A scorching potato: Varied entities are passing across the blame for the melting energy cable connectors on Nvidia’s new GeForce RTX 4000 collection graphics playing cards. The consortium managing PCI specs is the newest to disclaim any issues with its finish of the manufacturing course of, reminding producers to take correct precautions.
The Peripheral Part Interconnect Particular Curiosity Group (PCI-SIG) delivered an official response to the press this week regarding the melting energy cables for Nvidia’s newest GPUs. The group’s boilerplate security reminder suggests it thinks the issue lies not with it or the top customers however with producers.
The PCI-SIG publishes and manages specs for a lot of features of PCs, together with the 12HPWR energy cables on the heart of the latest controversy. It mentioned its specs embody all mandatory technical info on interoperability and that the remaining is as much as producers basing merchandise on these specs – simply Nvidia on this case. The PCI-SIG steered Nvidia is answerable for correctly designing, manufacturing, and testing merchandise like GPU energy cable connectors.
Since late October, customers have complained about melting energy connections on Nvidia’s RTX 4090 graphics card. They shortly blamed the adapters the corporate included to make the 16-pin 12VHPWR cables appropriate with older ATX 2.0 energy provides. The cables solely natively assist the newer however much less widespread ATX 3.0 PSUs.
One buyer filed a class-action lawsuit towards Nvidia, calling its adapters harmful and faulty. Nonetheless, separate investigations from Nvidia and Avid gamers Nexus point out that solely a tiny share of customers encountered the problem and that it stems from improperly linked cables. The PCI-SIG mentioned it is conscious of the lawsuit however solely directed its security advisory towards producers, not prospects.
The adapters seem secure for many customers who comply with instructions, though Igor’s Lab thinks they may be a bit delicate. Should you’re not sure in regards to the included energy connector adaptors on your RTX 4090 or 4080, you can store for third-party adapters or swap to an ATX 3.0 PSU to take away the necessity for adaptors. Upgrading the ability provide would solely add a few hundred {dollars} to the value of both GPU, each of which exceed $1,000.
The entire mess has given AMD extra ammunition in its competitors towards Nvidia. AMD’s upcoming Radeon RX 7900 XTX and 7900 XT GPUs are cheaper than their RTX 4000 equivalents and do not require adapters for ATX 2.0 PSUs. The corporate did not hesitate to spotlight each benefits.
