AMD RX 9070 XT Faces First 12VHPWR Connector Meltdown

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Story Highlight
  • A Reddit user reports that his ASRock 9070 XT power cable has melted.
  • Fortunately, his GPU survived as the burnt connector was on the power adapter end.
  • A possible cause could be the underwhelming PSU the user was running, but there’s no denying that the 12VHPWR is flawed.

Joining in on Nvidia is AMD with the first reported melted power connector on its flagship RX 9070 XT.

Unsurprisingly, the RX 9070 XT with the melted power connector was also utilising the notorious 12VHPWR connector. While most of the RX 9070 XT GPUs use an 8-pin connector, a few vendors, such as ASRock and Sapphire, opted for the 12VHPWR connector, resulting in this catastrophe.

Why it matters: The 12VHPWR has developed a bad rep for GPUs because of causes so many problems. Just not being inserted properly can cause the connector to burn due to its short power/ground pins.

UPDATE: Yea it melted…. 12VHighFailiureRate Strikes again.
byu/Savings_Opportunity3 inradeon

The Reddit user reporting this issue had made a post earlier this month reporting that his connector looked a bit dark while replacing the motherboard. The devastating news just came recently regarding the 16-pin connector getting fried.

This was also the user’s 4th time unplugging and plugging the GPU, and he did claim that he wasn’t sure if it was plugged properly, as a properly seated 12VHPWR should be, given its short power/ground pins.

A possible cause could be the Kolink 700W PSU that the user was running, which is not ATX 3.1 compliant. The ASRock 9070 XT has a TDP of 304W, and the vendor recommends an 850W PSU to be safe.

Fortunately, the RX 9070 XT didn’t endure any damage since the burnt connector was from the power adapter side and not the GPU. Moreover, the cable config the user was running was three 8-pin inputs to one 16-pin input.

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Almost All RTX 50-Series GPUs Carry A Design Flaw.

This config is known to be more prone to these issues compared to the direct 16-pin to 16-pin connector. 

Still, there’s no denying that the 12VHPWR connector itself is inherently flawed. Load balancing is a huge issue when it comes to these connectors.

What are your thoughts on this story? Let us know in the comments below, or at the Tech4Gamers forum.

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