r/hardware • u/ewelumokeke • 3d ago
News 12VHFRPWR Connector Claims its First AMD RX 9070 XT Victim
https://www.techpowerup.com/340193/melting-12vhpwr-connector-claims-its-first-amd-rx-9070-xt-victim148
u/JuanElMinero 3d ago
AFAIK only 3 cards in that AMD generation use the connector.
The AsRock 9070 XT Taichi they're talking about and both the Sapphire 9070 + 9070 XT Nitro. In case you're thinking about getting those.
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u/3G6A5W338E 3d ago
These are also the cards I recommend avoiding, due to the connector.
It is a failure of a connector. Do not support it, and it will eventually go away.
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u/JuanElMinero 3d ago edited 3d ago
My personal recommendation is to treat 12VHPWR as if it was rated for 300W.
I'd be okay with that 9070 (245W TDP), but those two OCd 9070 XTs can both reach ~350W, as per TPU reviews.
Those are all cards from just half a year ago, concerning how they'd fare after 3-5 years.
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u/BitRunner64 3d ago
There was even a report of a 5070 non-Ti with a melting 12VHPWR cable. No one is safe.
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u/Canadian_Border_Czar 2d ago
IIRC the non Ti only has 2 connectors.
The 5070 Ti was like 5 W over the limit for 2 connectors so it has 3 and is theoretically much safer because of that with a lot of overhead.
Its also been a while since I looked at this so I could be misremembering.
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u/user007at 3d ago
Hear me out, if you do insert it properly there is literally no problem with it. The problem with it that people apply a normal level of force installing other components, it’s just that 1% which fail to do so when it comes to that connector. If you do insert it with a normal level of force and double check it there shouldn’t be any of burning/melting issues.
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u/justjanne 3d ago
Even if you insert it properly, if there's e.g. dust on the connector, or after some insertion/removal cycles some pins have lost their coating, it'll affect the resistance of individual pins unevenly.
On RTX 5000 this will cause uneven load distribution, which can lead to fires.
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u/viperabyss 2d ago
some insertion/removal cycles some pins have lost their coating
After 30 cycles.
How many times do you plug / unplug your GPU during its life time? Pretty sure you can count that with your hand.
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u/justjanne 2d ago
In reality, much fewer than 30 cycles have been found to cause this issue.
And while this isn't recommended, some people remove the GPU to properly clean and de-dust their computer every quarter or so. That increases the risk significantly, as the freshly disturbed dust can settle inside of the connector.
That's a perfect recipe for disaster in just one or two years.
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u/Canadian_Border_Czar 2d ago
All the more reason to not use a native PSU. If you use a dongle then you never need to unplug the connector from the GPU.
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u/viperabyss 2d ago
In reality, much fewer than 30 cycles have been found to cause this issue.
Source needed. PCI-SIG's own spec is 40 cycles.
And while this isn't recommended, some people remove the GPU to properly clean and de-dust their computer every quarter or so... That's a perfect recipe for disaster in just one or two years.
Then they don't really know what they're doing, isn't it? We shit on people who use water to clean their motherboard. Why are we giving a pass to people who treat their hardware in a way that is way out of spec and out of norm?
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u/justjanne 2d ago
Then they don't really know what they're doing, isn't it? We shit on people who use water to clean their motherboard.
Well, we probably shouldn't do that either, as demineralised water is a perfectly fine way to clean electronics, and in certain ways superior to isopropyl alcohol.
Why are we giving a pass to people who treat their hardware in a way that is way out of spec and out of norm?
Well, because they're used to electrical devices being built to a much higher standard.
The required standards for electrical devices in Germany would normally require that if multiple wires share a load passively, either each wire needs to be fused individually, or each wire needs to be able to take the full load itself.
With 12VHPWR, that'd require AWG10 per wire, or if each wire is individually fused, AWG15. For reference, 12VHPWR uses in reality AWG16.
So it's not that people's expectations are wrong, it's that PCI-SIG is applying significantly lower standards than people are used to and can reasonably expect.
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u/user007at 3d ago
Fires? Did we have a single case where a system with a 5000 card which went up in flames? I don’t think so
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u/ketseki 3d ago
I don't really understand why you've got a problem with what /u/justjanne said. Uneven loads on a circuit melts components of the circuit. Melted components lead to shorts. Shorts lead to fires. Are you expecting aluminum cases to burst into flames, or some other exaggerated situation?
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u/Pinksters 2d ago
I don't really understand why you've got a problem
They just bought a 5080 3-4 days ago and are worried about their puchase, thats why.
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u/user007at 1d ago
I own one and I am not at all. The topic is just massively overblown and 99% of the cards with that connector will just fwork fine for their entire lifespan.
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u/user007at 2d ago
After a lot of comments from "very smart people" in the last few months which state a 5090 is gonna burn your house down, actually yes. Dust seems even like a quite unrealistic point.
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u/conquer69 2d ago
The dust can be one of the triggers for the problem. It's so badly designed it can have multiple causes.
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u/crshbndct 3d ago
I’ve got the Sapphire 9070xt. I’m Pretty concerned now. I do check that the connector is firmly seated and have a PSU with a connector on it, not using adaptors, and my PSU spec is rated for 600w through the connector.
But it’s still worrying. This is my first big-boy GPU and I don’t want it to cause a fire.
That being said I’m undervolted for 96% of the performance at 240w.
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u/JuanElMinero 3d ago edited 3d ago
That last part alone already makes it a lot safer. 1/3 of the wattage cut is pretty solid.
Checking that everything is fully seated and no cables near the connections are overly flexed or otherwise stressed, you should be good.
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u/crshbndct 3d ago
Mine does have the hidden plug though, which takes a pretty hard 90 degree turn out of the connection.
I’ll take my chances I guess.
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u/conquer69 2d ago
The cable being fully seated means nothing. What matters is the contact of the pins and you can't do anything about that.
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u/Jeep-Eep 1d ago
Up to 375 watts seems to be the safe zone for the standard, no matter the on paper specs. This and that 5070 are just the standard rate of infantiles you'd have seen on the old standard IMHO.
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u/viperabyss 2d ago
It's a PCI-SIG standard. It won't go away.
And no, this is most likely not due to the connector.
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u/teutorix_aleria 2d ago
If the connector is melting on multiple models for hundreds of different users even with gpus with moderate power draw... the connector is the problem. I don't care if its user error, your power connector should not allow for user error to cause a dangerous failure state. Clearly this connector is more prone to failure than the old style ones, which makes it a bad design.
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u/PainterRude1394 23h ago
Clearly this connector is more prone to failure than the old style ones, which makes it a bad design.
What is the failure rate on this connector vs old ones?
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u/viperabyss 2d ago
"Hundreds of different users" is about 0.2% of consumer GPUs sold, not even including workstation and datacenter GPUs that use the exact same connector, exact same power draw, but 0 issues.
It isn't the power connector issue.
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u/plantsandramen 2d ago
I thought about buying the Taichi and the Nitro but didn't because of this connector.
I got the Red Devil instead.
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u/battler624 3d ago
Since its not a nvidia card, can I assume the lack of load balancing is part of the spec for this connector?
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u/ASuarezMascareno 3d ago
Yes, its the spec.
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u/VTOLfreak 3d ago
You are probably not going to believe this but the spec actually says the other way around. It states that all lines should be bridged on the device side.
The AMD cards don't have load balancing either. Both AMD and Nvidia followed the spec. It's the damn specification itself that's the problem. The culprit is working for the PCI-SIG. (Of course Nvidia making it mandatory on all their cards didn't help either)
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u/exscape 3d ago
You are probably not going to believe this but the spec actually says the other way around.
But they said the lack of load balancing is in the spec. Everyone here agrees the spec is at fault.
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u/VTOLfreak 3d ago
Read over the post too fast before I responded. Oops. But yeah, load balancing is not part of the spec.
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u/Zenith251 3d ago
You're right, and that's the weird part for those who don't know:
The first implementation of the 12HPWR cable, the GeForce 30 series, was out of spec. In fact, it was way above spec. Load balancing seemed to have been forced on the AIBs by NV. GF 40 series rolls out, and all signs of load balancing are completely gone. Which is paradoxically "in spec."
You're right, PCI-SIG, and it's development sponsors Dell and Nvidia, screwed the pooch on this one. They screwed it, and have done jack shit to resolve the issue. Seeing all the issues with GF 40 series, NV acted like GPU's self immolating is intended behavior and repeated the design failures in 50 series.
Seeing AIB's, especially ones who don't even make NV cards, doing the same shit is infuriating.
Makes me wish AMD had contractually mandated load balancing if AIBs wanted to deploy 12v-Poor-Power.
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u/chefchef97 3d ago
Smells like a lot of conflict of interest going on here, and nothing at all being done to stop it
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u/Zenith251 3d ago
Probably saving more money by using the cheaper connector solution than they're losing on RMAs. Assuming they even honor the RMA. And after warranty expires, they actually benefit as cards won't live as long.
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u/Alarchy 3d ago
AMD (and IBM, Intel, Qualcomm, more) are board members. It's not just Dell and Nvidia. Everyone was on board with this spec, they're all equally to blame.
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u/ASuarezMascareno 3d ago
Thats what I said, that not having load balancing is the spec.
However I would not put all the blame in pci-sig. As far as I know, Nvidia pushed them to go It this way.
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u/terraphantm 2d ago
If they really wanted the GPU to not do any load balancing, the spec should have mandated overcurrent protection at the PSU level. Allowing the possibility of a single pin to theoretically draw 50A is ridiculous.
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u/VTOLfreak 2d ago
True, that's the second part I keep thinking, why don't we have any PSU yet with per-pin overcurrent protection? With all the drama going on, you'd think a marketing department would jump on this and rush such a feature to the market.
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u/PM_ME_UR_GRITS 2d ago
The connector is designed in a way that the octopus cables are probably load-bearing for the pin resistance tolerances. If you try and do crimp connectors like PSU vendors typically do, it isolates the thermals and the resistance to individual wires instead of being able to share heat across wires. So one wire gets hot, the pin fails, the other wires get hotter, their pins fail.
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u/F9-0021 3d ago
When they used the same board side power delivery design as Nvidia's 40 and 50 series for the 12vhpwr cards I knew this was only a matter of time. It sure would be great for Sapphire, Powercolor, Asrock, and whoever else uses the connector to revise the board designs and make them more like the 3090ti.
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u/reddit_equals_censor 3d ago
NO, the correct move for those companies is to recall the 12 pin nvidia fire hazard devices and replace the units with 8 pin pci-e connector ones.
there is no "safe 12 pin nvidia fire hazard" connector. it doesn't exist.
the only safe nvidia 12 pin fire hazard connector is a recalled one.
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u/conquer69 2d ago
The connector itself is ok if there is load balancing. There is no need to throw out the baby with the bath water.
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u/reddit_equals_censor 2d ago
it is literally a 0 safety margin connector with tiny extremely fragile connections.
there is no saving this fire hazard. it is fundamentally broken.
and NO load balancing the individual pins by splitting the vrm can not be used at all ever, because even if it would prevent all melting, which absolutely no one should expect, then that would still be inherently unsafe, because the connector would now have insane pcb requirements on the target, which would also be impossible for certain uses, that can't just split a vrm into half.
just think this through.
it would be the equivalent of saying: "this one wallplug with 12, instead of 2 power connectors is perfectly safe and not the reason it melted when connected to my mini oven, because it is the mini ovens fault, which used the connector wrong."
can you see how insane that idea is. the connector by itself needs to be safe and it is not and it CAN NOT be ever.
you want a small safe connector? alright sure, let's use xt90 or xt120 connectors. both have 2 connections for power (one of which ground and one 12 volt then) and the xt120 connector does 60 amps sustained, or 720 watts at 12 volt.
so again YES you throw the nvidia fire hazard connector out with nvidia.
remember all the people claiming, that eps 8 pins (cpu power connectors 235 watt per connector) need to have their load balanced through splitting it in half? oh yeah NO we don't, because that is insane and doesn't matter and it needs to NOT matter to safe connectors, which the eps 8 pin connector is.
please stop trying to defend this nvidia fire hazard, as if it would suddenly be perfectly fine, if only x would happen.
how many x did we have now?
is x: user education after the wrongful claim, that it is just user error.
is x: the sense pins being too long, but now they are shorter with 12v2x6, so now it is safe
is x: rtx 50 series release, which nvidia claimed will be completely free from any melting
is x: using the adapter, that comes with the card, instead of anything else, because some random people lied about it and claimed, that certain nvidia 12 pin fire hazards were safe, while others aren't, yet ALL ALWAYS end up melting?
can you give up on looking for x and accept, that there is no saving an inherent nvidia fire hazard?
is that possible?
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u/randomkidlol 3d ago
its unfortunate that these connectors and the spec isnt validated by the likes of UL/CSA/CE/etc like every other appliance that plugs into 120v/240v outlets. most likely because 12v devices are all exempt from testing.
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u/fkenthrowaway 3d ago
Can you believe that a simple xt60 connector would be enough and problem free?
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u/JRAP555 3d ago
Some of the new Intel workstation cards have 12V HPWR. Lets see if they can get it right
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u/TortieMVH 3d ago
Nobody is getting this right. The 12V HPWR is a flawed design.
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u/esakul 3d ago
With multiple load balanced rails it would be safe. But for some reason the official spec just does not require it.
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u/hitsujiTMO 3d ago edited 3d ago
no, it should have been overspeced like every other power connector.
instead they decided to go with zero headroom at every point so it cannot handle any load imbalance, which is insane.
pcie connectors speced for 12.5a per pin, whereas 12vhpwr only speced for 9.2a per pin, despite the much higher loads per pin.
pcie can handle 150w per pin giving it 100% headroom, 12vhpwr can handle 110w per pin giving it 10% headroom.
Both use 16awg which can load 12a, which again is nearly 100% headroom on pcie, but only 44% headroom on 12vhpwr.
The fact that the only cards not having issues are those under 300W suggesting we do need as much as 100% headroom, and 12vhpwr should have moved to at least 14awg.
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u/Plank_With_A_Nail_In 2d ago
It can take 800w but most cards using it do not draw anywhere near that, its used in 5070's etc which use less than half the available power.
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u/hitsujiTMO 2d ago edited 2d ago
Under spec 662W is all the connector can take. If you have an over engineered connector, then maybe you can push it to 800W, but anything just to spec will begin to heat up at the 662W mark.
And that's assuming everything is completely load balanced. Which won't happen naturally.
Similarly, the older 300W 8pin PCIE can actually take 576W under spec. The connector can do 600W, but the use of 16awg wire becomes the limiting factor holding it back at 576w.
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u/Affectionate-Memory4 3d ago
The workstation cards tend to have some extra protections and care taken with them, so I don't expect a failure rate beyond what other brands have seen in that setting.
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u/Exist50 3d ago
Skeptical if there's any practical difference in the construction, but if nothing else, they have much lower power draw than something like a 5090.
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u/Affectionate-Memory4 3d ago
True on the construction. I'm thinking more about installation and monitoring care. Workstation and server builders won't take "eh looks alright" as assurance very often, and especially not on GPUs that get close to 5 figures at the top end.
The only chance I see for danger with ARC cards is the B60 Dual. If a version of that tries to power the whole board on a single 12-pin, that could get a bit risky. Given we've now seen a <400W card melt, and 4090s were quite melty at 450W, that card could be at risk.
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u/JRAP555 3d ago
This is a valid point. Not many of these are going to be bought for DIY.
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u/Vodkanadian 3d ago edited 3d ago
You'd be surprised, if they are useable for consumer llm I can see a lot of people buying them instead of 3090/4090.
edit: apparently 1200$, which is insane considering 3090 still sell for 800$ with half the ram.
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u/JRAP555 2d ago
OneAPI blows compared to CUDA
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u/ffpeanut15 2d ago
For inference you can just run with Vulkan. CUDA is only a necessary if you train
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u/pmjm 3d ago
We're also going to be far less likely to hear about a failure in professional/enterprise systems unless it's by chance an enthusiast that it happens to.
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u/Affectionate-Memory4 3d ago
True, though I'd expect even a slightly higher than normal failure rate to have made some noise in reports by now. Maybe it has and I'm unaware.
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u/BlastMode7 3d ago
When I saw there were models with the 12V connector, I said this was going to happen... it was a hot take at the time and pissed quite a few people off. Sometimes I hate being right.
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u/Hayden247 3d ago
I warned about this too, I was seriously disappointed the Saphhire Nitro model used it and then was later confirmed to have NO load balancing which is the root problem here! The design cannot just handle going without it yet the spec is to have no load balancing, it's stupid.
Now I wasn't looking to buy this gen, I want next gen Radeon if they're good value but dammit I have a Saphhire and Saphhire is commonly called the EGVA of Radeon, they make good cards and stuff. But jeez I really do not want to touch this connector EVER if I had another choice for a GPU unless it is CONFIRMED to have load balancing which then I could trust it because some 30 series had this connector but Nvidia was handling the spec at the time and yeah all of them had load balancing and nobody had the melting issues we now have with 40 series since the official specification without load balancing came out, then 50 series and the odd 9070 XT with them again melting. Just took the 9070 XT this long because only a few specific models use it and then they still don't draw as much as a 4090 even for the OCs, biggest out of box OCs are about 5080 level which is less risky but still CAN melt which we saw here.
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u/plantsandramen 2d ago
I wanted to buy my first ever Sapphire card, I loved the look of the Nitro. I saw the connector and said nope.
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u/MrDunkingDeutschman 3d ago
Weird because for cards of the 9070XTs power draw you can barely find any cases of burned 12V-2x6 cables. 99% are 4090s or 5090s with a few extremely rare 4080 and 5080s. Never seen an affected 300W TDP nvidia card.
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u/Active-Quarter-4197 3d ago edited 3d ago
the 9070 xt can draw nearly as much as a 5080 despite having the same 300w tdp
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/sapphire-radeon-rx-9070-xt-nitro/41.html
yeah the nitro for example draws 50 more watts than the 5080 in gaming
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/sapphire-radeon-rx-9070-xt-pulse/41.html
even the pulse draws a little more than the 5080 in gaming
I imagine an oced 9070 xt could draw even more than a 5080 at max load
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u/MrDunkingDeutschman 3d ago
If you look on slide below, wirh RT on they have the same power draw. If you're looking at a less conservatively tuned card than the FE the 5080s RT power draw is slightly higher than the 9070XTs.
Didn't expect the 9070XT to draw 350W in raster though. That's really mad.
Still, 350W power draw is a normal use scenario for a 5080 as many people probably buy the card for its RT performance.
We should see the same very rare failure rate.
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u/Active-Quarter-4197 3d ago edited 3d ago
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/asrock-radeon-rx-9070-xt-taichi-oc/41.html
yeah and the taichi goes to 365 lol. The AIBs on amd really push the cards to the limit lol. I think the nitro xtx pulls almost 100w over the reference xtx stock
I think nvidia is more strict with the AIBs bc the stock power draws are all pretty similar stock but you can increase them manually
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u/Pijany_Matematyk767 3d ago
I think nvidia is more strict with the AIBs
Yeah it is, Nvidia is very strict with what its AIBs are allowed to do. AMD is more lenient and lets the board partners decide more on their own and Intel is the most lenient, more or less allowing anything so long as the AIBs promise to handle potential warranties/returns
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u/Nicholas-Steel 3d ago edited 3d ago
There have been no widespread issues with AMD GPUs and melting connectors, seemingly due to the lower power draw, but it clearly anything is possible, depending on the circumstances.
Did AMD (or their board partners) also remove all load balancing components like Nvidia did? If they did, then it's the same "No shit sherlock, of course thermal runaway results in failure" that Nvidia is dealing with.
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u/Crackheadthethird 3d ago
AMD doesn't really police what power connectors their board partners use or how they're implemented. The use and implementation of the connector on the card here was entirely on the company who produced this card.
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u/ASuarezMascareno 3d ago edited 3d ago
Having load balancing would be out of spec, as the spec requieres merging all input limes when they reach the board.
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u/Nuck_Chorris_Stache 3d ago
Well then fuck the spec, do it anyway. Then work to get the spec changed.
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u/Zenith251 3d ago
Did AMD
As far as anyone has found, AMD's only reference design had 2x8 Pin connectors. You can find that PCB in cards like the ASRock Steel Legend or Sapphire Pulse.
Anything that deviates from that design is likely designed by the card maker themselves.
Media comments by AMD in the past were that, paraphrasing, "they'd allow card makers to make their own decision around 12v-Poor-Power vs classic 8 pin connectors."
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u/GenZia 3d ago edited 3d ago
To add to that, it's mostly 4090s and 5090s that have been chewing up 12VHPWR connectors.
A card pulling 300ish watts saturates less than half of the connector’s peak threshold, after all.
That's not exactly a fire hazard, load balancing or not.
Personally, I won't be terribly surprised if the card was shunt modded. It's surprisingly easy to mod 9070s and a must have to push it up to ~3.5GHz.
Next to no reason to point fingers at AMD.
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u/Zenith251 3d ago
There's something I don't think most people understand about the 12vhpwr connector. While it does have thicker gauge wire, 16AWG vs common 8pin PCIe 18AWG, the 12vhpwr uses a smaller contact point.
And 12vhpwr actually has the same number of voltage supplying cables as 2x8Pin, 6 total.
So technically speaking, the odds of a 12vhpwr having connection issues and melting at 300w are higher than 2x8 Pin doing so.
It's a bad design at 300w, and it's a God Awful one above that. All they had to do was make the connector a bit bigger and this whole thing could have been avoided.
If you watched der8auer's videos on the subject, you'll note that all it takes is for one point of poor, or very poor contact to start a slow snowball affect that could take out the whole connector. In some instances, like while using Asus's Astral cards and their software, you can get absolutely horrible contact off of any cable at random. Perhaps this 9070 XT just had a shitty cable, like so many, and the snowball affect occurred.
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u/nullusx 3d ago
In this case you are talking about Sapphire, since they are the ones responsible for this card. AMD isnt as strict as Nvidia when it comes to board design. If they were, this connector would never been used in this card.
And no, there's no load balancing on the 9070XT Sapphire Nitro+
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u/JuanElMinero 3d ago
The GPU in question is an AsRock 9070 XT Taichi OC, as per the article/reddit post.
Still good to know about the Sapphire implementation.
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u/lidekwhatname 3d ago
how is this possible its like half the wattage of the spec of the connector
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u/Stilgar314 3d ago
The spec is broken. 12VHFRPWR is simply a bad design, and everyone should stop using it.
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u/Kindly_Concept_7005 3d ago
why buy 9070xt with 12VHPWR, 12VHPWR is a shit
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u/CatsAndCapybaras 3d ago
Probably because the taichi and the nitro are the best reputation radeon cards. People shouldn't buy them because of the absurd premium, but yeah, the connector is stupid as well.
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u/DragonPup 2d ago
If I were in the market for a new GPU, having a 12v would be a deal breaker. Not worth the risk to the card, the computer, or my home.
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u/NGGKroze 3d ago
I wonder if 50 series super refreshes will include load balancing this time around (hotspot sensor would be nice as well to return). I know Nvidia won't market those two anyway, but reviewers will do if they are there.
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u/Tenelia 3d ago
I've been with PowerColor for generations... Anyone has any idea how the current gen cards are like? I'm still on Vega 64 and runs Witcher 3 or Warframe perfectly at 60fps with max settings... But I do want to play heavier games...
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u/HuckleberryWeird1879 3d ago
Just buy a Powercolor then. I have a Powercolor Hellhound 9070 and it's so quiet and runs like a beast. And it has two 8pin.
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u/DeadPhoenix86 3d ago
I'm kinda happy I went with the 9070 XT Red Devil from PowerColor, which has 3 connectors.
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u/smellons 3d ago
I don’t remember if my XFX even has the connector but my PSU specifically recommends multiple PCIE cables (3) over the 12V, which I found interesting.
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u/barbasss 11h ago
Even if it isn't for a 12vhpwr connector, you should always use multiple cables if possible for current balancing
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u/shugthedug3 3d ago
Surprising with a 300W TDP? you would need a lot of the pins to go high resistance to result in overloading the remainder.
When it happens to 5090s the margins are much slimmer due to much higher power so even one or two pins going high resistance can cause overloading.
They really need to start implementing fault protection at the PSU end.
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u/Jeep-Eep 1d ago
As much as how nVidia uses this shit badly on the 5080 and above wattage cards and that this standard needs either massive overhaul or replacement, this is probably a nothingburger; just the usual rate of infantiles at this wattage.
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u/ShadowRomeo 3d ago
Now I am even more genuinely scared by this connector, because it managed to melt a GPU like a 9070 XT which probably is only around 350W on full power, I thought this issue only existed on ludicrously power-hungry GPUs like a 4090 - 5090 at nearly 600W
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u/deadfishlog 3d ago
Let’s wait for tech YouTubers to really hold AMD accountable here. Lol
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u/Crackheadthethird 3d ago
It wasn't an AMD decision to use it. Amd's reference designs do not use it, but they allow their board partners the freedom to choose what connector and implementation they wise to use. In comparison, Nvidia actively forces their board partners to comply and use thr standard.
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u/angry_RL_player 3d ago
Why? Nvidia is the one who forced everyone else to adopt it.
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u/Dreamerlax 3d ago
Well most 9070s are not using it so...
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u/JuanElMinero 3d ago
Yup, for some numbers:
1 model out out of ~15 different 9070 SKUs
2 models out of ~20 different 9070 XT SKUs
That's with all the OC/non-OC and color subvariants excluded from the lineups.
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u/Aggravating_Ring_714 3d ago
They will find excuses to not do it // why it’s probably Nvidia’s fault this happened 🤣
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u/TheZoltan 3d ago
I saw the Reddit post for this earlier. I think the guy was using a super budget 700w PSU so it makes me a little less worried. Hopefully this doesn't become a common problem as I love my Nitro lol
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u/BogiMen 3d ago edited 3d ago
It’s a low-quality PSU, but I don’t think the cable failed because of it. It has low 12V rated power, and its protections aren’t tuned well. I’m not an expert, but the only way the PSU could cause this would be through a crazy transient spike - and this PSU seems to be within spec. Back in the day, I personally built more than a dozen PCs with Chieftec PSUs (also 230V) together with Radeon GPUs (which were power-hungry but offered good bang for the buck), and I never saw an 8-pin connector fail.
Edit: I should also point out that there weren’t 80+ certifications for 230V PSUs back then, since the rating was done at 110V (or whatever the U.S. standard is). Some tier lists rate them as F-tier just because of that.
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u/CauliflowerFine734 2d ago
To be perfectly blunt this has to be a user error or a QC failure because plenty of 5070 ti and 4080 super exist that have NEVER failed on this connector as a result of anything BUT user error and QC failure.
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u/Plank_With_A_Nail_In 2d ago edited 2d ago
How is it possible to know this is the first? Lol the first one posted on reddit is not the first one it happened to.
Edit: You guys need to get outside more often, reddit isn't the real world what happens here is unique.
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u/NGGKroze 3d ago
pair a card that constantly hovers ~360-400W power usage with connector that has problems and OLD PSU that doesn't have native support, rather use adapters and you have your receipt for disaster.
Also connectors rating falls down with temps. So with the lack of load balancing as well and potential lower Amps per pin due to heat plays a role here - we saw some crazy temps with 5090s connectors (albeit that was 600W+)
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u/Best_VDV_Diver 3d ago
Figured it was only a matter of time.