The PCI-SIG (Peripheral Component Interconnect Special Interest Group), which is in charge of the spec for the 12VHPWR connection, sent a brief statement to the press on Dec. 1, that in short tells companies making graphics cards to conduct better safety testing. This came after a class-action lawsuit was filed in California.

It replaces the 12-pin plug that was on previous GeForce RTX 30 series Founders Edition cards and can provide up to an incredible 600W of power to the GPU. In comparison, older 8-pin connectors only supply up to 150W each. Some companies are already announcing new adapters for the GPU. CableMod, for instance, has a right angle adapter that it says requires less bending. What has Nvidia said about all of this? As our brand is known for highest quality standards, we treat this seriously and have initiated an investigation. Interestingly, Nvidia has used a 12-pin precursor to the PCI-SIG 16-pin connector on the Founders Edition RTX 30-series cards. To our knowledge, no one reported any melting 12-pin adapters over the past two years. RTX 3090 Ti cards also use a 16-pin connector, but they still come with a 12-pin adapter cable.Ironically, unlike almost all the other internal ATX power connectors, the Peripheral Power Connector was actually a Mate-n-Lok connector designed by Amphenol. The new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti graphics card is the first to use the new 16-pin PCIe 5.0 power connector.

The 16-pin connector is largely the same, but it adds four extra "sense pins" that can communicate with the power supply. In our experience, the 16-pin connector does require a bit more force to fully insert. Multiple theories suggest the root cause may be improperly inserted connectors, perhaps pulled out after doing some cable management. But there is no hard proof as yet that this is the only possible cause. Bottom Line Another interesting bit of information from the draft concerns temperatures on the 12V-2x6 power connector's pins. The temperature life is 168 hours at 105 degrees Celsius, while the expectancy is 92 hours at 105 degrees Celsius with preconditioning. Therefore, manufacturers must consider temperature limits when designing their graphics cards to ensure that other components, such as the shunts, VRM, or coils, don't add unnecessary heat to the header. The chipmaker does warn against using third-party adapters, such as the Cablemod and the upcoming Seasonic one, which will void your warranty — though note that all the cases of melted connectors so far have been with the official Nvidia adapter. Can someone build a better right-angle connector than Nvidia's official adapter? Almost certainly, and it will still technically void your warranty.Nvidia and our partners are committed to supporting our customer and ensuring an expedited RMA process, regardless of the cable or card used.” Amphenol ICC confirmed that the connector is designed for 600W graphics cards. It didn't specify whether it's for gaming or data center graphics cards. However, the company did list AI and cloud, gaming consoles, graphic interface, networking, server and storage as potential target markets for the connector. So far the melting 16-pin connector issue was affecting mostly the GPU side as you can see in the image above. However, we now have the first case of a Reddit user Shiftyeyes67k who had a 16-pin melt on the SMPS side. The affected model happens to be a 1000W Dark Power 13 from Be Quiet. Despite the PCIe 5.0 connector having 16 pins, its overall size has still been reduced to something similar to that of the older 8-pin connector. The distance between the power pins has been reduced from 4.2mm to 3mm, and the connector measures just 18.85mm long. It's not tiny, but it still occupies much less space than three 'traditional' 8-pin PCIegraphics power connectors.

Prior to that official statement, there were plenty of theories (some of which, it seems, ended up being right.)

AMD doesn't use 16-pin connectors–at least not yet. When it launches its next-gen GPUs, the Radeon RX 7900 XTX and 7900 XT, both will use dual 8-pin power connectors, which means that people won't have to deal with adapters at all. What about older cards with 12-pin adapters? The guidance to not bend the cable too close to the connector still stands with the 12V-2x6 power connector. With the previous 12VHPWR power connector, the recommended spacing was at least 35mm from the connector before bending, although some power supply vendors suggested up to 40mm for good measure. However, the distance for the 12V-2x6 power connector is unknown as Igor's Lab didn't provide the specific measurement in the report. The 12V-2x6 document also delves into more technical aspects, such as testing methodologies. This is murky territory. In the box for the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition, the documentation reads: The new connector helps eliminate the use of multiple 6-pin or 8-pin PCIe cables, decreasing cable clutter and making cable management easier. Nevertheless, the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti can also be powered by three 8-pin PCIe cables, although it would be a lot more unwieldy.

We do not know precisely how many RTX 4090 cards have been sold that use the 16-pin 12VHPWR connector. There are also RTX 3090 Ti and RTX 4080 cards that also use the same connector. By that token, there could be hundreds of thousands of cards with 16-pin connectors now in the hands of consumers, and only a very few of those have failed — Gamers Nexus claims the graphics card companies are saying the failure rate is between 0.05% and 0.1% right now. So about one in a thousand to one in two thousand.Nvidia has suggested that the issue is caused because 16-pin adapters are not being plugged completely into the graphics card.