Connecting GTX 1060 6GB with 6-pin instead of 8-pin

[Filingo]

I have a post on the Power Supplies sub-forum with a general question regarding 6-pin and 8-pin connector, but now it's very specific to my GPU so I thought I'd make a dedicated topic here:

 

I have Gigabyte GTX 1060 6GB G1 Gaming and it has an 8-pin PCIE socket.

Right now the only PSU I have to use is an old FSP (So high quality) 400W PSU with 6-pin connector.

 

I saw that Nvidia's User Guide of the GTX 1060 6GB uses 6-pin: (page 6)

https://www.nvidia.com/content/geforce-gtx/GTX_1060_User_Guide.pdf

 

And the minimum is 400w.

 

So am I safe connecting (temporarily) my 1060 to this old PSU?

 

Thanks

[--SID--]

According to modern standards it's probably not a 400w PSU. What's the exact model FSP?

[Filingo]

FSP 400-60HCN

[onlybuilt4cubanxlinx]

nvm different model number came up.

[mariushm]

The GTX 1060 consumes up to 125 watts. 

 

Some designs may take some amount of power from the pci-e slot ( up to 65w on 12v and 10w on 3.3v) and the rest from a pci-e 6pin connector.

Some designs may chose to lean more on the pci-e connector and take less from the pci-e slot... for example, they could take 100w from the pci-e 8 pin connector and only 25w from the pci-e slot.

 

Sometimes the manufacturer uses an 8 pin connector to allow room for overclocking and reduce the "stress" on the motherboard slot.  For example, if they use 6pin on gtx 1060, that's 75w on connector, and 50w on slot, leaving just 10 watts for overclocking, which is kinda low. So by using an 8 pin connector, they have at least 80w of headroom in case user wants to overclock.

 

The video card will detect that you don't have a 8 pin connector plugged in and will probably refuse to start. You could trick the video card into thinking it's a 8 pin connector by shorting the ground pins in the connector, or you could just a 6 pin to 8 pin adapter cable  , or a 2 x molex -> pci-e 8 pin adapter cable.

 

The power supply should be able to supply the wattage on 12v ... it must be able to do 125w for the video card, maybe 60-100w for your cpu, maybe around 10-15w for the motherboard, maybe 5w for the fans (cpu cooler, extra fans) , maybe 5w  for your hard drive motor ...  So your power supply should be able to provide AT LEAST 250 watts on 12v out of those 400 watts.  Check the label, it will say how much it can supply  : you can divide watts by voltage to get current .. ex 250w / 12v = 20.8A

 

The lack of a 8 pin connector on your power supply is often an indicator that the power supply was not meant to be used with very power hungry video cards but also sometimes the power supply manufacturer intentionally puts only a 6 pin connector to make the higher 500w / 550w models more appealing, as those would be more profitable for them.

 

[--SID--]

8 minutes ago, Filingo said:

FSP 400-60HCN

If I take a look at this review that PSU don't have any PCI-e connector. Is there a molex to PCI-e adapter on your PSU?

[mariushm]

6 minutes ago, Filingo said:

FSP 400-60HCN

You have the "datasheet" here : fsp russia link to datasheet in pdf format

Or see the picture below :

The power supply says it can provide 32A on 12v - that's 384 watts.

This amount of power is split into two voltage rails which are limited to some amount of power:  maximum 17A on first rail (204w) and maximum 15A on second rail (180w)

 

What connectors are on each rail is not specified, but on such power supply my guess would be that the 24 pin connector and the CPU power is on first rail, and peripherals (sata and old hdd connectors / molex) and the pci-e 6pin  are on second rail. 

So, in theory, if the video card only takes around 100-125w or so from this second rail, then along with your mechanical hard drive, you won't get over that 180 watts threshold, so everything should work.

 

But, the power supply is only around 80% efficient, which means when you're gonna play games and your system consumes over 200 watts, around 100*200/80 - 200w = 250-200w = 50 watts of heat, so you'll want to make sure the power supply fan works well and keeps the insides of that power supply reasonably cool.

 

 

[Filingo]

 

28 minutes ago, mariushm said:

The GTX 1060 consumes up to 125 watts. 

 

Some designs may take some amount of power from the pci-e slot ( up to 65w on 12v and 10w on 3.3v) and the rest from a pci-e 6pin connector.

Some designs may chose to lean more on the pci-e connector and take less from the pci-e slot... for example, they could take 100w from the pci-e 8 pin connector and only 25w from the pci-e slot.

 

Sometimes the manufacturer uses an 8 pin connector to allow room for overclocking and reduce the "stress" on the motherboard slot.  For example, if they use 6pin on gtx 1060, that's 75w on connector, and 50w on slot, leaving just 10 watts for overclocking, which is kinda low. So by using an 8 pin connector, they have at least 80w of headroom in case user wants to overclock.

 

The video card will detect that you don't have a 8 pin connector plugged in and will probably refuse to start. You could trick the video card into thinking it's a 8 pin connector by shorting the ground pins in the connector, or you could just a 6 pin to 8 pin adapter cable  , or a 2 x molex -> pci-e 8 pin adapter cable.

 

The power supply should be able to supply the wattage on 12v ... it must be able to do 125w for the video card, maybe 60-100w for your cpu, maybe around 10-15w for the motherboard, maybe 5w for the fans (cpu cooler, extra fans) , maybe 5w  for your hard drive motor ...  So your power supply should be able to provide AT LEAST 250 watts on 12v out of those 400 watts.  Check the label, it will say how much it can supply  : you can divide watts by voltage to get current .. ex 250w / 12v = 20.8A

 

The lack of a 8 pin connector on your power supply is often an indicator that the power supply was not meant to be used with very power hungry video cards but also sometimes the power supply manufacturer intentionally puts only a 6 pin connector to make the higher 500w / 550w models more appealing, as those would be more profitable for them.

 

Is there a chance it will not refuse to turn on? I want to try but I just want to make sure that I'm safe regarding fire/heating or frying the GPU

20 minutes ago, --SID-- said:

If I take a look at this review that PSU don't have any PCI-e connector. Is there a molex to PCI-e adapter on your PSU?

it does have, not molex adapter, but native 6pin. maybe it's under the cables in the pictures in this review

19 minutes ago, mariushm said:

You have the "datasheet" here : fsp russia link to datasheet in pdf format

Or see the picture below :

The power supply says it can provide 32A on 12v - that's 384 watts.

This amount of power is split into two voltage rails which are limited to some amount of power:  maximum 17A on first rail (204w) and maximum 15A on second rail (180w)

 

What connectors are on each rail is not specified, but on such power supply my guess would be that the 24 pin connector and the CPU power is on first rail, and peripherals (sata and old hdd connectors / molex) and the pci-e 6pin  are on second rail. 

So, in theory, if the video card only takes around 100-125w or so from this second rail, then along with your mechanical hard drive, you won't get over that 180 watts threshold, so everything should work.

 

But, the power supply is only around 80% efficient, which means when you're gonna play games and your system consumes over 200 watts, around 100*200/80 - 200w = 250-200w = 50 watts of heat, so you'll want to make sure the power supply fan works well and keeps the insides of that power supply reasonably cool.

 

 

it's temporary, I'm replacing it soon

 

thank you!

[Filingo]

Update: 

It didn't work! The GPU tells me to connect the PCIE when I connect only the 6pin

[ADarkBard]

13 minutes ago, Filingo said:

Update: 

It didn't work! The GPU tells me to connect the PCIE when I connect only the 6pin

Yeah that's what my GTX 960 told me when I tried the 6 pin connector on my PSU. 

[SansVarnic]

-= Locked =-

Please continue this in the other topic... no reposts please.