8 pin plug from power unit

Michael_591

Prominent
Mar 26, 2017
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Hi all,
I currently nearing the end of my build, and found an 8 'pin' plug from the power unit spare. Can anyone tell me what it is supposed to be for please?

Mike
 
Solution


You don't necessarily have to plug all the cables that come with your PSU.

Some PSU's have extra PCIE cables (for 2-way/3-way multi-GPUs). So if you only have a single GPU, you would have another PCIE cable as spare.

Some motherboards require 8-pin, some 4-pin, some both 8-pin and 4-pin (just half of the 4+4 pin cable).

Those 3x L shaped plugs you described are the SATA power cables...


There are usually 2 types of "8-pin" plug in a PSU (it depends what brand/model you have).

You have either the CPU ATX12V/EPS power (for the motherboard), which comes either with a full 8-pin *or* a combined 4+4 pin; or the PCIE power (for the graphics card), which comes either with a full 8-pin *or* a combined 6+2 pin:

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Hi,
I have my graphics card plugged in via 2x 6/8 pin plugs which you can unplug at the power unit and the graphics card, and my motherboard is plugged via a 20/4 pin plug fixed. My drivers are plugged into the power unit via a 8 pin plug into the power unit and the other has 3x L shaped plugs, this fixed black pin plug is confusing me.

Mike
 


You don't necessarily have to plug all the cables that come with your PSU.

Some PSU's have extra PCIE cables (for 2-way/3-way multi-GPUs). So if you only have a single GPU, you would have another PCIE cable as spare.

Some motherboards require 8-pin, some 4-pin, some both 8-pin and 4-pin (just half of the 4+4 pin cable).

Those 3x L shaped plugs you described are the SATA power cables (used for SSDs, HDDs, and ODDs).
 
Solution