Is the 12pin connector melting problem limited to the 4090? What about the 4070 ti?

[Sigfried]

Just as the title asks, I know 4090s tend to have this issue and there's a 4070 heading my way, do I have to worry at all?

 

Also, I read somewhere that the additional "sense" pins communicate with the power supply:

What does that mean? Is the GPU gonna be mad that I haven't followed the "minimum requirements" of 750w?

 

Maybe I didn't search for the right words but google was absurdly useless.

I asked the same things and all I got basically was a thousand blogs all copy-pasting the same: 

 "yeah, 4090 go smokey, ain't that quirky? ayough!"

 

Sooo... If you have more documentation on the 12 pin connector that goes more in depth, I would be very glad to learn more about it in general 

 

This is The 4070 ti for reference:

https://www.inno3d.com/en/PRODUCT_INNO3D_GEFORCE_RTX_4070_Ti_X3

[Bombastinator]

It appears to be a connector based issue rather than a gpu heat issue.  The card isn’t melting the connector the connector is melting itself.   As such I would avoid the thing no matter what size card if it had one of those connectors.  There seems to be a few ways out of that one atm though.

[dilpickle]

Connectors only melted due to user error. Plug it in all the way and its fine.

[DigitalGoat]

There was recently a report from a user that thier 12 pin single cable (not the Nvidia 3 - 4 cable adapter), supplied with a corsair PSU I think, melted. They swear it was plugged in all the way and was not angled extremely... but this was on Reddit so could easily be 'fake news', but I have a feeling we have not seen the end of this issue quite yet.

Jayztwocents made a brief mention of the report last week and was sceptical.

[dilpickle]

32 minutes ago, DigitalGoat said:

There was recently a report from a user that thier 12 pin single cable (not the Nvidia 3 - 4 cable adapter), supplied with a corsair PSU I think, melted. They swear it was plugged in all the way and was not angled extremely...

Everyone else said that too.

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, dilpickle said:

Everyone else said that too.

So this was asked and answered before you even posted?  I’m confused.  Why even ask?Caused me to Read the question again.  Apparently you want to power that thing with a PSU below 750w.  How far below?  I don’t think there is some sort of check and shutdown like apple has been implementing, but it doesn’t affect the laws of physics.  If the thing doesn’t have enough power it won’t work reliably.  Since the only data about this system that is known is it’s got a 4070ti in it and the power supply is under 750w it’s kinda hard to say whether or not it is likely to work.  Several years ago up till ampere the suggested power requirements were  pretty good.  They were actually low after that not because of their actual ability to regulate current but because of their ability to handle transient power spikes, which was apparently solved by a change in the atx standard.   I don’t know much about the 40x0 series.  I haven’t seen anything that sails “yes” or “no” as to whether there was a transient spike problem or not.  There is one with both 12th gen and zen3 though,

[PriitM]

4 hours ago, dilpickle said:

Connectors only melted due to user error. Plug it in all the way and its fine.

Dont want to be a naggy nancy, but on an end user part, the design should count for user error. Cant count for the perfect idiot, but the 90% cases should be avoidable. And what makes the whole melting connector issue even more disturbing: it was certified by PCI-SIG. By the people, who should know about all of this. There is a reason why the 8 pin plug is so successful: it has plenty of margin built into it. Technically, a single 8 pin could deliver 250W maximum. But capping the rating to 150W allows plenty of margin for all sorts of issues. Yes, the 12 pin can deliver 600W maximum... but should realistically deliver 300W.

[Bombastinator]

23 minutes ago, PriitM said:

Dont want to be a naggy nancy, but on an end user part, the design should count for user error. Cant count for the perfect idiot, but the 90% cases should be avoidable. And what makes the whole melting connector issue even more disturbing: it was certified by PCI-SIG. By the people, who should know about all of this. There is a reason why the 8 pin plug is so successful: it has plenty of margin built into it. Technically, a single 8 pin could deliver 250W maximum. But capping the rating to 150W allows plenty of margin for all sorts of issues. Yes, the 12 pin can deliver 600W maximum... but should realistically deliver 300W.

What exactly is a naggy Nancy?  Does it have anything to do with horses?

[Bombastinator]

This whole phenomena reminds me too much of an issue with architectural engineering.  The best designed bridge isn’t the one that stands up it’s the one that only just barely stands up.  But does it.  The error I think was designing too close to the edge.  There’s an old saying:  “too clever by half”. This connector may be an example of that.

[dilpickle]

7 hours ago, PriitM said:

Dont want to be a naggy nancy, but on an end user part, the design should count for user error. Cant count for the perfect idiot, but the 90% cases should be avoidable.

They were avoided. Over 140,000 4090s were sold. What percent melted?

[Sigfried]

23 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

As such I would avoid the thing no matter what size card if it had one of those connectors

 

That's another thing I mean to ask, do I have to use it, or can I just use the regular old 6/8 connectors?

[Sigfried]

20 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

How far below?

I am very sorry, I forgot to include that.

My PSU is a Corsair RM 650x, I have been told it should be enough, but I was also curious to know if thestupid sense connector would actually get in my way, again, I would really like go know more about it in general, I'm sincerely curious, but google failed me.

[Bombastinator]

58 minutes ago, Sigfried said:

That's another thing I mean to ask, do I have to use it, or can I just use the regular old 6/8 connectors?

If the card has the connector an adaptor is needed. Afaik

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, Sigfried said:

I am very sorry, I forgot to include that.

My PSU is a Corsair RM 650x, I have been told it should be enough, but I was also curious to know if thestupid sense connector would actually get in my way, again, I would really like go know more about it in general, I'm sincerely curious, but google failed me.

My memory is You can power stuff up to about a 3060 or a 6700 with a 650w and expect it to not have a problem.  Myself I would buy something between 800-1000w depending on what cpu I was pairing that 4090 with.  1200w is still not unreasonable because of both the 40 and the 90 at the same time.  The 750w “minimum caused problems for a lot of people.  The issue was the transient spikes tripping the OCP.  The way out with pre-updated spec was to bump the wattage.  If you’ve got a -current atx standard PSU the math changes again..downward. 

Edited January 24, 2023 by Bombastinator

[PriitM]

17 hours ago, dilpickle said:

They were avoided. Over 140,000 4090s were sold. What percent melted?

A comparatively small amount yes, but the problem still is: design has no margin for error. It went through several levels of approval, certification... and the theoretical failure mode is "user error"... on an end user component. I dont want to argue about this, but if you are looking for some sort of strong ultimatum: where is the proper use and installation guide for this new connector? With precautionary thought on the variety of end user installation methods? Or even... might sound like a stupid idea... proper testing by certification companies?

[ewitte]

On 1/22/2023 at 8:08 PM, Sigfried said:

Just as the title asks, I know 4090s tend to have this issue and there's a 4070 heading my way, do I have to worry at all?

 

Also, I read somewhere that the additional "sense" pins communicate with the power supply:

What does that mean? Is the GPU gonna be mad that I haven't followed the "minimum requirements" of 750w?

 

Maybe I didn't search for the right words but google was absurdly useless.

I asked the same things and all I got basically was a thousand blogs all copy-pasting the same: 

 "yeah, 4090 go smokey, ain't that quirky? ayough!"

 

Sooo... If you have more documentation on the 12 pin connector that goes more in depth, I would be very glad to learn more about it in general 

 

This is The 4070 ti for reference:

https://www.inno3d.com/en/PRODUCT_INNO3D_GEFORCE_RTX_4070_Ti_X3

User error still exists