I am simply as prone to a flashy OLED display screen or over-designed chassis as the following individual, however I will be damned, I believe the 2 favorite issues I’ve seen from Computex this yr have been on energy provides, of all issues. Yesterday there was the PSU with a swiveling energy connector, and right this moment we’re seeing that ASRock is making energy provides that match 12V-2×6 energy connectors with additional sensors to test for overheating.
That is presumably as a response to the obvious points some RTX 50-series graphics playing cards have with overheating energy cables. The entire ‘melting RTX cable’ began final era with the RTX 4090, however there have been some issues this era, too.
We first heard about some RTX 5090 energy connectors melting not lengthy after launch. And simply final month there was a report of a melted energy cable on an RTX 5070, too—not even a high-power RTX 5080 or RTX 5090.
Tech YouTuber Der8auer investigated with a thermal digital camera and found that there was lots of variance in how a lot present is flowing by way of every of the 12 wires on the 12VHPWR cable, and that two of the 12 wires have been a lot hotter than the others. This was recognized as a potential reason for the reported melting.
We do not know to what extent every of the studies of RTX 50-series melted cables is right down to consumer error, in fact, corresponding to is likely to be brought on by not having the ability cable inserted absolutely.
That is one thing yellow connector pins are supposed to assist with, and naturally it is one motive behind the change from the 12VHPWR cable’s authentic, shorter connector pins to the brand new, longer 12V-2×6 pins.
But when there are measurable drastic variations between the ability flowing by way of totally different wires of the cable, it is laborious to think about that it is solely the top consumer’s fault.
In concept, RTX 50-series playing cards might have per-pin energy sensing to cease such variation, however not all do and apparently even Nvidia’s personal Founders Version RTX 5090 design would not have it.
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Which implies some extra safety must be helpful, and ASRock appears to have that in thoughts right here with its PSU and cable/connector design. It appears to be like like the brand new energy provides (within the firm’s Taichi or Phantom Gaming line-ups) have two customary 12V-2×6 connections however with extra two-pin sensors off to the facet, with the 12VHPWR cables having a corresponding two-pin sensor to plug in.
This could test for cable temperature and shut it off if it will get too scorching—a pleasant additional little bit of safety. Plus you get these yellow pins so you may extra simply test the pins are absolutely inserted. We do not know the way properly it really works but ourselves, in fact, nevertheless it’s a fantastic, sensible concept.
Now, with the good and smart out of the best way, let’s get again to these flashy OLEDs. May as properly stick one among these PSUs, too.