Is This Cable Actually Ok? (dual 8-pin PCIe to 12-pin Nvidia)

philo-sofa · 9 Feb 2022 at 17:44

When my cable arrived I realised that two of the pins on the 8-pin connectors are missing. Nvidia's own adapter uses all eight pins and I've heard that missing these extra pins means the card isn't grounded or that the adapter is only able to draw six pin levels of power (i.e. 150w from each 8-pin adapter).

Perhaps this make sense because 2*6=12. Does anyone know what the missing pins actually are and whether this will be a safe cable to use? Would prefer not to blow up my GPU RN for obvious reasons.

Photos:

pastymuncher · 9 Feb 2022 at 19:13

I had a EZDIY cable like that and it stated that it was not to be used on RTX3090 cards. I actually ended up making my own cables as when I took the cooler off my 3070 to fit the block I discovered that what I thought was the power connectors connected to the pcb were in fact just very short adaptor cables and the pcb had a pair of thin single row 8 pin sockets.

philo-sofa · 9 Feb 2022 at 23:36

pastymuncher said:
I had a EZDIY cable like that and it stated that it was not to be used on RTX3090 cards. I actually ended up making my own cables as when I took the cooler off my 3070 to fit the block I discovered that what I thought was the power connectors connected to the pcb were in fact just very short adaptor cables and the pcb had a pair of thin single row 8 pin sockets.

I actually had the same EZDIY cables. As near as I can tell the warning about the 3090 was because it uses 18 AWG cables (whereas this one uses larger 16 AWG cables).

I returned the EZDIY cable as it was also missing these two pins and I'm now scratching my head about whether it's safe to use these MODDIY cables given they have the same issue.

philo-sofa · 12 Feb 2022 at 16:15

Any opinions on whether this is safe?

Awahwah · 1 Mar 2022 at 19:59

I’m in the same boat as you. Currently my MODDIY cable is in my spare’s drawer.

LePhuronn · 23 Mar 2022 at 15:36

But from research I've done regarding making my own custom cables and mains power connectors, it's not a case that a 6-pin PCIe connector can only draw 150W, it's just specced to do that. The 2 additional ground pins on the 8-pin connector are more like sense wires that informs the PSU to allow the greater power draw for chunkier devices.

The housings themselves are rated for 600V DC and the pins when used in a 6 and 8 wire socket can handle 6 amps each on 16 and 16 AWG wire. Electrically I don't think there's an issue with running a pair of 6 pins into the 12 pin Nvidia, and the Nvidia connector uses 20 AWG wire too.

I present this as what I believe, I do not claim to be an expert and giving advice here