Molex 16 Pin Wire Connector, Harley BLACK Waterproof, Sealed Kit, MX150

Product Information

Initially, there were some concerns that the 12VHPWR connector could fail if the cables were bent in the wrong place. CableMod, a third-party cable manufacturer, published a "12VHPWR Cable Guide" claiming that it can't be bent near the plug, and all bends should start at least 35mm from the connector. PSU manufacturer Be quiet! places that distance at 40 mm. This is difficult to do in most PC cases. It also suggested that people need to ensure they're plugging in the cables completely. We at Tom's Hardware haven't tried any third-party cables. ATX 3.0 PSUs should work, as those cables don't require adapters for the 16-pin connector. However, there are still at least a couple of reports of direct PSU connections melting. Our findings to date suggest that a common issue is that connectors are not fully plugged into the graphics card. To help ensure the connector is secure we recommend plugging the power dongle into the graphics card first to ensure it's firmly and evenly plugged in, before plugging the graphics card into the motherboard. Nov 4th 2022 AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Performance Claims Extrapolated, Performs Within Striking Distance of RTX 4090 (164) This is murky territory. In the box for the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition, the documentation reads:

RS supply a wide range of high quality components. They include heavy duty industrial connectors, power connectors, modular connectors, electrical connectors, electronic and data connectors. They are divided into the following categories: With Ampere, Nvidia pushed the 12-pin PCIe power connector, but it never caught on. Only the Founders Edition utilized that connector. The chipmaker's partners still preferred the standard 6-pin and 8-pin PCIe power connectors for their custom Ampere offerings. The introduction of the 12VHPWR power connectors will be troublesome for power supply manufacturers. They'll either have to design new products that comes with the 12VHPWR power connector or provide existing owners with an adapter. Here's what we know about the issues with the 16-pin 12VHPWR connector incidents so far. What is happening?Here are some of the first pictures of a GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 4070 Ti custom-design graphics cards, the RTX 4070 Ti AERO. GIGABYTE targets the AERO brand of graphics cards, motherboards, and notebooks, at creators who like to game, hence the product design that's a lot less flashy than the company's AORUS or Gaming OC brands of graphics cards. An interesting aspect of this card is that it features a 16-pin ATX 12VHPWR connector, and includes an NVIDIA-supplied power adapter that converts two 8-pin PCIe power connectors to one 12VHPWR. We know this adapter is different from the 2x 8-pin to 12-pin adapter NVIDIA included with the RTX 3080 Founders Edition, looking at the four sensor pins. Several have said that they have heard from Nvidia or other card vendors after reporting their melting connector, or that they have received a replacement card. Some companies are already announcing new adapters for the GPU. CableMod, for instance, has a right angle adapter that it says requires less bending. What has Nvidia said about all of this?

We do not know precisely how many RTX 4090 cards have been sold that use the 16-pin 12VHPWR connector. There are also RTX 3090 Ti and RTX 4080 cards that also use the same connector. By that token, there could be hundreds of thousands of cards with 16-pin connectors now in the hands of consumers, and only a very few of those have failed — Gamers Nexus claims the graphics card companies are saying the failure rate is between 0.05% and 0.1% right now. So about one in a thousand to one in two thousand. Ironically, unlike almost all the other internal ATX power connectors, the Peripheral Power Connector was actually a Mate-n-Lok connector designed by Amphenol. Amphenol ICC confirmed that the connector is designed for 600W graphics cards. It didn't specify whether it's for gaming or data center graphics cards. However, the company did list AI and cloud, gaming consoles, graphic interface, networking, server and storage as potential target markets for the connector. Nvidia and our partners are committed to supporting our customer and ensuring an expedited RMA process, regardless of the cable or card used.”

MSI recently came up with a simple yet somewhat effective solution for the issue, where it showed off bright yellow colored 16-pin power connectors. The idea is that the yellow-colored pins will not be visible to the user once the connector is properly seated (via PCWorld YouTube). Some RTX 4090 owners have reported that the 16-pin 12VHPWR power adapters have melted while plugged into their graphics cards (some also claim that the connectors have melted, too).

The chipmaker does warn against using third-party adapters, such as the Cablemod and the upcoming Seasonic one, which will void your warranty — though note that all the cases of melted connectors so far have been with the official Nvidia adapter. Can someone build a better right-angle connector than Nvidia's official adapter? Almost certainly, and it will still technically void your warranty. The new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti graphics card is the first to use the new 16-pin PCIe 5.0 power connector.As our brand is known for highest quality standards, we treat this seriously and have initiated an investigation. The new connector helps eliminate the use of multiple 6-pin or 8-pin PCIe cables, decreasing cable clutter and making cable management easier. Nevertheless, the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti can also be powered by three 8-pin PCIe cables, although it would be a lot more unwieldy. Gamers Nexus couldn't replicate the melting issues at first, despite mangling several adapters. It put up a poll for 4090 users where it appears less than 10% have the 16AWG 300V wires. More recently, Gamers Nexus published a video where it "successfully" caused at least one adapter to melt… by not plugging the connector in all the way and by putting strain on the cables. While right-angle adapters can reduce cable bending, owners aren't out of the danger zone yet. Remember that the 12VHPWRpower connector has a service life of 30 connection cycles. PCI-SIG detected the same mating issues around 40 cycles.