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Confusion about GPU power connectors?

Phil87

Phil87

Phil87

Associate
Joined
1 Jan 2012
Posts
280
Does anyone understand why a GTX 1070 which can use up to 150W (or slightly more for a factory overclocked model) could possible need 2x 8-pin power connectors?

If I understand correctly a card with a single 8-pin can draw up to 225W which is surely more than enough. Also the descriptions on some cards are wrong regarding the power connectors - this one says 1x 8-pin but the photo shows 2.

Does anyone know why they are designing the cards like this, considering many of us don't have a PSU with 2x 8-pin connectors? Could it be something to do with providing more power than is needed, in the same way that you might buy a PSU that gives 2x the power your whole PC would need? I mean with 2x 8-pin connectors a card can draw up to 375W, so what's going on here?

More info here
 
It's designed for overclocking, so to ensure the card gets enough power when heavily overclocked, it's been designed to handle more power. If you don't plan to overclock, just get a cheaper 1070.
 
2x 8 pin is to make you feel better about spending that much on a mid size die that really does not need more than a single 8 pin even when overclocked.

Purely cosmetic and placebo.

;)
 
Meaker said:
2x 8 pin is to make you feel better about spending that much on a mid size die that really does not need more than a single 8 pin even when overclocked.

Purely cosmetic and placebo.

;)
Click to expand...
That would make sense, unless a GPU can somehow use over 2x it's usual amount of power when overclocked (not likely). Could it be because they use the same PCB for the 1080 and 1070, including the power components?

Also the photos for that Zotac card above show that it comes with adaptor cables for the 8-pin connectors - they look like molex but can't really be sure. My PSU comes with one 8-pin and one 6-pin PCI-E cable, so maybe If I got another 8-pin that would work with a card like that. The connectors on the PSU are both 8-pin, so maybe they were just trying to save a few pennies on the provided cables.
 
Don't forget a card can also take up to 75w through the pcie slot.

Neither a 1070 or 1080 with the most extreme overclock require more than a single 8 pin connector. Purely there to make you feel your getting something special.
 
It's not even a hard limit when it comes to power draw and PCIe connectors. You can go over it with 3rd party tools. I've taken a 780 with a 6 pin and 8 pin to over 400W. It's more like a suggestion.
 
Brazo said:
Don't forget a card can also take up to 75w through the pcie slot.

Neither a 1070 or 1080 with the most extreme overclock require more than a single 8 pin connector. Purely there to make you feel your getting something special.
Click to expand...
That's what I was thinking, and yeah with the power from the PCI-E slot and the 8-pin it could use up to 225W.

Disco_P said:
It's not even a hard limit when it comes to power draw and PCIe connectors. You can go over it with 3rd party tools. I've taken a 780 with a 6 pin and 8 pin to over 400W. It's more like a suggestion.
Click to expand...
That's impressive, what are the 3rd party tools you use? I guess you couldn't do that with Afterburner alone.
 
Phil87 said:
That's impressive, what are the 3rd party tools you use? I guess you couldn't do that with Afterburner alone.
Click to expand...

It was afterburner but you changed a config file so it "talked" to a voltage chip on the card differently. You could then feed it commands to allow voltages up to 1.6v iirc.
 
It's solely because people think if a card has more power connectors it will have access to more power. But from what everyone says this is not true.

I wish Asus would make a card with 4x8pin connectors and charge £500 more (3x for amd but only 1.5x for nvidia) than the card with 1 8pin. I bet people would still buy it.
 
How about the opposite, I want to get another card like my 8800gt which has just a single 6-pin supply. ie. efficient performance

The companies usually refine the tech to run lower power at some point, the GT was a revision of the big 8800GTX cards that were around forever.
Is that the 960 series now ? Need to find a site which compares power usage, will trawl my old bookmarks


Seems 960 is low power comparatively - https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_1080/24.html
 
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