Disassembly and Teardown

Taking the GeForce RTX 5080 Founders Edition apart is exactly the same process as on the RTX 5090. Now that I've done it several times it's much easier, also there is no liquid metal to worry about. For all the details, check out our RTX 5090 Teardown, this one will be a bit more straightforward with fewer photos.

While NVIDIA did not try to make disassembly extra difficult, it's still a complex multistep process. Make sure you have the right tools, prefer plastic tools over metal tools where possible, to avoid scratching the PCB or components.


First, remove the four screws holding the slot cover in place.


Now remove the screw marked in red. Just this one screw, the others can stay in.


Gently lift the frame, starting from the PCIe slot, it's attached magnetically along the card.


Slide the two triangle-shaped covers sideways—they have machined grooves to move in—no force required.


Remove the six screws holding the PCIe PCB in place and lift the PCB up.


Now you can remove the "backplate."


Remove these cables.


Remove the flat cable for the display IO. I used a plastic prying tool sitting on top of the metal GPU bracket, to avoid damaging any components on the PCB.


Now you can lift the PCB up. While I needed very little force on the RTX 5090, possibly due to the liquid metal providing very little suction force, on the RTX 5080 this was much more difficult because of the phase change thermal interface material, this performs slightly worse than traditional thermal paste, but offers much greater longevity. Wiggle, be patient, get the three small cables out of the way so they don't get damaged when the PCB suddenly goes (tape them to the black metal cooler)