News Cable maker advises against using old 12VHPWR cables with RTX 50-series GPUs

[Admin]

Moddiy has warned users against using its older 12VHPWR-rated power cables with RTX 50-series products. It recommends only using its cables manufactured in 2025.

Cable maker advises against using old 12VHPWR cables with RTX 50-series GPUs : Read more

 

[hotaru251]

so sounds liek a moot point...if the older 12vhp cables were up to standard then they should handle 600w still....if the gpu itself is damaging them then that is STILL a very big issue as means GPU aren't following the standards (as in pulling over that)

 

[Papusan]

Does this means MODDIY now will use thicker wires than specs or they used thinner wires than 16-gauge for their custom 12VHPW cables ? Hmmm. If it's the latter it is disgusting.

 

[Peksha]

Fake news again.

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

Or just don't use a third party cable, use the one that comes with your power supply or OEM provided adapter cable. Personally I'd like to see the load balancing adapter that EVGA sold for their cards and use 4-8 pin cables plugged directly into it.

 

[The Historical Fidelity]

so sounds liek a moot point...if the older 12vhp cables were up to standard then they should handle 600w still....if the gpu itself is damaging them then that is STILL a very big issue as means GPU aren't following the standards (as in pulling over that)

Yeah I completely agree, if a cable is built and is advertised as meeting the cable standard…then how are they not able to handle the power delivery the cable standard is rated for.

 

[AkroZ]

The specifications doesn't have much margin of errors, note that 12VHPWR and 12V-2x6 have the same electrical specifications:
They are rated for 9.5A by pin for a total of 684W (9.5 A × 12 V × 6 pin), the specified power is 600W. You only have 14% of safety splitted on 6 pins.
RTX 5090 has a specified power of 575W.

In comparaison 8-pin connectors are rated 8A by pin for a total of 288W (8 A × 12 V × 3 pin) and for a specified power of 150W which means you have a safety margins of 92%. This make it much more reliable.

The issue is in the specifications (proposed by Nvidia): you don't design an electrical connector with this much power with so little safety margin and nearly no safety mechanisms.
They have done that to diminish manufacturing costs. For a standard safety margin this would have needed around 4 times more metal.

Note: you would need 4 connectors 8-pin to power a RTX 5090.

 

[Conor Stewart]

This is just marketing BS and damage control. The cables are exactly the same on both 12VHPWR and 12V 2x6, the only change is to the connector on the GPU and PSU and the only difference is pin length. The cable standards are exactly the same, physically and electrically.

So the only reason the old cables wouldn't be validated for 50 series is if the older cables weren't up to standard, like if they cut corners on the conductor size or the pins used and hoped no one would notice with the lower power draw.

From derbauer's video it looks like this is an issue on the GPU or PSU causing the majority of the current to flow through one or two pairs of conductors, something that would melt a cable even if it was up to spec because something is wrong on the GPU or PSU side and current isn't distributed equally. It is happening with the cables that come with the PSU too.

It is a very strange kind of issue, especially if the pins of the connector are just all connected together on the GPU or PSU side, there shouldn't be much possibility of significant imbalance.

 

[Moonstick2]

Or just don't use a third party cable, use the one that comes with your power supply or OEM provided adapter cable.

Although bear in mind that the cables that come with the power supply aren't usually made by the PSU manufacturer, even the big names, same as they don't make their own capacitors or wind their own inductors. They get cable manufacturers to make the cables, maybe with a bit of branding. There's no reason to assume that a reputable consumer cable company is making them any worse than a manufacturing company supplying hundreds of thousands of cables to dozens of OEMs where small savings per unit matter. Or that the "third party" cable company isn't getting their cables made by the same manufacturer supplying the OEM.

So the only reason the old cables wouldn't be validated for 50 series is if the older cables weren't up to standard...

Or if the standard isn't up to scratch.

Lots of people have been slating 12VPWR before all this, especially on matters like the safety margins which by engineering standards are very tight.

 

[Peksha]

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/1io4a67/an_electrical_engineers_take_on_12vhpwr_and/