Corsair Working On Direct 12-Pin NVIDIA Ampere Power Cable

[Uskompuf]

NVIDIA Introduced a new 12-pin power connector with their RTX 30 series founder edition cards to accommodate the higher power draw. The new RTX 30-Series cards feature GPU power requirements of 220 W, 320 W, and 350 W for the RTX 3070, 3080, and 3090 respectively. The new 12-pin connector is roughly the same size as a single 8-pin PCIe connector but can provide significantly more power in that same space. NVIDIA will supply an adapter in the box to convert two 8-pin connectors to a single 12-pin connector, however this will require extra cable management and introduce another point of failure.

Corsair has announced they are developing a custom cable that will be fully compatible with all Type 3 and Type 4 CORSAIR modular power supplies to allow for a clean connection. The new cable connects two PCIe / CPU PSU ports directly to the new 12-pin connector and is currently undergoing development and testing. Corsair also now recommends a PSU rating of 850 watts or higher for the RTX 3090. The Corsair 12-pin cable should be available for sale by September 17th the same day as the RTX 30 series cards, pricing wasn't announced but you can sign up to be notified here.



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[s3thra]

Type 3 and Type 4 CORSAIR modular power supplies

In case you were wondering like I was:

LEGACY PSU CABLE COMPATIBILITY

Corsair

www.corsair.com

 

[Gade]

I was checking that page a few minutes ago and, unless I'm mistaken, it would appear my AX760 Platinum will be supported. That is good to know in case the card I buy requires that pin layout as I'd rather not deal with adapters.

 

[Tsukiyomi91]

my PSU is in the list. Good to know.

 

[ShurikN]

I was checking that page a few minutes ago and, unless I'm mistaken, it would appear my AX760 Platinum will be supported. That is good to know in case the card I buy requires that pin layout as I'd rather not deal with adapters.

Only reference models will have 12pin. Aib cards will have your standard 8pin times 2 or 3. Don't know about 3070, that one might have 6+8 on some models.

 

[bubbleawsome]

Corsair also now recommends a PSU rating of 850 watts or higher for the RTX 3090.

Dear lord above

 

[Caring1]

Upselling PSUs based on capacity, instead of fixing what they already have to deliver the correct power draw over the PCI-e cable.
Good job.

 

[Dammeron]

Only reference models will have 12pin. Aib cards will have your standard 8pin times 2 or 3. Don't know about 3070, that one might have 6+8 on some models.

Not reference models, but FE models. Reference PCB is the one used by other manufacturers. It is kinda confusing, but who knows what's on nV's mind...

 

[Valantar]

has announced they are developing a custom cable

Read: They are waiting for their order of micro-fit connectors and pins to arrive before they can reconfigure their crimping machine. The amount of "development" needed for a cable like this is essentially zero.

 

[Chomiq]

How about they also include an extension that will fix the stupid plug placement in the middle of the GPU.

 

[Valantar]

Dear lord above

Manufacturer PSU recommendations are always stupidly overblown, as they have to account for even the most crazy setups (OC HEDT or 10900K, with a ton of drives and AICs, etc.). If Ampere is as tightly controlled as Turing was on power, you'll need 350W + however much your CPU draws + a little extra for the rest of your system + whatever margin of safety makes you feel good. With a true 95W CPU (not one that boosts to 220-250W) that would likely amount to something just above 600W with my preferred 20% margin. There are of course those that insist on operating their PSU at no higher than 50% load, though that mainly means wasting efficiency when the PC is idling or on the desktop. Modern PSUs have a pretty flat efficiency curve, after all.

 

[Assimilator]

In case you were wondering like I was:

LEGACY PSU CABLE COMPATIBILITY

Corsair

www.corsair.com

Thanks, although that chart gave me cancer because of how needlessly confusing it is. Type-3 and Type-4 are identical, except for the 24-pin.... so why does Corsair show half the cables as -3 and some as -4? Why not all as -4?

What it seems to boil down to is that any modular Corsair PSU released within the last half decade will be able to accept this new cable.

 

[Ubersonic]

Dear lord above

There is a bit of method to the madness, you see, using Nvidia's adaptor the cable will have the 12pin on one end and the PSU connector on the other, which means that one psu port may be expected to supply up to 300w.

Most mid range psus and even many high end psus simply were not designed for that much being drawn from a single port, they were built with the expectation that port would feed an 8pin and 6pin combo at most (225w). Hence Corsair only recommending their beefiest Psus for the job.

This caused superflower headaches a number of years ago when they put two 6+2 connectirs on the same cable to give customers flexibility on which they used as the 8pin, and some used both as the 8pin and burned the PSU connector.

Corsair are proberbly looking to avoid that happening (or looking at avoiding the RMAs) by warning against using the 12pin adaptor with a 3090 on a weaker psu.

 

[Assimilator]

There is a bit of method to the madness, you see, the cable will have the 12pin on one end and the PSU connector on the other, which means that one psu port may be expected to supply up to 300w.

Most mid range psus and even many high end psus simply were not designed for that much being drawn from a single port, they were built with the expectation that port would feed an 8pin and 6pin combo at most (225w).

This caused superflower headaches a number of years ago when they put two 6+2 connectirs on the same cable to give customers flexibility on which they used as the 8pin, and some used both as the 8pin and burned the PSU connector.

Corsair are proberbly looking to avoid that happening (or looking at avoiding the RMAs) by warning against using the 12pin adaptor with a 3090 on a weaker psu.

Maybe you should've read the article:

The new cable connects two PCIe / CPU PSU ports directly to the new 12-pin connector...

 

[Ubersonic]

Maybe you should've read the article:

I was replying to the person I quoted. Not the article. It was in response to corsair only recommending high power PSUs for the 3090.

Ive edited it now to make it a little more obvious in case anyone else misreads.

 

[Assimilator]

I was replying to the person I quoted. Not the article. It was in response to corsair only recommending high power PSUs for the 3090.

... you rationalised your reply with a claim that it's because single PSU connectors won't be able to output 300W. Which literally isn't a problem because it's not going to be a single PSU connector used. In other words, your claim is nonsense, which makes your post nonsense.

Cripes, people on the Internet really don't read, do they?

 

[Ubersonic]

... you rationalised your reply with a claim that it's because single PSU connectors won't be able to output 300W. Which literally isn't a problem because it's not going to be a single PSU connector used.

Maybe you should have read the entire post before replying...

Cripes, people on the Internet really don't read, do they?

Ironic lol

 

[jonnyGURU]

Upselling PSUs based on capacity, instead of fixing what they already have to deliver the correct power draw over the PCI-e cable.
Good job.

That statement doesn't sound well thought out. The suggested wattage has nothing to do with the power supply's capability and everything to do with the speculated power consumption of the system itself. The two 8-pin outputs of an RM650x isn't any less capable of two 8-pin outputs of an RM1000x. Only total output capability is different.

The 8-pin outputs of a Corsair PSU can put out as much, or in some cases even more, than anyone else's PCIe ports. The problem is, you have a connector with a potential power delivery of 648W. Not that the cards will necessary need that, but it's an unknown right now (only synthetic numbers have come from Nvidia). 750W is recommended by Nvidia, but it doesn't leave much head room. I PERSONALLY think that 750W will be fine for most people, but there are some in the office that think when paired with certain CPUs it won't be and want to side with caution.

I am a little worried about Nvidia's included adapters, however. It can adapt either an EPS12V or PCIe to the 12-pin. While mechanically, an 8-pin can deliver 336W, and that's why a lot of PSUs put two PCIe on one cable... because 2x PCIe on paper should only need to deliver 300W (2x 8-pin @ 150W each), if you go beyond that, you WILL see a drop in voltage. That's not because of the PSU, the pins, etc. but because of the wire. Even using 14g wire you're going to see a drop that could impact the graphics card's performance. That's why even with the 2080 Ti, it was often suggested to use two PCIe CABLES and not just two PCIe CONNECTORS (photo credit Seasonic:

http://imgur.com/wNIuher

).

While that suggestion is still widely supported, anyone that's frequently read these forums or Reddit knows that a lot of users aren't smarter than the average bear and will use just one cable "because". Apparently, they're also not teaching Ohm's law in compulsory education any more and a lot of people simply don't know V = I * R.

 

[bubbleawsome]

Huh, I'm not sure the last time I saw a Y split cable. Most modular cables I see now are one 8-pin to one 6+2 pin, and that's your only choice.

Also, I know about excessive ratings, but for Corsair to take Nvidia's recommended 750w and upgrade it to 850w is unusual I think.

 

[Legacy-ZA]

I am glad to see my PSU is still keeping it's head above water, and Corsair, if you are reading this, job well done on making these available, I'll snag one up for future use.

 

[jonnyGURU]

Huh, I'm not sure the last time I saw a Y split cable. Most modular cables I see now are one 8-pin to one 6+2 pin, and that's your only choice.

The Seasonic drawings are just an illustration. Those cables don't literally split in the middle into two.

Though, I will say that if it WAS an actual "Y split" there would be less issues because there would be more conductors to carry the current (from the split to the load). But alas, everyone does go from one 6+2 to a second on a little pigtail and that's where the problem lies. All of the load for both connectors is on the wires going to the first connector.

Also, I know about excessive ratings, but for Corsair to take Nvidia's recommended 750w and upgrade it to 850w is unusual I think.

Yeah. Someone on the systems team did a test build using all high end parts and didn't feel comfortable with the 750W recommendation. That said, my guys are testing to the synthetic numbers Nvidia provided... you know.. since they JUST PROVIDED THEM LAST WEEK, even though the card has been in dev for months and Corsair is literally an Nvidia part under NDA (FFS).

Thanks, although that chart gave me cancer because of how needlessly confusing it is. Type-3 and Type-4 are identical, except for the 24-pin.... so why does Corsair show half the cables as -3 and some as -4? Why not all as -4?

And yet the chart says, in plain English, "The only difference between Type 3 and Type 4 cables is the pinout of the 24-pin ATX cable; all other cables (SATA, PCIe, etc) are the same."

So to point out that 3 and 4 are the same except for the 24-pin and the point out the 24-pin is different is needlessly confusing?

The reason they don't all say "Type 4" is because Type 3 came out before Type 4. The cables are actually LABELED. It's not just some arbitrary designation only found on a cable compatibility website. PSUs that came out before Type 4 all say "Type 3" on the cable connector that plugs into the PSU. So if you said they were all Type 4 and ignored that Type 3 existed in the first place and then gave someone a Type 3 cable from an older PSU, even if it's for an older PSU, they'd probably just go "nope... won't work" just based on how the cable is labeled.

 

[R-T-B]

Huh, I'm not sure the last time I saw a Y split cable.

My Seasonic Prime Titanium and EVGA SuperNova T2 both featured such cables.

 

[jonnyGURU]

My Seasonic Prime Titanium and EVGA SuperNova T2 both featured such cables.

Reviews on the internet would say otherwise.

EVGA T2:

Seasonic Prime:

 

[R-T-B]

Reviews on the internet would say otherwise.

EVGA T2:
View attachment 168102

Seasonic Prime:
View attachment 168103

I'm confused... those aren't the exact issue cables you were referencing? I see two ends.

And yes that is exactly what I have.

I probably am just confused on terminology here.

 

[jonnyGURU]

I'm confused... those aren't the exact issue cables you were referencing? I see two ends.

And yes that is exactly what I have.

I probably am just confused on terminology here.

No. That's what's called "pig tail" when one connector leads to a second.

A "Y" would be when there's a split into two separate cables out of one, like the letter "Y".

Like this:

Read: They are waiting for their order of micro-fit connectors and pins to arrive before they can reconfigure their crimping machine. The amount of "development" needed for a cable like this is essentially zero.

More like: Nvidia took forever to share the connector/terminal spec, sample was made, submitted to Nvidia for approval, and when that approval came back, China took a week off for "Golden Week" so nothing got done.