Should I use both power connectors on my card?

[EldritchMoose]

G'day all! I figured I would choose a properly silly question to ask in my first post to this forum:

 

I recently built my very first PC after trying in vain to squeeze the last bit of gaming performance out of my 8 year-old iMac (which performs admirably so long as I don't try to play anything more demanding than Shadow of Mordor). All has been great thus far, but I'm left with one burning question that Google cannot seem to give me a definitive answer on:

 

I have a Corsair RM550x power supply which has a PCIe power cable that ends in both a 6+2 pin plug and a 6 pin plug. I also have a Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 580 video card with both an 8-pin and a 6-pin socket. Since Sapphire lists the 6-pin as "optional" on their product page, I never connected the 6-pin connector, running it with only the 6+2 one in the 8-pin socket. Now everything works fine, but could this potentially damage the card? Should I get on connecting the second connector asap?

[Pasi123]

6+2 is the same as 8-pin connector and that is enough for the RX 580. It doesn't damage the card in any way, but you can connect the other power cable if you want to.

[Cereal5]

Only thing it might do is power limit your card if you're overclocking. Nothing wrong with it though, I think you answered your own question with the link you provided.

[EldritchMoose]

I was hoping that'd be the case, thanks.

 

I'm not overclocking anything at the moment, I'll be sure to connect it properly :)

[Jurrunio]

they are most likely connected in series anyway, it makes no difference to the card itself. That said there's no reason not to use it when you already have the connector for it either...

[Spotty]

It's optional, but if your PSU has both cables then really no reason not to plug in both IMO.