  We investigate general features of charged Lovelock black branes by giving a
detailed description of geometrical, thermodynamic and holographic properties
of charged Gauss-Bonnet (GB) black branes in five dimensions. We show that when
expressed in terms of effective physical parameters, the thermodynamic
behaviour of charged GB black branes is completely indistinguishable from that
of charged Einstein black branes. Moreover, the extremal, near-horizon limit of
the two classes of branes is exactly the same as they allow for the same
AdS$_2\times R_3$, near-horizon, exact solution. This implies that, although in
the UV the associated dual QFTs are different, they flow in the IR to the same
fixed point. The calculation of the shear viscosity to entropy ratio $\eta/s$
confirms these results. Despite the GB dual plasma has in general a
non-universal temperature-dependent $\eta/s$, it flows monotonically to the
universal value $1/4\pi$ in the IR. For negative (positive) GB coupling
constant, $\eta/s$ is an increasing (decreasing) function of the temperature
and the flow respects (violates) the KSS bound.
