, however, feels less official and more like an opportunistic offshoot.

Alleged photos of a blower-style RTX 5090 GPU from China

(Image credit: @Olrak20_ on X (formerly Twitter))

The RTX 5090 can draw up to 575W of power, which means a blower cooler may struggle to handle such high thermal output levels without throttling or excessive noise. While that raises doubts about the card’s thermal capability, there’s a chance that these GPUs are meant for an AI (Artificial Intelligence) training or an enterprise setup.

It is also important to note that the GPU and the boxes do not have branding, which further suggests that they might be gray-market or unauthorized units that originated through unofficial or illicit channels. Recently, the U.S. government requested that the Malaysian trade minister tighten security and monitor tech exports to China to crack down on chip smugglers.

Alleged photos of a blower-style RTX 5090 GPU from China

(Image credit: @Olrak20_ on X (formerly Twitter))

Nvidia has not commented on the images or confirmed any such SKU in development. Until the company or a board partner offers a statement, the origin and legitimacy of these blower-style RTX 5090 units remain unclear. Whether they are engineering samples, modified OEM hardware, or originating from unauthorized supply chains, the appearance of such GPUs raises doubts over supply chain security and the growing demand for high-performance GPUs in China.

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Kunal Khullar
Kunal Khullar
News Contributor

Kunal Khullar is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware.  He is a long time technology journalist and reviewer specializing in PC components and peripherals, and welcomes any and every question around building a PC.

8 Comments Comment from the forums
  • acadia11
    Never understood why more AIBs don’t offer blower style cooling solutions? Everything is open air ….
    Reply
  • ejolson
    Not offering blower coolers is for market segmentation. In China there is no need to protect profit margins on the data center parts since export restrictions mean those parts can't be sold in China anyway.

    It would help independent developers, home labs and AI enthusiasts to sell the 5090 with 32GB and a blower cooler everywhere.
    Reply
  • jlake3
    acadia11 said:
    Never understood why more AIBs don’t offer blower style cooling solutions? Everything is open air ….
    There’s a couple theories.
    Blower cards have largely been looked down upon by gamers for being hot and loud and consequently sold poorly, so AIBs stopped making them
    Rising TDPs meant that blower designs were going to get more complicated and more expensive, and it became cheaper to make base models open-air
    Nvidia is worried about brand image, and won’t authorise AIBs to sell blower coolers because they’re worried that they might throttle or sound like a jet engine, and that would reflect poorly on the Nvidia brand overall.
    Nvidia ordered a stop to blower-style gaming cards expressly to prevent their reuse in servers and workstations, so that customers with size restrictions and airflow patterns that require the use of blower cards are left no option but to step up to the Quadro lineup.Edit:
    Speculating on the above, I think the truth might be a bit of all of them? If I remember correctly, the GTX 900-series it wasn’t too hard to find a blower version of a 970 or 980 through the whole generation, the GTX 10-series there were blower versions of 1070s and 1080s but they mostly disappeared as the generation went on, RTX 20-series Asus still had the “Turbo” model (and I think one other brand with a blower listed on Newegg?), but I only remember seeing that in 2060 and 2070 versions, along with OEM blower versions of the 60/70-class… then for 30-series all the holdouts threw in the towel at once. Some AIB in Asia announced a 3090 blower, if I recall, and then it vanished and they never spoke of it again.
    Reply
  • johnb44672
    jlake3 said:
    There’s a couple theories.
    Blower cards have largely been looked down upon by gamers for being hot and loud and consequently sold poorly, so AIBs stopped making them
    Rising TDPs meant that blower designs were going to get more complicated and more expensive, and it became cheaper to make base models open-air
    Nvidia is worried about brand image, and won’t authorise AIBs to sell blower coolers because they’re worried that they might throttle or sound like a jet engine, and that would reflect poorly on the Nvidia brand overall.
    Nvidia ordered a stop to blower-style gaming cards expressly to prevent their reuse in servers and workstations, so that customers with size restrictions and airflow patterns that require the use of blower cards are left no option but to step up to the Quadro lineup.Edit:
    Speculating on the above, I think the truth might be a bit of all of them? If I remember correctly, the GTX 900-series it wasn’t too hard to find a blower version of a 970 or 980 through the whole generation, the GTX 10-series there were blower versions of 1070s and 1080s but they mostly disappeared as the generation went on, RTX 20-series Asus still had the “Turbo” model (and I think one other brand with a blower listed on Newegg?), but I only remember seeing that in 2060 and 2070 versions, along with OEM blower versions of the 60/70-class… then for 30-series all the holdouts threw in the towel at once. Some AIB in Asia announced a 3090 blower, if I recall, and then it vanished and they never spoke of it again.
    I think relatively “near” the beginning of the 30-series is when they really cracked down on blower cards. Asus, Gigabyte and some others all “made” the cards, but they weren’t available for very long and are still hard to get a hold of. I have both a 3080 and a 3090 blower style card in my multi-gpu rig, along with a 2070S and 1080. The 3090 was bought more recently, used of course, and imported.

    I thoroughly believe the main reason they aren’t “allowed” is that Nvidia didn’t want people using GeForce in higher-end, multi-gpu applications. I was in a job where I helped make decisions on purchases a number of years back and I had suggested GPU based rendering for some visual effects workstations. I was specifically inquiring about GeForce cards instead of Quattros. That was at an expo and some of the venders that wanted to sell those pricey systems didn’t like that I was inquiring about GeForce-level cards (1080s at the time).

    I love blower cards and are the main ones I am interested in…so am sad to see them gone!
    Reply
  • SyCoREAPER
    Pfft. der8auer just showed off the RTX Pro 6000. The new benchmark.

    He comically and very casually stated the power connectors new name, '12V-HighFailure'
    Reply
  • Heat_Fan89
    acadia11 said:
    Never understood why more AIBs don’t offer blower style cooling solutions? Everything is open air ….
    ^^^ This

    What gets me is that the problem is exacerbated with glass side panels as the hot air exhaust is directed at the glass panel. My only solution is to add more fans to my prebuilt or remove the side panel while gaming. I have been trying to find a current generation card with a rear exhaust and they appear to NO longer exist.
    Reply
  • acadia11
    Heat_Fan89 said:
    ^^^ This

    What gets me is that the problem is exacerbated with glass side panels as the hot air exhaust is directed at the glass panel. My only solution is to add more fans to my prebuilt or remove the side panel while gaming. I have been trying to find a current generation card with a rear exhaust and they appear to NO longer exist.
    Exactly , it doesn’t seem like a difficult engineering problem to solve, if you can make a jet fighter stealthy am pretty sure one can make a silent blower.
    Reply
  • HardwiredWireless
    These guys have to do something with the cards that they steal and replace with backpacks and other weighty objects.
    Reply