Is a 6800 XT with three connectors better than a 6800 XT with two?

[Minuto]

I had an [ASRock Phantom Gaming 6800 XT](https://pg.asrock.com/Graphics-Card/AMD/Radeon%20RX%206800%20XT%20Phantom%20Gaming%20D%2016G%20OC/index.asp) with 3 connectors, but I was having issues with it and returned it for a [https://www.sapphiretech.com/en/consumer/pulse-radeon-rx-6800-xt-16g-gddr6](https://www.sapphiretech.com/en/consumer/pulse-radeon-rx-6800-xt-16g-gddr6) with only 2 connectors. Is the Pulse worse than the Phantom Gaming then, or are they the same? I did get the Pulse for $15 less than the Phantom Gaming which is something.

I was able to OC my ASRock to a minimum of 2450, a maximum of 2550, a VRAM frequency of 2124 with fast timing, and undervolted to 1000mV. For my Sapphire, I can only OC it to a min of 2309, a max of 2409, and a VRAM frequency of 2112 with fast timing on, and undervolted to 1100mV. Is this just because of the silicon lottery, or is this because the Sapphire has only 2 connectors?

It seems to be reaching the power limit when I run Time Spy. The PPT limit percentage gets to 99% to 100% when Time Spy crashes, but it also gets to that point when Time Spy doesn’t crash; I suppose something else is causing the crashes then like the silicon lottery. Additionally, the PPT limit is 312.8W anyway when I set the power limit to +15% in Adrenalin, and I heard the most I can get with 2 connectors is 375 W; I don’t plan on using MPT to raise my power limit even more, so that seems to be unrelated to how many connectors I have anyway. Is this actually related to how many connectors I have, or is this limited by the BIOS?

[YoungBlade]

Are you doing competitive overclocking? If so, you need every advantage you can get: more power = more better, always. You can do things like mods to push more voltage into the core to let it clock higher and that will make the card draw way more power than it allowed to using any stock BIOS. And once you go sub-ambient with dry ice or LN2, you can get just about any card to draw as much power as the connectors can handle.

 

Are you trying to actually use your graphics card for something, like gaming or productivity? If so, 2 vs 3 connectors on that card doesn't matter, and in either case, OC is all but meaningless. Modern cards are pushed to the limit out of the box - you're not going to get more than a 10% boost in actual, real-world performance. Maybe 15% if you're very lucky.

 

Your differences are going to be due to silicon lottery, not the connectors.

[tkitch]

A 2 connector card can pull a maximum of 375W of power:

 

150W per 8 pin + 75W from the PCIE Slot.

 

A 3 connector could (theoretically) be 150W higher.  But that's also waaaaay out of spec for a 6800XT.

 

So, no, there's no real difference.

[Bob__]

34 minutes ago, Minuto said:

I had an [ASRock Phantom Gaming 6800 XT](https://pg.asrock.com/Graphics-Card/AMD/Radeon%20RX%206800%20XT%20Phantom%20Gaming%20D%2016G%20OC/index.asp) with 3 connectors, but I was having issues with it and returned it for a [https://www.sapphiretech.com/en/consumer/pulse-radeon-rx-6800-xt-16g-gddr6](https://www.sapphiretech.com/en/consumer/pulse-radeon-rx-6800-xt-16g-gddr6) with only 2 connectors. Is the Pulse worse than the Phantom Gaming then, or are they the same? I did get the Pulse for $15 less than the Phantom Gaming which is something.

I was able to OC my ASRock to a minimum of 2450, a maximum of 2550, a VRAM frequency of 2124 with fast timing, and undervolted to 1000mV. For my Sapphire, I can only OC it to a min of 2309, a max of 2409, and a VRAM frequency of 2112 with fast timing on, and undervolted to 1100mV. Is this just because of the silicon lottery, or is this because the Sapphire has only 2 connectors?

It seems to be reaching the power limit when I run Time Spy. The PPT limit percentage gets to 99% to 100% when Time Spy crashes, but it also gets to that point when Time Spy doesn’t crash; I suppose something else is causing the crashes then like the silicon lottery. Additionally, the PPT limit is 312.8W anyway when I set the power limit to +15% in Adrenalin, and I heard the most I can get with 2 connectors is 375 W; I don’t plan on using MPT to raise my power limit even more, so that seems to be unrelated to how many connectors I have anyway. Is this actually related to how many connectors I have, or is this limited by the BIOS?

theoretically if you are like me and OC the balls out of something but other than that maybe less load on the cables but maybe 

[Minuto]

41 minutes ago, YoungBlade said:

Are you doing competitive overclocking? If so, you need every advantage you can get: more power = more better, always. You can do things like mods to push more voltage into the core to let it clock higher and that will make the card draw way more power than it allowed to using any stock BIOS. And once you go sub-ambient with dry ice or LN2, you can get just about any card to draw as much power as the connectors can handle.

 

Are you trying to actually use your graphics card for something, like gaming or productivity? If so, 2 vs 3 connectors on that card doesn't matter, and in either case, OC is all but meaningless. Modern cards are pushed to the limit out of the box - you're not going to get more than a 10% boost in actual, real-world performance. Maybe 15% if you're very lucky.

 

Your differences are going to be due to silicon lottery, not the connectors.

I am not doing competitive overclocking, and I’m only using air cooling; I suppose I don’t really have to worry about that then. I don’t think I’ll be raising the power limit past the +15 point in Adrenalin with MPT or something. Yeah, I’m only really using my graphics card for gaming and productivity, so it makes sense that doesn’t matter. I just got unlucky with the silicon lottery this time as you said.

 

29 minutes ago, tkitch said:

A 2 connector card can pull a maximum of 375W of power:

 

150W per 8 pin + 75W from the PCIE Slot.

 

A 3 connector could (theoretically) be 150W higher.  But that's also waaaaay out of spec for a 6800XT.

 

So, no, there's no real difference.

oh okay that makes sense. So 375W is more than enough. I’m only using air cooling and such, so I definitely wont even get near 375 W. It’s good to know there’s no real difference then. 
 

27 minutes ago, Bob__ said:

theoretically if you are like me and OC the balls out of something but other than that maybe less load on the cables but maybe 

I don’t plan on OCing to that extent since I’m only using air cooling anyway. And I see, so would having less load on the cables help with OCing even if my power limit is far below the maximum of 375W anyway? Im only getting to 312.8 anyway with +15% in Adrenalin. 
 

 

 

[Minuto]

23 hours ago, Bob__ said:

theoretically if you are like me and OC the balls out of something but other than that maybe less load on the cables but maybe 

according to HWInfo and Adrenalin, it seems I can’t reach the desired clock speed at the power limit of my GPU. I either get clock speeds in the 2309-2409 range I set it to with the power draw being about 260-300 W or clock speeds in the 2250-2300 range with the power draw maxed out. I tried FurMark, and it was able to consistently stay at 312.5 W for an hour. I heard GPUs are automatically throttled in FurMark though, so I tried the Boundsry benchmark too. The power draw ranged from 295 to 312 W and the clock speed was in the 2309-2409 range (generally in the middle), so I suppose that’s fine. It did drop randomly once to 220 W which caused some stuttering, but that was only for a second; I presume something else caused that then. Is this normal though?

[Bob__]

1 minute ago, Minuto said:

according to HWInfo and Adrenalin, it seems I can’t reach the desired clock speed at power limit gpu. I either get clock speeds in the 2309-2409 range I set it to with the power draw being about 260-300 W or clock speeds in the 2250-2300 range with the power draw maxed out. I tried FurMark, and it was able to consistently stay at 312.5 W for an hour. I heard GPUs are automatically throttled in FurMark though, so I tried the Boundsry benchmark too. The power draw ranged from 295 to 312 W and the clock speed was in the 2309-2409 range (generally in the middle), so I suppose that’s fine. It did drop randomly once to 220 W which caused some stuttering, but that was only for a second; I presume something else caused that then. Is this normal though?

I dont really know

[Minuto]

6 hours ago, Bob__ said:

I dont really know

Oh okay no problem! This is definitely a weird question for sure and all. 

[asand1]

It's my understanding that the third connector is there to force people to run two separate cables rather than a single cord with two connectors. Running one cord might result in some voltage drop maybe??

 

May I ask what problems you were having with the Phantom Gaming? I just put the same card in my rig last night.

[Minuto]

5 hours ago, asand1 said:

It's my understanding that the third connector is there to force people to run two separate cables rather than a single cord with two connectors. Running one cord might result in some voltage drop maybe??

 

May I ask what problems you were having with the Phantom Gaming? I just put the same card in my rig last night.

I see, that makes sense. Im using two separate cables, so I should be fine there anyway. Anyway, I actually had two Phantom Gamings. The first one was actually completely fine, but I was having some issues with my whole build that I thought was caused by my GPU; it turns out it wasn’t the GPU though, so I went for another Phantom Gaming. That one worked great too, except for the fans… they started making a weird banging noise when I ramped them up to more than 60% which did not sound good.

 

i’d recommend testing out your fans for sure then though I probably just got unlucky with the second one; my first one was amazing. I ended up returning that and going for a Pulse though since it was $520 instead of $535 for the Phantom Gaming; might as well save a bit if they’re pretty much identical anyways. It seems the PG is actually going for $520 now though, so I suppose it’d be slightly better than the Pulse for the same exact price just because of the extra connector; that’s irrelevant but you might as well get it if it’s the same price. 

[asand1]

46 minutes ago, Minuto said:

I see, that makes sense. Im using two separate cables, so I should be fine there anyway. Anyway, I actually had two Phantom Gamings. The first one was actually completely fine, but I was having some issues with my whole build that I thought was caused by my GPU; it turns out it wasn’t the GPU though, so I went for another Phantom Gaming. That one worked great too, except for the fans… they started making a weird banging noise when I ramped them up to more than 60% which did not sound good.

 

i’d recommend testing out your fans for sure then though I probably just got unlucky with the second one; my first one was amazing. I ended up returning that and going for a Pulse though since it was $520 instead of $535 for the Phantom Gaming; might as well save a bit if they’re pretty much identical anyways. It seems the PG is actually going for $520 now though, so I suppose it’d be slightly better than the Pulse for the same exact price just because of the extra connector; that’s irrelevant but you might as well get it if it’s the same price. 

Got it for $529 with Last of Us for free on newegg.

[Minuto]

4 hours ago, asand1 said:

Got it for $529 with Last of Us for free on newegg.

That's definitely a great price for that! As I said, my first one was great and my second was great aside from the fan thing, so I think you'll be very happy with your purchase. I was happy with the first one, and I was happy with the second one too until the fans got fucked up. 

[-rascal-]

The third PCI-E power connector is not necessary. Even my Sapphire NITRO+ 6800XT S.E. uses 2x PCI-E 8-pin connectors.

The 6800XT is limited by power limit slider. You can mod it to pull more power...but..

 

From what I can see, most top-tier 6800XT versions (i.e. AsRock Taichi, Gigabyte Aorus Master, etc) are hitting on average 2500 ~ 2600 MHz max boost.

 

How are your temperatures?

GPU? Hotspot? VRM? temps?

 

 

[DoctorNick]

On 4/29/2023 at 7:02 AM, -rascal- said:

The third PCI-E power connector is not necessary. Even my Sapphire NITRO+ 6800XT S.E. uses 2x PCI-E 8-pin connectors.

The 6800XT is limited by power limit slider. You can mod it to pull more power...but..

 

From what I can see, most top-tier 6800XT versions (i.e. AsRock Taichi, Gigabyte Aorus Master, etc) are hitting on average 2500 ~ 2600 MHz max boost.

 

How are your temperatures?

GPU? Hotspot? VRM? temps?

 

 

I agree, even on a 7900xt, 2x8pin is enough!

[Minuto]

On 4/29/2023 at 1:02 AM, -rascal- said:

The third PCI-E power connector is not necessary. Even my Sapphire NITRO+ 6800XT S.E. uses 2x PCI-E 8-pin connectors.

The 6800XT is limited by power limit slider. You can mod it to pull more power...but..

 

From what I can see, most top-tier 6800XT versions (i.e. AsRock Taichi, Gigabyte Aorus Master, etc) are hitting on average 2500 ~ 2600 MHz max boost.

 

How are your temperatures?

GPU? Hotspot? VRM? temps?

 

 

Oh okay that’s good to hear. I thought higher end models would have more 8 pins, but it’s good to hear they accruals don’t in some cases like the Nitro+; I see now that doesn’t matter at all then. 

im going with the max power limit of +15% in Adrenalin, and I won’t go any further than that with modding.

 

it seems I get stably get 2309 2409 with fast timing on and a memory clock of 2112. This runs Time Spy without crashing and improves my score. Anything past this either decreases my score or crashes. I am able to get to a max of 2660 with a min of 2560 in some games like Resident Evil Village which improves my average FPS and lows. Who knows if that’s actually stable though; it may crash later on though it’s at least stable in the demo. 
 

My GPU temps are in the 75-83 degrees C range even in FurMark and the Boundary benchmark. My hotspot temps generally sit just under 100 degrees C at heavy load. It maxed out at 106 once in the Boundary benchmark, but I resolved that by increasing my fan RPM to 100%. I forgot to check my VRM temps though so it’s very possible that it’s overheating or something when Time Spy crashes. 
 

On 4/30/2023 at 5:32 AM, DoctorNick said:

I agree, even on a 7900xt, 2x8pin is enough!

It’s good to hear that’s enough for even a 7900XT. That obviously means it’ll be sufficient for a weaker 6800XT. 

[-rascal-]

4 hours ago, Minuto said:

Oh okay that’s good to hear. I thought higher end models would have more 8 pins, but it’s good to hear they accruals don’t in some cases like the Nitro+; I see now that doesn’t matter at all then. 

im going with the max power limit of +15% in Adrenalin, and I won’t go any further than that with modding.

 

it seems I get stably get 2309 2409 with fast timing on and a memory clock of 2112. This runs Time Spy without crashing and improves my score. Anything past this either decreases my score or crashes. I am able to get to a max of 2660 with a min of 2560 in some games like Resident Evil Village which improves my average FPS and lows. Who knows if that’s actually stable though; it may crash later on though it’s at least stable in the demo. 
 

My GPU temps are in the 75-83 degrees C range even in FurMark and the Boundary benchmark. My hotspot temps generally sit just under 100 degrees C at heavy load. It maxed out at 106 once in the Boundary benchmark, but I resolved that by increasing my fan RPM to 100%. I forgot to check my VRM temps though so it’s very possible that it’s overheating or something when Time Spy crashes. 
 

It’s good to hear that’s enough for even a 7900XT. That obviously means it’ll be sufficient for a weaker 6800XT. 

 

I did some quick tweaking on my Sapphire card.

• +15% Power Limit
• Min frequency: 2500
• Max frequency: 2600
• GPU Voltage: 1100mV
• Custom fan curve to bump the fan speed up by ~10% in the 65*C ~ 85*C range.

With those settings, the GPU boosted up to around 2590 MHz.

The adjusted fan curve, brought the GPU Core temperature to ~65*C and Hotspot/Junction temperature to around 82*C.

If I leave it on 'Auto' the Hotspot temperature goes up into the 90's range...because the stock fan profile caps the fan speed at like 40%.

 

I was able to bump the Max frequency to 2650, and saw it peak at around 2616?

However, after about ~2 hours of gaming Warzone 2.0 randomly crashed/closed itself, and said it detected GPU overclocking.

The PC / GPU / Drivers didn't crash or anything, though.

 

 

Your numbers looks pretty good; being able to get 2600+ is actually on the upper end of things, it looks like.

Furmark and any synthetic will push the GPU and Hotspot temperatures. As long as it doesn't stay at 100*C+ for long. Brief spikes it OK.

 

 

Both a 7900XT and 6800XT are "rated" as 300W, while the 7900XTX is 355W.

Despite the 300W rating, they can/will run over, especially with overclocking.

I've seen it peak, according to Metrics through Adrenalin and within HWiNFO, hitting ~318W ?

[DoctorNick]

15 hours ago, Minuto said:

Oh okay that’s good to hear. I thought higher end models would have more 8 pins, but it’s good to hear they accruals don’t in some cases like the Nitro+; I see now that doesn’t matter at all then. 

im going with the max power limit of +15% in Adrenalin, and I won’t go any further than that with modding.

 

it seems I get stably get 2309 2409 with fast timing on and a memory clock of 2112. This runs Time Spy without crashing and improves my score. Anything past this either decreases my score or crashes. I am able to get to a max of 2660 with a min of 2560 in some games like Resident Evil Village which improves my average FPS and lows. Who knows if that’s actually stable though; it may crash later on though it’s at least stable in the demo. 
 

My GPU temps are in the 75-83 degrees C range even in FurMark and the Boundary benchmark. My hotspot temps generally sit just under 100 degrees C at heavy load. It maxed out at 106 once in the Boundary benchmark, but I resolved that by increasing my fan RPM to 100%. I forgot to check my VRM temps though so it’s very possible that it’s overheating or something when Time Spy crashes. 
 

It’s good to hear that’s enough for even a 7900XT. That obviously means it’ll be sufficient for a weaker 6800XT. 

6800XT and 7900XT has the same TDP. You can see that 7900XT actually consumes a little more power: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/amd-radeon-rx-7900-xt/37.html

[Xkillerpn]

I have pushed my 6800xt to 2800mhz and 1.3v on water, you dont need 3 connectors . also the 6800xt 2500 to 2600 is were the money is and you need to lower the voltage so you really dont need more then 1.1v. 

[Minuto]

On 5/1/2023 at 3:59 PM, -rascal- said:

 

I did some quick tweaking on my Sapphire card.

• +15% Power Limit
• Min frequency: 2500
• Max frequency: 2600
• GPU Voltage: 1100mV
• Custom fan curve to bump the fan speed up by ~10% in the 65*C ~ 85*C range.

With those settings, the GPU boosted up to around 2590 MHz.

The adjusted fan curve, brought the GPU Core temperature to ~65*C and Hotspot/Junction temperature to around 82*C.

If I leave it on 'Auto' the Hotspot temperature goes up into the 90's range...because the stock fan profile caps the fan speed at like 40%.

 

I was able to bump the Max frequency to 2650, and saw it peak at around 2616?

However, after about ~2 hours of gaming Warzone 2.0 randomly crashed/closed itself, and said it detected GPU overclocking.

The PC / GPU / Drivers didn't crash or anything, though.

 

 

Your numbers looks pretty good; being able to get 2600+ is actually on the upper end of things, it looks like.

Furmark and any synthetic will push the GPU and Hotspot temperatures. As long as it doesn't stay at 100*C+ for long. Brief spikes it OK.

 

 

Both a 7900XT and 6800XT are "rated" as 300W, while the 7900XTX is 355W.

Despite the 300W rating, they can/will run over, especially with overclocking.

I've seen it peak, according to Metrics through Adrenalin and within HWiNFO, hitting ~318W ?

It's good to hear that's okay then! While my OC settings aren't really completely stable, it still seems to be good enough that it works in most games. I'll have to try them out for an extended period of time in games such as Warzone 2.0 in case they crash after a while like that game. I had to change my fan curve too since it gets to a little less than 100 degrees C with the default fan curve and OCed. At 100%, it goes dwon a little bit, but it's still in the 90s. At least it's not 100+. It was 100+ once, but I resolved that by ramping up my fans to 100%. And I see, so they use the same TDP. That'sintresting; I'd expect the newer one to have a higher TDP, but I suppose it's more efificeitn now. Based on HWiNFO ,mine also seems to speak at about 318 W. 

 

19 hours ago, DoctorNick said:

6800XT and 7900XT has the same TDP. You can see that 7900XT actually consumes a little more power: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/amd-radeon-rx-7900-xt/37.html

That's interesting! I didn't realize they have the same TDP at all since I would expect the newer one to use more TDP. I'll read into this kidna stuff though to undesrtand this better. Thank you@

 

15 hours ago, Xkillerpn said:

I have pushed my 6800xt to 2800mhz and 1.3v on water, you dont need 3 connectors . also the 6800xt 2500 to 2600 is were the money is and you need to lower the voltage so you really dont need more then 1.1v. 

Oh okay it's good to hear that the connectors don't really matter. It's more the cooling and the silicon quality that matters. That makes sense. Thanks! I'll lower it down to about 1.1V for sure.

[GamerDude]

Put it this way, if you're not into OC'ing the heck out of the card, then 2x8pin PCIe power connectors are just fine. Having 2x8pin still allows for some OCing overhead if you so desire. I have a Nitro+ RX 6900 XT with 'just' 2x8pin and I don't feel I'm losing out, prolly because I'm more concerned with stability and perhaps a little mild OC and UV.

[Minuto]

On 5/2/2023 at 9:52 PM, GamerDude said:

Put it this way, if you're not into OC'ing the heck out of the card, then 2x8pin PCIe power connectors are just fine. Having 2x8pin still allows for some OCing overhead if you so desire. I have a Nitro+ RX 6900 XT with 'just' 2x8pin and I don't feel I'm losing out, prolly because I'm more concerned with stability and perhaps a little mild OC and UV.

That sounds good then! It’s good that even a 6900XT and a higher-tier 6900XT PBO has 2x8 pins then. I definitely won’t do 3 tben since I’m not going to OC it past the limits set in Adrenalin. That’s good that stability remains the same no matter what. Thanks!