Power Matters with EVGA PowerLink - Clean up your Power and System!

[Tomorrow]

Everyone here focusing on the capacitors. But you all miss the mark. Does this new PowerLink have the ability to reverse polarity? Problably not.

I will explain why this matters. You see PowerLink is only compatible with cards that have power connectors facing one specific way. Im speaking about wheter the release latch is at the top or at the bottom.
Im pretty sure all EVGA cards have the latch at the bottom (when the card is installed).

However not all cards from ather manufacturers do. For example at one point i ordered PowerLink for my Zotac GTX 1080 only to discover that since it had latches at the top i was unable to use PowerLink.
There's actually a topic on EVGA forums where someone modded theirs to reverse polarity: https://forums.evga.com/EVGA-powerlink-polarity-modification-m2619471.aspx

So while i really like this concept im afraid it has limited compatibility. Just FYI if you do plan on buying it - do your research.

 

[Valantar]

Have a peek in our PSU review section I linked, and what graphs are there. You can draw it also like that if you look through a scope.

There cannot be a 1V ripple anyways... they aren't taking mushrooms or LSD...

Oh wait...

I looked before I posted. Transient tests have very distinct changes in the graphs, of which there are none in the PR images here. The PR images are clearly meant to be ripple/noise measurements, simply due to how they look (even, fuzzy lines with no steps or changes) and the focus on one being less "fuzzy" than the other. And the entire point of my posts is how ridiculous it is to demonstrate a feature with 1V ripple, given that it's way outside the ATX spec - but that is likely what has happened here, and I'd chalk it down to overeager PR reps thinking a change from 1008 to 728 looks way better than a change from 60 to 43. And of course you can have 1V ripple, you just need a really, really terrible PSU. It wouldn't work in any PC, but it's definitely possible to make.

 

[Ruru]

Everyone here focusing on the capacitors. But you all miss the mark. Does this new PowerLink have the ability to reverse polarity? Problably not.

I will explain why this matters. You see PowerLink is only compatible with cards that have power connectors facing one specific way. Im speaking about wheter the release latch is at the top or at the bottom.
Im pretty sure all EVGA cards have the latch at the bottom (when the card is installed).

However not all cards from ather manufacturers do. For example at one point i ordered PowerLink for my Zotac GTX 1080 only to discover that since it had latches at the top i was unable to use PowerLink.
There's actually a topic on EVGA forums where someone modded theirs to reverse polarity: https://forums.evga.com/EVGA-powerlink-polarity-modification-m2619471.aspx

So while i really like this concept im afraid it has limited compatibility. Just FYI if you do plan on buying it - do your research.

I know what you mean, for example Asus cards have a cut on the PCB and the latches are facing up.

 

[Ra97oR]

This is as close as audiophile snakeoil as you can get with mainstream PC hardware...

 

[Tomorrow]

This is as close as audiophile snakeoil as you can get with mainstream PC hardware...

EVGA also makes a sound card. Capacitors aside clean cable routing is no snake oil. There is legitimate use case for PowerLink but unfortunately it's held back by compatibility and also i wish it were slimmer. Better yet instead of putting power connectors mid board GPU manufacturers should go back to putting them at the end of the card.

The current way of placing power connectors is legacy from era where people were complaining that it made the cards longer and that they ran into clearence issues with hard drive cages. These days most people don't even have hard drive cages anymore or hard drives for that matter. Plus cards have gotten shorter thanks to HBM and the death of SLI/CF/DualGPU monstrosities.

 

[Ruru]

This is as close as audiophile snakeoil as you can get with mainstream PC hardware...

I don't see it like that. Many (including me) has sleeved cables with cablecombs etc..

Of course if you haven't got a windowed case and you don't care how your cables are organized etc., then I agree with you.

 

[Chomiq]

I don't see it like that. Many (including me) has sleeved cables with cablecombs etc..

Of course if you haven't got a windowed case and you don't care how your cables are organized etc., then I agree with you.

He's not talking about aesthetics, but about the logic of introducing the electrical component.

 

[Totally]

Is this thing one size fits all or only nvidia ref pcbs and gl for those with custom PCBs?

 

[Tomorrow]

Is this thing one size fits all or only nvidia ref pcbs and gl for those with custom PCBs?

In terms of power connector spacing and horizontal placement it's compatible with most.
Problem occurs with power connector vertical alignment. Meaning if connector relase latches are at the top then you can't use PowerLink on that card without doing hardmod to PowerLink itself. See my previous posts here about that.

 

[Slizzo]

So is EVGA saying that the SuperNOVA P2 850W powersupply that I own is shit? And that I should be using a Powerlink because their own PSU won't provide good, clean, stable power?

Yeah... fuck that. Their marketing is terrible.

 

[efikkan]

Snake oil was the first thing that came to mind.
If you're worried about ripple, buy a good PSU. No one needs this BS product.

 

[Roddey]

I would of used this but for one thing. If they would of made the interface for the power connectors face downward it would of left only a few inches of cable visible. But with this device, it only moves the connectors from the front to side with the same angle to plug in the cable. It doesnt achieve its main objective at least for my case, hiding as much of the cable as possible.

 

[Tink-GB]

Had several of these PowerLinks for a while and whilst I agree with most posts, the point is for me anyway, is that with my EVGA 2080ti, it cable manages the 16 cables that would otherwise be sticking out the front of the card and on view. No matter how you then try to smarten them up, they either hide the writing on the card, mess up air flow or look aweful in a glass case... Thus powerlink solves my issue perfectly and manages those cables to the dark unlit side of my case and you can only see an inch of those cables now.
I for one am perfectly happy to pay the price for this, although not sure if the EVGA powerlink fits the EVGA 30 series onwards so I will have to reconsider going forwards.

 

[jonnyGURU]

 

[Tomorrow]

New member. Clearly. But PowerLink is still a unique way to hide cables and i use on my 2080Ti too tho it's not made by EVGA itself.
If anything they should consider making PowerLink 2 that is slimmer and has the option to reverse polarity (because not all manufacturers place power connectors the same "correct" way). Tho if fear that due to the new 12+4 pin PCIe connector (at least on NVIDIA cards) the existing PowerLink will be incompatible anyway. And if on FE cards it is in the middle of the board again then a PowerLink wont help you anyway.