ASUS ROG Astral RTX 5090 reportedly causes discoloration on ASUS motherboard after six months

A user on a Taiwanese hardware forum reported that their ASUS ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 left visible discoloration on the PCH heatsink of an ASUS ProArt X870E-Creator WiFi motherboard after about 6 months of use. The system was installed entirely in ASUS hardware, including an ASUS ProArt PA602 case, making the incident particularly awkward for the company.

The discoloration appeared in the area of the motherboard directly below the graphics card. The user said the mark could be partially removed with a wet cloth and some pressure, but the heatsink could not be restored to its original condition. The graphics card itself showed no visible issues and continued working normally. The risk becomes even greater in systems where airflow around the card is not optimized.

3

The RTX 5090 is known to push extreme power figures, with typical load consumption around 700W and peak figures reportedly approaching 1,000W in certain scenarios. While motherboard heatsinks are usually coated with heat-resistant paint, heat radiating downward onto nearby components can still become a genuine concern at those power levels.

It is worth noting that discoloration is not always caused by heat. There have been previous reports of RGB lighting from memory modules causing discoloration on GPU backplates, so it is possible that light exposure rather than heat is responsible here.

3

This is also not the first time the ROG Astral RTX 5090 has attracted attention for the wrong reasons. The card has faced reports of melting 16-pin connectors, missing ROPs in early production batches, and black screen issues since launch. A separate incident in early 2025 involved a card catching fire after a gaming session, with a blown MLCC capacitor suspected as the cause.

ASUS has not issued an official statement regarding this latest report. For anyone running an RTX 5090, particularly under sustained AI or compute workloads, it is worth checking that airflow around the card is adequate and that components in the immediate vicinity show no signs of thermal stress.