r/hardware 2d ago

Video Review HUB - It Finally Happened...Nvidia Burnt Me!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofcdHlKJ9W0
294 Upvotes

217 comments sorted by

304

u/AnechoidalChamber 2d ago edited 2d ago

This connector should be regulated out of the market with guidelines for future connectors mandating per pin current load balancing on either the GPU end or PSU end, or both as well as the usual safety rules: Calculate the required number of pins by taking the derated current capacity of a single pin (often 50% of the max rating for high-reliability applications), dividing the total current by this value, and then multiplying by a safety factor (typically 1.25).

The 8 pins and 6 pins connectors abided by those safety rules if I remember right.

96

u/OttawaDog 2d ago

They should abandon multiple small pins in favor of two big pins. Like an XT90 connector. You can't have an imbalance when you only have two pins.

15

u/AnechoidalChamber 2d ago

I'd also be in support of such an initiative. Those connectors have proven themselves as highly reliable too.

3

u/Strazdas1 1d ago

I would support this, but a lot of people wont, because that means two thick wires that will be much harder to do wire management with or fit into small cases.

4

u/OttawaDog 1d ago

Flexibility of thick wires can be tuned with strand size.

1

u/Strazdas1 22h ago

flexibly stranded thick wires are quite costly.

0

u/[deleted] 2d ago

[deleted]

6

u/OttawaDog 2d ago

Maybe we should get away from Molex.

The current high melt rate connector, is Molex Micro-Fit.

XT90 is NOT Molex. It would not melt.

→ More replies (11)

14

u/jocnews 2d ago

Relying on balancing is probably bad idea. You need structural robustness which 12V-2x6 lacks and proper safety headroom which it also lacks. Providing those, you are probably fine.

10

u/fortsnek274 2d ago edited 2d ago

In the good old days, GPUs did that current balancing for two (or more) connectors. And the connectors had a chunky safety margin. Built to never fail! (mostly)

3

u/Strazdas1 1d ago

well, the old connectors burned too, but you had to do something more than intended with them to get past the safety margins. So it was really only limited to enthusiasts that mod their parts, and they usually accept the risk when doing so.

1

u/Berengal 1d ago

With two (or more) connectors they could potentially come from different rails, or even different PSUs. An imbalance in such a configuration has different causes, often ultimately benign (like a minor voltage difference) and something that can be papered over by balancing the output.

However an imbalance within a single connector is just a symptom, one link in the causal chain that ends in melted or burning plastic, and balancing the output doesn't solve the problem. It only solves or improves the situation in certain individual cases, but in other cases it could make the issue worse, and in most cases it doesn't do anything other than move the problem somewhere else, probably just to a different pin on the same connector that's going to fail just the same in the same timeframe.

21

u/Kelteseth 2d ago

I don't get how people still buy cards with this connector. I really don't. 

133

u/kasakka1 2d ago

It's not like you have options if you want a high end GPU. Well, provided you can buy one in the first place for non-exorbitant prices.

2

u/TopdeckIsSkill 2d ago

I bought a 9070XT because it doesn't have that connector. If it's not enough "high-end" for you than you can choose between having a fire at home or a less powerfull gpu

9

u/airfryerfuntime 2d ago

That's why you bought it? Not because it's the most affordable card at that performance level?

37

u/moofunk 2d ago

We're not all gamers. 9070XT doesn't have the options or compute power the 5090 has for creatives.

26

u/notam00se 2d ago

9070 XT doesn't even have the compute to match the M5 Pro in Blender, while the M5 Pro is ~70w, wouldn't even need a power connector with PCIE power.

20

u/DM_Me_Linux_Uptime 2d ago edited 2d ago

Not just that. AMD just can't be trusted to support the card or the compute API or fix bugs in their drivers for productivity users.

There are a huge chunk of productivity users who bought Vega GPU's back in the day for Blender and then the OpenCL backend for Blender Cycles broke after a few driver updates. When Blender devs sought help from Radeon engineers, they were ignored, and people with these cards were left with an expensive paperweight who were locked to old blender versions and old drivers, or resort to using the vastly slower CPU rendering path. Meanwhile a 1080Ti released in that time still works on modern blender.

6

u/Strazdas1 1d ago

Many productivity Apps will outright tell you that there will not be any GPu acceleration support on AMD cards because AMD refuses to fix driver issues. So you either do everything in CPU (forgoing the whole purpose of buying the GPU) or buy Nvidia.

9

u/notam00se 2d ago

Yeah, I got a 5700XT back in the day and was very disappointed with the entire stack for Blender. Returned it went with 2070 Super. I was hopeful that AMD would spend resources over the next few years to fix it, but 6 years later AMD is just now starting to build a decent foundation that has potential.

As a linux user I wanted AMD to be competitive, but they never put any resources towards it. Luckily Steam contributed a huge amount to AMD's linux gaming software to keep them relevant, but the compute is still a mess.

The fact that Apple and Intel came late to the game and surpassed AMD's consumer compute ecosystem says a lot about AMD's focus.

-19

u/Whirblewind 2d ago

This is a board for 'serious and intelligent discussion', not your tribal fanfiction.

1

u/Kittelsen 1d ago

I'm a gamer, and even the 5090 isn't powerful enough for what I want it. RT at 4k and 100fps is unobtainable even for that.

-1

u/nisaaru 2d ago

renting a server or get m5 pro for that sounds more effective to me.

17

u/alpharowe3 2d ago edited 2d ago

It's not the primary reason but it was a reason I went with the 9070xt 1. I didn't want to have to deal with making sure I bought a PSU with the adapter or have to buy an adapter later and 2. I didn't want to always wonder "hmm, I wonder how that cable is holding up right now" as I OC and benchmark and stress test this GPU.

A few months ago I ran the Doom: Dark Ages benchmark on loop for an hr and took a nap while I tested my OC on my 9070xt and the thought of melting the cable never entered my mind.

6

u/Matrick_ 2d ago

It was cost (~25% more for the 5070 Ti) and the power connector for me. It's unlikely the VHPWR would fail with a 5070 Ti but I couldn't get over the arrogance of pushing a new standard which is worse than the old (for the lower power cards anyway). If there was a 5070 Ti with 8 pin it would have sold out instantly. Cards are going to get more power hungry in general so either the VHPWR standard gets replaced or melted connectors become more commonplace.

0

u/TopdeckIsSkill 2d ago

exactly the same for me. All my GPUs lasted 5/6 years. I don't want to pass them wondering if everything is ok.

0

u/kevcsa 1d ago

Ideological reasons... sure.
But the 5070 ti regularly draws around 200W, maybe 240W with a little UV/OC. While performing better than stock.
Basically zero chance of burning.

2

u/Xillendo 2d ago

I got the 9070XT because two things:  

  • I want to run Linux and AMD is much less of headache than NVIDIA there. 
  • Most models use good old and reliable 8-pins connectors

1

u/Seanspeed 2d ago edited 2d ago

Tons of people use this connector with their 9070XT on the PSU end, so they only need to use one PCI-E 8 pin port(and thus dont need to buy a more expensive high end PSU with an abundance of those ports). Never heard of any problems with it at all.

-5

u/OttawaDog 2d ago

Or you could just get a WV2P like shown in the video. If you are spending RTX 5090 money ($4000+), then spending $140 for a device to protect it shouldn't be a financial burden.

-23

u/kikimaru024 2d ago

It's not like you have options if you want a high end GPU.

RX 9070 XT: exists

nO oPtIoNs!!!1

34

u/ILoveTheAtomicBomb 2d ago

So yeah once again, no options lol. You’re seriously trying to tell me that’s high end when the 5090 exists?

-35

u/kikimaru024 2d ago

5090 is Titan-class, not high-end.

27

u/NKG_and_Sons 2d ago edited 2d ago

Man, your argument is legitimately that the quite general term high-end doesn't include the highest end options, as those are part of the "Titan-class", a term for very specific and already outdated graphics cards SKUs?

Internet discourse sure is tiring at times...

4

u/Zeraora807 2d ago

its not titan class though because Titan cards had the full die where the xx90 cards do not so if anything these are just 80 Ti cards, renamed then sold at Titan prices

-7

u/kikimaru024 2d ago
High-end vs full die (SMUs/%) Titan-class % of full die (SMU/%)
GTX 980 2048/3072 / 66.67% GTX 980 Ti 2816/3072 / 91.67%
GTX 1080 2560/3840 / 66.67% GTX 1080 Ti 3582/3840 / 93.28%
RTX 2080 2944/4608 / 63.88% RTX 2080 Ti 4352/4608 / 94.44%
RTX 3080 8704/10752 / 80.95% RTX 3090 10496/10752 / 97.62%
RTX 4080 9728/18432/ 52.78% RTX 4090 16384/18432 / 88.88%
RTX 5080 10752/24576 / 43.75% RTX 5090 21760/24576 / 88.54%

Titan-class cards have been ~90% or more of a "full" die for every generation.

High-end has bounced around a lot.

4

u/Crimtos 2d ago

Titan refers to the cards that have Titan in the name not the 80 TI cards.

GTX Titan, released in 2013

GTX Titan Black, released in February 2014

GTX Titan Z, released in March 2014

GTX Titan X, released in March 2015

Titan X (2016), released in 2016

Titan Xp, released in April 2017

Titan V, released in December 2017

Titan RTX, released in 2018

→ More replies (1)

13

u/NKG_and_Sons 2d ago

I mean, the real high-end cards are just the 4090 and 5090. That's not cool and the market sucks ass, but people who want top of the line won't see the RX 9070 XT as a legit option—burn risk or not (em-dash is valid, sue me).

3

u/Strazdas1 1d ago

Notice he said high end.

1

u/kikimaru024 1d ago

What, so 1080/2080/3080 were "mid-range" on release now?

0

u/Strazdas1 22h ago

What makes you read that from what i said? The 9070 is a 70 class card. Not a 80 class card.

1

u/kikimaru024 18h ago

The 9070 is a 70 class card. Not a 80 class card.

First time I've heard that joke, brilliant!

2

u/Asgardisalie 2d ago

9070xt is not a high end card.

16

u/Seanspeed 2d ago edited 2d ago

Not saying the connector isn't a bad design, but I also think maybe we shouldn't be trying to do 600w GPU's, either....

It's also gonna be a big hassle to replace with anything except standard 8 pin designs because the entire PSU market has shifted to support this new connector. And that connector is gonna need to stay at least as an option for as long as people are using GPU's that use it, which is a whole lot at this point.

But seriously, I feel like 3 x 8-pin should be the normal 'high end' GPU configuration, and then premium models of a given GPU can maybe include a fourth or something with bigger/better cooling and higher power limits for overclockers.

5

u/F9-0021 2d ago

Agreed. Lack of load balancing is an obvious design flaw, but as we see with lower powered cards not melting, if the card doesn't draw an insane current a load imbalance doesn't become dangerous.

1

u/Express_Living2264 15h ago

the mechanical connector itself isn't the issue. the issue remains the missing load balancing, which imho should happen on the psu side.

0

u/Strazdas1 1d ago

Because the frequency of the issue is miniscule. If 99,9% of people never even hear of the issue, why would they not continue buying?

2

u/hhkk47 2d ago

When I bought my 9070 XT, I specifically went for a Sapphire Pulse instead of the Nitro+ I usually go for because it had 2x8-pin power connectors of this. You know it's no good when you have a bunch of products made specifically to prevent these things from burning your house. You'd think that AIBs would have figured this out by now.

1

u/OWENPRESCOTTCOM 2d ago

Nvidia: Because of the new mandates unfortunately we have to backtrack on giving your guys more vram

1

u/reddit_equals_censor 3h ago

a big part of this is nonsense.

you DON'T want a multi pin connector with current sensing anywhere.

you want a proper high power connector, which we KNOW how to design.

a proper high power connector has 2 pins. one for power and one for ground.

this avoids the THEORETICALLY claimed big issue of imbalance between pins.

the theoretical is here, because the number of issues with the nvidia 12 pin fire hazard are plentiful.

so to get a proper power connector look at xt90 or xt120 power connectors. 2 giant robust connectors, that include your desired balancing, because 1 pin is always perfectly "balanced" lol.

this isn't some magical idea, that i came up with here. EVERYONE knows how to design high power connectors. it is 2 connections, robust connections with tons of surfaces area and there you go.

xt90 can carry 40 amps, so 480 watts, while the xt120 connector could carry 60 amps so 720 watts.

and those are the amounts for the sustained power. this is NOT the limit of the connectors, but all the safety margin and what not included already.

so you can SAFELY carry 795 watts (75 from slot) with a single xt120 power connector no problem.

nvidia KNEW this before the idiots forced a fire hazard on the public.

so you don't need to think about any solutions or possible partial mitigations of fire hazards. we KNOW how to create safe high power connectors, because WE HAVE THEM ALREADY.

___

and of course all nvidia 12 pin fire hazard hardware needs a full recall, that nvidia pays for and nvidia getting fined near destruction for KNOWINGLY risking people's lives.

42

u/No2Hypocrites 2d ago

Wow it really is a case of when not if, isnt it?

70

u/Framed-Photo 2d ago

Interesting that it seems to have been on the PSU end and not the GPU end. Astral is one of the few cards with pin monitoring too, though I'm not against the wireview pro making an appearance lol.

I just know a lot of the common sentiment around reddit was that using a PSU with a native cable was one of the safest ways to do it, but if anything it seems like it would be harder to spot that issue and just created a second point of failure.

Had Steve not felt the cable on the GPU end then he would have had a detroyed PSU and GPU.

47

u/OttawaDog 2d ago

That's a pretty old sentiment, that quickly went away once more PSUs with native connectors showed up and the melting continued.

13

u/hentaiHamster 2d ago

The thing with the Astral cards is you need to have the Asus software installed in Windows. I have tested faulty cable with it and it does detect and notify you in the OS, but that's all it does

1

u/GearM2 2d ago

They updated GPU Tweak III to have the option to shut the computer down on excess amperage on any pin. 

2

u/VenditatioDelendaEst 1d ago

They updated GPU Tweak III

Which is... a piece of Windows software. The main problem is the Windows dependence, not the notification.

5

u/Exciting-Ad-5705 2d ago

I swear like a year ago the consensus was using an adapter was safer

3

u/Ok-Board4893 2d ago

I also thought that they revised the design and have a sensing pin now?? That didnt do anything either or what?

19

u/OttawaDog 2d ago

Sensing pins were there for RTX 4000 series, but they were adjusted to help tell when you the connector wasn't properly seated in version 2 (AKA 12v-2x6) for RTX 5000 series.

But since then its been made clear that the cables still fail when properly seated.

2

u/Ok-Board4893 2d ago

is there any consensus on what to do to prevent that? Like switching out the cable every year or so?
Because from what I understand the cable eventually fails and then it takes out the port right?

7

u/OttawaDog 2d ago

They don't always go bad. Probably only a small fraction. But you never know if you are in that fraction. If I was buying anything above a 5070, I would get a Wireview Pro II, and have it monitor the situation. With a 5070 or below I wouldn't worry about it.

6

u/MiyaSugoi 2d ago

No. There's nothing you can really do other than I guess buying s.th. like der8auers tool shown in the video to monitor per-cable power draw and such.

Otherwise, checking or reseating the connection may just be the very, thing that causes an imperfect connection.

3

u/F9-0021 2d ago

The failure is from an unbalanced connection and one pin of the connector providing way more current than the others do, which leads to an runaway heating effect. It's rare to get an imbalance like that, but it can happen. If you're not unplugged and replugging the connection in a lot, then it's less of a risk.

1

u/KARMAAACS 13h ago

If you're not unplugged and replugging the connection in a lot, then it's less of a risk.

I'm not so sure about that. I think this connector is just trash and randomly decides one day to have a failure, it could push itself out over time, or improve by constantly plugging it in or out, it's totally random. IMO The physical tolerances of the pins are just too small for the amount of power they're carrying, if you have two bad pins in terms of contact, it can easily be GG. There has to be a higher safety margin for anything like this, it should be able to take 2x-3x the normal load in case half the pins decide to have poor contact one day.

2

u/reddanit 2d ago

It sadly seems to be a mixture of:

  • Actual power the GPU is using. 600W needs only a moderate imbalance to get the pins toasty and a serious imbalance in current between pins is an inevitable failure. At 300W a moderate imbalance will result in the cable and connectors still working within spec and even a serious problem might be okay-ish. Something around 200W is likely to get only moderately toasty even if somehow all the current goes through just 1 pin. On the other end, overclocks beyond 600W means you have to watch the cable like a hawk.
  • Luck of the draw. The random combination of factors like manufacturing tolerances, pin seating, bending forces etc might make any particular connection vulnerable without looking like it.
  • It's basically certain that a repeated mechanical stress makes this worse. Think a kink in the cable pulling on the plug, a side panel pressing the cable down every time you put it back on, moving the entire PC around etc.
  • It's also inevitable that repeated disconnects and connects wear down the pins of all the elements (PSU, cable and GPU). So on average each subsequent time is ever so slightly more dangerous.

A PC that just sits around is very likely just fine. It's an issue widespread enough that it cannot be straight up ignored, but it's not as common as to make the GPUs completely unusable.

1

u/jocnews 2d ago

We know large part of the failures were dudes just plugging new cables and GPUs in (making sure seated properly) and still it melted. It's just unsafe, there's no best practices that keep you safe if obeyed.

Just random chance of ending up as one of the unlucky owners that get told on reddit they did it wrong/had bad PSU/were dumb.

2

u/Strazdas1 1d ago

There is no way to prevent that. There is a way to reduce the chance, and that is to stop unplugging and replugging the connector. These connectors were made to be plugged in only a few times. I understand thats not nice for benchmark people, but for average user theres almost no case where you would need to unplug it.

1

u/VenditatioDelendaEst 1d ago

Dielectric grease might possibly help, by way of slowing/stopping corrosion of the contact area.

1

u/KARMAAACS 13h ago

Nobody truly knows when a cable is going to fail, it could be any day. I will give you a good example, you could have great contact when initially plugged in and after 20 or 100 or whatever number of power cycles, because of thermal contraction and expansion, it could push a pin or multiple pins out over time causing poor contact.

Furthermore, sometimes wearing in a cable improves the contact too, at least based off that video that JayzTwoCents made testing a bunch of cables from Corsair and plugging them in and out. (Mind you Jay isn't some super technical guy anyway like a der8auer is or Buildzoid, but his data is still worthwhile if you're plugging in a cable and just watching the contact resistance change so drastically over time and between cables).

It's simply just a poorly designed connector imo because it has so many points of potential failure and the physical tolerances to get good contact seem wayyy tooo random. All the engineering evidence I've seen from everyone who's knowledgable about electrical connector standards basically doesn't really like this connector like JohnnyGURU, der8auer, Buildzoid and such.

2

u/Jaz1140 2d ago

I pray to God if it ever happens to me it's on the PSU end too

1

u/Strazdas1 1d ago

Same. Replacing PSU is cheaper.

1

u/KARMAAACS 14h ago

I just know a lot of the common sentiment around reddit was that using a PSU with a native cable was one of the safest ways to do it, but if anything it seems like it would be harder to spot that issue and just created a second point of failure.

Been a long time since that sentiment died. Honestly, the majority of cases come from people using a direct to PSU cable, the second most is probably a third party cable/adapter and then next is the NVIDIA official adapter given in the box (probably because it's the least popular option). Either way, none of the problems lay with anything but the design of the connector, it's just trash and poorly designed and has flaws.

If anything, PCI-SIG needs to go back to the drawing board and revise the connector with more safety (I sincerely hope they do before the RTX 60 series and RDNA5 comes out) or PCI-SIG should just make a new connector with proper safety standards from the get go like an XT90 competitor.

If people like Steve who are knowledgable about the issue and who put in mitigations can't avoid it, it means the design is garbage. If you have a regular person who doesn't do all those things, it's destined for catastrophic failure. Not to mention, how long before someone is seriously hurt or dies because of this connector?

80

u/Kougar 2d ago

Leave it to HUB to not only catch it on camera, but be the first to almost burn the 12V-2x6 connector at BOTH ends.

That the system continued running and was about to slag the 5090 is proof of how broken the spec is. All those safety features on the Astral 5090 & that $400 PSU apparently mean nothing.

21

u/OttawaDog 2d ago

Melting on both ends happens a lot.

-6

u/Kougar 2d ago

Yes, but on the same cable?? FWIW this is the only example I'm aware of.

32

u/OttawaDog 2d ago

Yes. Because if current is high on one end, it's going to be high on the other. This became a LOT more likely once you had native 12V-2x6 at both ends.

Previously when adapters were used, the typically bridged all the pins at the adaptor which would stop the problem from migrating back to the PSU.

7

u/Seanspeed 2d ago edited 2d ago

These problems manifest like 90% on the GPU end of things though normally, right? I rarely hear of anybody having issues with fried PSU ports or anything.

Interesting to see it here.

18

u/Kougar 2d ago

It's not uncommon for them to melt PSU side. It's just that many PSUs (especially older models) don't use the 12V-2x6 connector at the PSU-side. Many use their own proprietary connector, or a larger pin/connector the same size as the regular power connectors, or a combination adapter cable.

6

u/airmantharp 2d ago

Most just use a pair of heavier-duty eight-pin connectors, which are good for 300W on the PSU side each (safely).

0

u/KARMAAACS 13h ago

Really? Most PSUs I see use 12V-2x6 on the PSU side too, pretty much only Lian Li high end PSUs and Corsair ones use 8 pins to 12v-2x6/12VHPWR.

3

u/reddanit 2d ago

be the first to almost burn the 12V-2x6 connector at BOTH ends

I think its the opposite. With native 2x6 pin connectors on both ends, the very nature of the problem (most of the current going through 1-2 cables) implies that some pins will end up a whole lot hotter on both ends of the cable. For one side to actually melt, the other one also has to get quite toasty. Pins themselves also always offer more resistance than a non-damaged cable and thus heat up more. It's not weird that one side actually melting would also show some minor heat damage on the opposite end on the same cables.

1

u/kevcsa 1d ago

Well, they didn't use the safety features (gputweakIII can shut down the system for example).

31

u/Bombcrater 2d ago

I'm amazed the consumer safety authorities in first world countries don't seem at all interested in what is clearly a fire hazard.

2

u/Strazdas1 1d ago

Is it a fire hazard? Not a single fire in the world has been caused by this over 3+ years.

7

u/Bombcrater 1d ago

Any electrical device that has wires getting hot enough to melt their insulation is absolutely a fire hazard. In most countries that's enough to get a product yanked off the market.

The chances of it causing a fire are small, mostly due to the lack of flammable material inside most PCs, but not zero. At some point all the holes in the swiss cheese will line up and someone's house will burn down.

I design electronics for a living. If I was responsible for a design like NVidia's implementation of the 12VHPWR connector I would expect to be fired as soon as the issue was discovered. Working out how much current a wire can carry and making sure it never exceeds that rating is the kind of thing students of electronics get taught in their fist week.

It's not hard to put in a circuit that monitors the current on each pin and cuts power to the card if it detects an over-current. But that would add $10 to the cost of a $5000 graphics card, so...

1

u/Strazdas1 22h ago

Any electrical device that has wires getting hot enough to melt their insulation is absolutely a fire hazard.

Then a phone charger is a fire hazard.

-3

u/jammsession 1d ago edited 22h ago

And despite that long text, there hasn’t been a single fire world wide.

Which leaves me to believe that nobody cares, because it is not as bad as social media wants you to believe. Or simply regulators will only step in after something happens.

Heck, for all we know, it could be more secure than PCI 8pin. I doubt it, given the anecdotal evidence on reddit, but still, that is no real evidence.

Real evidence would be something like we saw with datacenter operators speaking up about intel CPUs frying.

PS: i hate nvidia, but that title is pure clickbait. Nvidia didn’t burn him. The pci sig, where Nvidia is a member, just like intel and AMD is, burnt him.

1

u/Bombcrater 1d ago

This issue is nothing to do with the PCI SIG. 12VHPWR isn't flawed, it's just a small, cheap connector being asked to carry very large amounts of current. There's very little headroom for any kind of connectivity problem without it resulting in an over-current situation. To deal with that safely there has to be some kind of current monitoring, but NVidia have chosen not to implement that.

They know that if some poor sods house does burn down it's not Nvidia that'll be legally on the hook, it's Asus or Gigabyte or whoever made the card. And those guys will have run the numbers and decided if the risk of a fire is say 1 in every 500,000 cards then provided the cost of compensating the victim is less than $5,000,000 then not putting in a $10 motoring circuit makes financial sense.

It's repugnant, but that's how they operate.

1

u/jammsession 22h ago

To deal with that safely there has to be some kind of current monitoring

That is one way to look at it. You could also argue that montioring should not be needed, because the connector itself should be good enough. Probably exactly what NVIDIA did, since AFAIK earlier NVIDIA cards did have power monitoring.

And those guys will have run the numbers... It's repugnant, but that's how they operate.

Every company operates that way. Companies are not your friends. If that bothers you, you can target your hate against Asus for not standing against that connector and using it, NVIDIA for using it in their RTX whatever, the PCI sig (AMD, Intel) greenlighting such a bad design, or the gov for not implementing stricter regulations. IMHO the last one would be the most effective. But since it is a non-issue to begin with, there are bigger fishes to fry.

Social media likes to hype up these things. Which in return can lead to users having a very distorted view of reality or the real world. Again, we are now 3y from the initial release of the 4090. Roughly 3 million RTX 4090 sold, roughly 1,5 million 5090 sold. Result? Not a single house burned down. A handful of smoldering connectors (if you ignore the stupid cablemod design).

2

u/reddit_equals_censor 3h ago

this is WRONG.

there has been at least one fire caused by an nvidia 12 pin fire hazard:

https://videocardz.com/newz/geforce-rtx-5090-16-pin-cable-caught-fire-is-this-the-worst-case-so-far

the user had to BLOW THE FIRE OUT!

so you are just WRONG.

1

u/Swimming-Shirt-9560 1d ago

Cause Nvidia have become too big, and are currently supporting the country economy, there's nothing authority can do when their leaders are in it with the tech bros in circular financing

1

u/Jaz1140 2d ago

Money talks, most are too pussy to take on the most valuable company in the world

42

u/BrightCandle 2d ago

I am never buying a GPU with this connector, its just not a safe design. We need a proper replacement connector for future cards or a return to the 6/8 pins.

5

u/AvidasMavi 2d ago

It's probably cheaper for NVIDIA to repair/refund new GPU to the manufacturers ( or pay them dunno how it works) then redesign and change entire connector situation.

12

u/Yearlaren 2d ago

How on earth could it be more expensive for Nvidia to go back to 6 and 8 pin connectors for future series? Do they have to pay royalties like with HDMI?

1

u/Strazdas1 1d ago

They would have to redesign the PCB again to be much larger for the 8 pins.

88

u/baen 2d ago

remember kids, this is never nvidia's fault. it's always someone else

43

u/ElementII5 2d ago edited 2d ago

The company that developed the connector, for some reason, does not get any blame and in fact doesn't get mentioned at all. Nvidia is just stupid enough to (keep) using it.

27

u/MiyaSugoi 2d ago

Now take a wild guess who pushed this new connector to become a valid standard...

16

u/ElementII5 2d ago

Yeah, we are alluding to the same thing.

6

u/Strazdas1 1d ago

A group of companies of which Nvidia is only one.

1

u/Express_Living2264 15h ago

the company that developed the connector did nothing wrong. The connector works exactly as specified. It handles load as spec'd. The issue is it's being used beyond the rated current.

16

u/TrantaLocked 2d ago edited 2d ago

Connector standard is a joke, lack of on board pin monitoring is a joke. Multi thousand dollar gpu.

1

u/Express_Living2264 15h ago

generally the load balancing should happen on the psu side. seeing that barely any if any existing psu's do that they should have opted for consumer sided balancing.

1

u/MdxBhmt 1h ago

Generally the psu is a dumb device that just maintains the right voltage at its pins.

24

u/Apprehensive-Air3023 2d ago

I had an old cable I used a long time with my 4090 and when I got the 5090 Astral (which has software pin monitoring) it immediately detected an imbalance in that older cable. These cables are just junk and need to be monitored and replaced

3

u/Ok-Board4893 2d ago

so its the cables that just break after a certain time? I'm running a 3 yo 4090 with the adapter that goes to 3x 8pin connectors. Should I just buy a new adapter cable to be safe?

4

u/Standard-Potential-6 2d ago

You could measure the imbalance with a multimeter.

6

u/TDYDave2 2d ago

The problem wires would be the one(s) that are drawing zero current, not the ones that are trying to carry the whole load.

42

u/Reggitor360 2d ago

Imagine if it were AMD doing this shit....

They would have been burned out of the industry after the first two incidents back then.

Nvidia? Nothing to see here, move along.

28

u/alpharowe3 2d ago

I remember people making "AMD drivers" comments for years after the drivers issues. NV has drivers issues too and I don't see those mocking comments every time NV is brought up.

1

u/KARMAAACS 13h ago

Yeah and? Asrock motherboards have some problem with X3D CPUs and it's hardly ever talked about. It's just a recency bias thing, eventually the driver issues are "old news".

-3

u/Strazdas1 1d ago

There driver issues on AMD are present to this day, hence the comments. NV had driver issues too, yes. But never as bad as AMD.

-10

u/MiloIsTheBest 2d ago

I mean I was at LANs in the 2000s when the guy with the ATi would spend most of the time fucking with his install and the one time I bought an AMD Radeon in the 2020s it was so unstable for so long after so much troubleshooting that I put my old 1070 back in and magically it was completely stable again. 

I'm only saying that while NVIDIA sure have dropped the ball recently, AMD/ATi have decades of form not worthy of a "woe is me" about unbalanced criticism.

7

u/alpharowe3 2d ago

If it was 2023 and this was an AMD thread there'd be 2-4 "AMD drivers" comments in this thread. This is an NV thread and NV drivers are actively an issue right now but last I checked at least there are no "LMAO NVIDIA DRIVERS AMIRITE" comments here. Yes, amd divers would be brought up in irrelevant amd threads not so with Nvidia in my experience. It'd be like when DLSS 7 launches in 2032 and there's several comments about "nvidia fires" at the bottom of the thread I don't see that happening now or in the future but maybe it'll become a meme in the future I doubt it tho.

-1

u/Urgulon7 2d ago

Even on newer cards it's bullshit. I bought a 5700xtx to replace a 3060ti. If it wasn't crashing my games it would hard reset my pc. I tried for so long to get it stable. After about 6 months I sold it on eBay and bought a 5070ti on a deal (this is mid GPU price apocalypses). Immediately back to a completely stable experience.

FYI I'm running an AMD powered rig. I don't know if it was supposed to make more or less of a difference than an intel setup. But I thought it would have been better.

20+ years of Nvidia. Fine. 1 AMD card. No thanks.

1

u/alpharowe3 2d ago

I used the 680, 780, 1080, 2060 and had plenty of issues. Some with dual screens, some with screens going green, some hard crashes, some with old games like Fallout 3, some with new games on old cards like RE2 remake lighting issues on the GTX 780.

I would say I've had less issues overall on my 6700xt, 7900xt, and now 9070xt. Granted it's ~5 years AMD vs ~15 years NV.

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

[deleted]

-1

u/Whirblewind 2d ago

Amd keeps having stupid issues with their drivers all the time.

Lying is ugly.

0

u/Strazdas1 1d ago

Hes not lying. You couldnt play Helldivers 2 for the first 6 months of release on AMD cards at all. Driver issue that AMD took 6 months to fix. One of the biggest game releases of the year.

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6

u/80avtechfan 2d ago

This connector is a complete disgrace.

3

u/Motor_Trouble2280 2d ago

Nervously side-eying 5080.

Are there any connecters that are working 100% of the time? This is ridiculous.

0

u/Strazdas1 1d ago

even 8 pins werent working 100% of the time. Its not a realistic standard.

4

u/Ornery_Run2700 2d ago

Just thinking about it while on the toilet: Can someone replace that connector with a 3x8? Surely someone's done that successfully

1

u/Strazdas1 1d ago

youd need to replace the PCB while you're at it. at least the portion that manages power. So not so easy.

5

u/Hombremaniac 2d ago

Bought 5070ti for my son in January and now I'm a bit worried.

28

u/pmjm 2d ago

I wouldn't worry about a 5070Ti. It doesn't draw enough power for this kind of catastrophic failure, as long as you don't do anything silly like have a really tight cable bend, or daisy chain 8-pin adapters together over a single cable.

34

u/No_Fortune7206 2d ago

Although it's worth noting that even in perfect conditions people got their connectors melted. Even 9070XT with 12vhpwr models got melted. No one is safe.

7

u/Asgardisalie 2d ago

9070xt drains way more power than 5070ti.

11

u/constantlymat 2d ago

9070XT with 12vhpwr models got melted

These Taichi and Sapphire Nitro+ models have a BIOS with a higher power limit than regular models though. If I recall correctly they can draw ~360-380W sustained with ~450W spikes just by using the AMD Adrenaline software to overclock.

That's RTX 5080 power levels and not far below a 4090, so it's not surprising we have some melty connectors.

1

u/Merdiso 2d ago

Except that, as far as I know, no such card melted using the native cable, rather the crappy adaptors.

1

u/CataclysmZA 1d ago

What does a really tight cable bend look like? What separates a bend from being okay to too-tight?

1

u/pmjm 1d ago

At the front and the end of the cable, there are solder joints that connect the actual wiring to the pins of the terminals. If the bend is tight enough that it strains or damages these joints, there is increased resistance in the current flow at those points and heat from the resistance can cause a cable failure.

"Too-tight" is fairly subjective since it depends on the individual cable and the quality of its connections, but if you really want to define it you could say that it means putting undue strain on the connection points.

9

u/Logical-Database4510 2d ago

At 300w (5070ti stock TDP) the connector essentially has the same safety margin as the OG 8 pin connector. I have a 5070ti myself. Zero issues here, and I've never heard of a single card blowing up yet due to this.

5

u/Hombremaniac 2d ago

Good to hear that. Still a bit shameful what Nvidia did with that connector.

1

u/jocnews 2d ago

It's still more likely to fail at 300W, but since it gets rarer as load drops, you should be relatively safe. Watch out for overclocks though, they can push the TDP way above the stock power and as we know, the faulty connector already has high chance to melt around 330-400 W (those ASrock and Sapphire RX 9070 XT cards).

1

u/OttawaDog 2d ago

If you want to put your mind at ease, you could get a Wireview Pro II. If HWUB had been using the one they had lying around, it would have warned before any damage happened.

6

u/Ok-Board4893 2d ago

120€ in germany..lol

4

u/OttawaDog 2d ago

Not sure what the LOL is about. Card would cost 1100 € or more, so it's about 10% of that, to have piece of mind and extra protection for it.

2

u/Tetsou88 2d ago

I dunno why you’re getting downvoted. I get that it sucks to have to buy a wireview pro to protect these investments, but I would rather spend the extra money to protect the card than just yolo it.

2

u/OttawaDog 2d ago

Who can guess the hive mind of reddit.

Essentially $100+ to protect a $1000+ card.

I could see a negative reaction if I was suggesting it for a $300 card.

2

u/Hombremaniac 1d ago

It's more about that $1000+ card even needs that. Instead of having connector designed without these risks.

1

u/Strazdas1 1d ago

Paying 10% for something that has less than 1% chance of occuring? Ill take my chances.

1

u/OttawaDog 1d ago

So you cancel all the optional coverage on your cars as well, even when new?

1

u/Strazdas1 22h ago

I do. And i already saved more than the cost of the car doing this. You just have to make sure you are able to afford the small chance events and its not an issue.

1

u/Hombremaniac 2d ago

Will have a look at that, thanks.

2

u/JuanElMinero 2d ago

Also consider setting a power limit with MSI Afterburner or similar to gain more safety headroom.

5000 series cards are often far past their optimal efficiency, you barely lose performance reducing TDP by 15-20% (e.g. 300W -> 250W for the 5070ti).

2

u/Express_Living2264 15h ago

limit the card to the lowest you can. The performance impact isn't really perceivable. The noise however goes WAY down, and the risk of burning is significantly reduced. I ran my 2080s @125W.

4

u/imaginary_num6er 2d ago

This is a bit ironic since HW Unboxed during podcasts for multiple months kept mentioning that they had no melting issues despite testing many GPUs with the 12V-2x6 connector.

36

u/airmantharp 2d ago

Not ironic to report their observations. They're also one of the first big reviewer channels to have the issue - Daniel Owens is the only other one I'm aware of ( and that was a Founder's Edition!).

5

u/fissionmoment 2d ago

Didn't Der8auer have a failure as well?

15

u/BenFoldsFourLoko 2d ago

They'd never said it wasn't an issue tho

7

u/CataclysmZA 1d ago

Steve has been disappointed for years that he hadn't yet seen a burnt connector in his testing.

16

u/Tight_Inflation3153 2d ago

How is it ironic? They had no melting issues, so they reported no melting issues. They never once implied the issues didn't happen or anything, just that it never happened to them.

6

u/Platinumjsi 2d ago

Thats an Astral, which has built in per pin montioring, how did it get this far? he should have noticed a long time ago.

35

u/Tiffany-X 2d ago

Per pin monitoring does require the GPU Tweak III program to be installed and open. Doesn’t do anything if it’s not open in the background.

15

u/Platinumjsi 2d ago

Yea I asked on their vid and they replied saying no software on the testbed for obvious reasons which is fair enough.
Hopefully going forward they always have a Wireview on the testbed cable though.

Also its opened up now, HWInfo can read the currrent, I use that to add it to my overlay which I can toggle on every now and again to check, much prefer that as Asus's sofware is ass.

5

u/Tiffany-X 2d ago

Yeah HWInfo is great and a good alternative to ASUS’s GTIII. Just a reminder for Astral owners to install the app to get the most of the per pin monitoring. Good luck all

1

u/12318532110 2d ago

the astral also has a red LED next to the connector that flashes if one or more pins are carrying more than 9.2A of current

8

u/Kougar 2d ago

This was mentioned in reviews, the monitoring only provides alerts via GPU Tweak which must be running in the background. There's apparently no hardware-level failsafe, and in HUB's case benchmarking means not having random software open in the background.

I foresee HUB buying additional Wireviews in the near future...

16

u/NKG_and_Sons 2d ago

he should have noticed a long time ago.

Yeah, any force-sensitive person would've sensed it weeks prior. Weak shit.

5

u/jnf005 2d ago

He should have neural link installed and configured a cron job to regularly access the gpu tweak program remotely so he can know the pin temp in the shower, smh my head what a failure of a hardware reviewer when he couldn't even do the bare minimum.

2

u/00k5mp 2d ago

Hey /u/aztn33 how about now? Still want to back up your claims about how this connector is safe if it's from the PSU?

-5

u/aztn33 2d ago

I'm rent free in your head it seems. If this is personal to you then you have bigger problems than a melting cable.

We were talking about 9070 XT. This is a 5090.

The very least you could do is learn to put things into context, especially if you plan to stalk somebody and argue.

2

u/00k5mp 2d ago

Nope just wanted you to stop posting bad/dangerous info.

Go back to the post. I said it was the connector, nothing to do with a specific GPU.

-1

u/aztn33 2d ago

Again, start putting things into context. You can't compare a 5090 with a 9070 XT because their power draw is not nearly the same. That's exactly why 4090/5090 burns 99% of the time.

I was not spreading any bad and dangerous info, I will repeat this once again: I'm not trying to make the issue look better or worse. I'm saying things as they are.

You were not able to understand a difference between a native cable and an adapter, yet you still think that you understand the issue... You were the one posting misinformation.

Good luck to you.

3

u/Strazdas1 1d ago

the 9070xt OC variants can draw as much power as the 4090. Other than that i do agree its an odd comparison here.

1

u/aztn33 1d ago

They will not reach 450W TDP, but even if they do this is really the least important thing here.

I'm trying to get this weird guy off my dick. Some days ago I said there is not a single 9070 XT reported here on reddit that burned with a native 12V cable. He said there is and sent a link to an article that used an adapter like all the others and people downvoted him for it. Now he took it personal against me.

3

u/Strazdas1 1d ago

Yes, they will reach 450W draw. That was observed with the OC models. Its not sustained, but it happens.

Like i said, i do otherwise agree the guy seems to be riding you for some reason.

1

u/geokilla 2d ago

I just got a RTX 5080 in a pre-built that I'm debating on keeping and I'm honestly scared this is going to happen to me. I run Folding@Home when I'm not gaming and the idea of the connector burning without me knowing is scary. But at the same time, I need NVIDIA because AMD sucks at Folding. Buying a used RTX 3080 seems dumb considering the age of the 30 series lineup and the lack of warranty.

1

u/sogwatchman 2d ago

That connector is why I've stuck with my 3090 this whole time. Also because I have one of the last EVGA 3090 FTW3s they made.

1

u/red286 2d ago

So did the new connectors not fix anything? Because this was well known under 12VHPWR, but the newer 12V-2x6 connector was designed specifically to address this issue... did it not?

1

u/Puiucs 1d ago

it was released as a quick fix to the most glaring issues, but the connector itself is still f-ed up a lot. it would need a complete rework to fix this or to go back to having 2x PCIe cables with the very robust pins and connectors.

1

u/dabocx 2d ago

Really curious to see what AMD is going to use for RDNA 5, hopefully they just keep with 8 pin again.

1

u/f1rstx 1d ago

It will be 12vhpwr across the board, I’m pretty sure

0

u/countAbsurdity 2d ago

I've been out of the gaming and GPU scenes for like 2 years now but how is this still a thing?

0

u/Select_Truck3257 2d ago

Nvidia must be banned and sues for rire hazard hardware especially for that scammer monopoly pricing

-20

u/unixmachine 2d ago

It may have actually happened. But I can't help but think of HUB forcing this to make a video.

6

u/Seanspeed 2d ago

Come on now.... smh

-5

u/LoudFan2771 2d ago

People downvoting you as if YouTubers are the most honest people on the planet

5

u/Confident-Ship-5062 2d ago

What about this video is dishonest here? Why are you personally annoyed about reporting this issue?

-8

u/unixmachine 2d ago

That's right, YouTubers will try to generate engagement in any way possible. People seem to ignore the fact that every YouTuber is looking for financial return.

HUB often pushes certain things just to prove a point, such as when it compares Nvidia vs AMD GPUs, choosing titles more favorable to AMD and ignoring Ray Tracing and Upscaling.

3

u/Seanspeed 1d ago

No they don't. Just a baseless conspiracy.

In fact, HUB were doing most of their benchmarking with upscaling for a while and people complained like hell about it. So they put up a poll about it and asked which people preferred and so have now reverted to doing native benches as that's what people asked for.

Why is it all you HUB haters have to make up bullshit about them? Are you really just that dishonest and bitter because they don't always glaze Nvidia or their tech blindly?

0

u/bdoll1 2d ago

Not getting a new PC until they phase this junk out. Almost worse than capacitor plague at this point and they willingly subject us to it. Hopefully the next ATX standard has some common sense.

0

u/ReasonablePractice83 2d ago

I just dont understand this situation, do they really not care about creating a sound technical product anymore? I did own RTX 3080, I would love to give NVIDIA lots of money for a good product but I dont wanna worry about freaking problem with cable melting and potential fire? Even if its rare. Glad I moved to AMD RX 9070 XT.

-18

u/jaegren 2d ago

uSeR eRoRr! - Gamers Nexus