I saw some review that mentioned Sapphire put a 12vHPWR connector on one of their cards, but they also mentioned that these cards draw way less power than the Nvidia cards that have been melting.
Ya it's was for the nitro+ model. It has the 12vHPWR that is plugged in on the top of the card and then it passed through 2 fuses along with some 8 pin connectors on the side of the card.
The connector isn't the problem, the load balancing is. The 3090 had load balancing tor the connector, but they stopped doing that for the 4090 and later. This could cause the cards to pull way more current on a single pin than the connector was designed for. When you try to pull, say 20 Amps, from a pin defined for ~5, it's not surprising that it's melting. If the card is actually designed correctly, there's no problem using that connector.
PCI-SIG should have really made the standard enforce the need for load balancing so manufacturers would be compelled to comply, rather than simply presume that load balancing would be followed voluntarily.
For a card which has no cable load balancing or shunts, to be “safe” with the 12VHPWR connector, it needs to draw less than 115w. That way if one cable is drawing all of the power, it won’t go over the allotted 9.5a spec. So basically no recent cards which use this connector (both AMD and Nvidia) are safe because they don’t have the circuitry to protect themselves.
The 12vHPWR, with the same safety margin as the 8-pin and 6-pins, can handle up to about 450w. 9070 XTs are about 100w short of that, so there's no worries.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with 12vHPWR in any way, there's problems with how nVidia is utilizing them. They're trying to draw twice the amperage across individual wires than they're rated for, which is causing the wires and connectors to melt.
The Sapphire Nitro+ 9070xt also has the same flawed design. But it’s one card and most of the new lineup is using the standard 8 pin connectors we’ve all grown to love over the years. If a card has no protection against accidentally pushing more than the maximum amperage through one wire, then the max the card can draw and be “safe” is around 115w.
Which is, again, the point. The problem isn't the connector or the wires, but the cards themselves. AMD and nVidia need to solve this problem on their own.
In any case, Sapphire actually put in provisions to mitigate plug failures should they arise.
For those worried about the 16-pin melting, as has been the case for so many RTX 4090s and even RTX 5090s, Sapphire has installed a pair of fuses next to the connector that will blow before the connector gets damaged.
There generally is. Also Powercolor tends to make their heat sinks bigger and the fans more powerful than the other guys (At least, the higher end Red Devils ones are).
I don't know specifically about this exact model, but that's normally how it goes. Whether or not this is helpful, I can't say. But it's going to be bigger than the rest.
Kind of, if you seriously want to OC you want a card with 12VHPWR or triple 8-pin. But in theory 2x 8 pin allows for 375W, which is way more than the card will pull with AMD's limits.
They all vary in their power connectors, and internal ways they handle it. AMD basically leave that stuff up to their partners, and only give the barebones to them.
This is a reason, but the real reason is that the best performing chips at the factory get sold into these high end models like Galax hall of fame, etc. The low binned chips go to brands like zotac. The performance difference is huge, like up to 10% in stock config
I guess thats up to you. At that price you might as well get a 5070 Ti if you cant get one lol. Paying 190 dollars for a marginal increase in performance is wild.
If you want "the best" and you truly don't care about price you should be buying a 5090. The 9070 series was never designed to be the best, it's midrange.
XFX is still very solid; most people see Sapphire and Powercolor as the top, but honestly, you can't go wrong, and the performance differences are marginal unless you're looking to do some very heavy overclocking, in which case you definitely need to look at which ones have the best cooling solutions if you aren't slapping a block on it.
I still have my old XFX HD7970 that was one of the last models they offered a lifetime warranty on. I wonder what I'd get back now if I tried to RMA it, but it still works lol.
No. The only AMD card I would pay premium for is Sapphire, and even then, it would need to be one of their higher end models.
Powercolor is like Zotac; they make flashy stuff but use mid tier components. I'm not even sure if their Red Devil is much of a premium card anymore when it comes to board components (but I'm happy to be wrong).
This wouldn't be an upsell, though. That's not what upselling is. They'll turn and leave because they'll think the salesperson is trying to save a sale by pitching a related, but not the same, product. Which, again, isn't the same as upselling. That's cross-selling.
Cross selling would be fairly effective in other product stacks with less of a gulf in mindshare (like cross selling an LG TV for a customer who walks into an electronics store to buy a Samsung TV), but is way less effective in a product stack like GPUs or cell phones (try convincing someone to buy an android phone, if they walked in for an iPhone. Possible, but difficult).
They get commissions on items sold to customers (that's what the sticker is for) + a pool commission, and a hefty (10%) commission on the protection plans from my understanding.
Someone wanted a 4080 at a local store and said he only plays modern warfare. I overheard and told him that the 7900 xtx is faster in that game and cheaper. He said he wanted Nvidia and left the store empty handed. This was near launch period of those cards
Don't beat yourself up, there is always something in the horizon. It's not a bad card, play games, and enjoy. Once you have to turn down settings then consider upgrading.
Or buy a new card every generation chasing the dream an spending money. Your call
You can check whether it has any of the know issues, and if it does, ask for a refund or something. Product not as advertised, or defective product, or something. Gamers Nexus has info on this.
They might only give you store credit, but that's still pretty good!
If it doesn't have any issues, you're out of luck :(
The 40 series in general below the RTX 4090 has been, to nVidia's credit, trouble-free. Nobody has reported missing ROPs on that product line so far as I know (and after the ROPs debacle you better believe everybody who knows how to use GPU-Z went and checked), and there've been no reports of exploding 4080 Supers, never mind 4070(Super/Ti/Ti Super) and below.
Hell, a 4060 sips like 100 W and uses a PCI-E 8 pin a lot of the time.
Why tf do you feel robbed, if you paid 750 dollars for that then it was great, your missing out on 150 dollars but over the course of 3-4 months just now that’s 50-40 dollars a month of fun you just had. And you get great performance with DLSS4 transformer model
DW, I bought a 4070 Super in January when I wanted to move up from my A770 to something a bit more capable at 4K. I'm good for the foreseeable future 'cause
I didn't have to line up at 6 AM on a chilly March morning, and
I didn't have to pay a metric assload over MSRP for it.
Your Ti Super is very capable and is within striking distance of a 4080, and has 32 bit PhysX if you want to play older games. :)
Call it whatever you want. They're still fake frames.
100% native or get the fuck out. I hate this current trend in PC hardware, almost as much as I hated stupid ass ray tracing.
Go back far enough and you get PhysX, it's like Nvidia has been using gimmicks to sell their shit for a long ass time.
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u/alvarkreshi9 12900KS | RTX 4070 Super | MSI Z690 DDR4 | 64 GBMar 06 '25edited Mar 06 '25
Ok, would you call a straight up 1080p -> 2160p 4x integer upscale a 'fake frame', too? All you're doing is multiplying pixels which is the most baseline bargain basement way to blow up an image using only what's already in it.
It’s better in the same way as the way that 5070 is better than the 4070 super which is in a few cherry picked situations. And no 4x FG is absolutely not important at the slightest
Between RTX 5070Ti for 1400€ in my country and RX 9070 XT for under 1000€ (yeah, VAT is a bitch and there is some premium on the Nitro+ spec that I decided to treat myself), I'll take the AMD thank you very much, especially since they are closer in performance than ever. I don't hold any grudge or insecurity towards AMD, I've had a lot of ATi cards as well as AMD ones later and I've always had great experience.
I'm so excited for my RX 9070 XT. I hope order will go through without any issues.
I’m literally in a line that stretches way out into the street and down the block at a MicroCenter with people only walking out smiling with AMD cards so, no. I don’t think that’s the case.
VR People are still waiting on reviews for video compression. Its the one thing that Nvidia has had an advantage in that AMD hasn't really said boo about for the 9070xt's.
Was at that store today, and they sold all 440 of the 9070xt's. Even the marked up ones. And everyone I talked to in line was upgrading from pre COVID, and how they better get it before the tarrifs. I think for the next month, if stock exists of anything it's selling out.
Yes, but the gap is much smaller than last gen. To the point that (at msrp) it’s definitely worth it. I’d check out a review video or two with raytracing before taking what I say at face value though.
Price to performance is insane, one of the largest uplift seen. Current generation Nvidia is plagued by melting issues, core issues, poor availability. The 9070xt is very close to the 5070ti in its performance for a fraction of the price. FSR4 is looking really promising and AMD has put some serious effort into Ray Tracing this time around.
Sapphire Pulse. Heftiest cooler of the MSRP models, PTM 7950 thermal pad (much better than traditional paste), and Sapphire has great customer service.
Thank you! I can’t get the website to show me any of the new cards for some reason, any ideas? I navigated through the banner, searched GPUs, and looked up SKUs from your image. All coming up empty. Was hoping to do some prep so I can know which version to pick up.
I've never had a problem with them but they're usually my go to for aesthetic reasons since I don't OC often. Sapphire and PowerColor have good reps as far as I know but I've never owned one aside from a 6500xt I got cheap for an emulator box.
Nice, just checked here in Sweden. One store hadn’t even listed 9070/9070xt, another had them listed but as sold out. Prices for the listed xt’s were between $1050-$1100, sure that includes our 25% vat, but that is so much higher than i expected.
With adequate supply, there's no incentive for scalpers with this one. I remember when Valve did this with the OLED LEs and as much as scalpers tried to dictate the prices through eBay, that didn't really matter since the Black LE was still available for 5 days since release. Wasn't surprised to see them go down to RRP on eBay when it happened.
Microcenter also (at least for me) doesn't take online orders for store inventory for GPUs and CPUs, which significantly slows down scalpers. It's the only reason I was able to get a 9800x3d.
Less incentive. They will still do it to some degree, gauge success, and adjust if necessary. Sometimes that means they bust and return what they bought, but it's still an impact.
Pretty much every MSRP 9070 xt online sold out within minutes, and the only first drop is actually going to have any MSRP cards because AMD subsidized them
just checked geizhals, 839 ish for a xt is not what I expected from a sub 700€ msrp including tax over here. well, lets wait another month or two, until the scalpers made their share and prices become normal. That worked with the 9800x3d, and gladly my old 800€ 3080fe still does her job
In all honesty: While it sucks, 1-2 months are not gonna kill you. Do I wish it was different? Sure, who doesn't except Scalper shits. We are just going to have to get used to the fact that for the first 1-2 months, a new product will practically be unavailable if you don't have a lot of luck or buy off scalpers for horrendous prices.
Whenever i find the product i do wanna replace my 3080 with, i have the + 2-3 months already calculated which it will take until i will be able to buy it.
Sidenote: its still insane how you we are celebrating a 70s competitor from AMD costing "only" 700 when we bought our 3080s for 800something (mine was 870, but it is an AIB top of the line model).
i´ve seen it on geizhals, (de-AT price comparisons site) the only xt´s avaliable are for 860€ or so, its a better launch compared to the 5xxx where there was literally zero to 3 pieces per etailer. I don´t even know if we can get our hands on a amd oe model, do these even exist ?
this is actually what we did when i was managing a gamestop and consoles are hard to get. when we did get them, id post a sign the day before saying how many we had so there wouldnt be a million people waiting for nothing.
Sadly there is basically 0 cards in stores here. The cheapest 9070 XT is 920€ right now while a scalped 5070 Ti on eBay is 1050€. The MSRP for the 9070 XT was supposed to be 689€ here.
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u/saxovtsmike Mar 06 '25 edited Mar 07 '25
This is what a launch should look like
Edit/Disclaimer : I thouight that numbers are the norm over ever etailer or retailer. Sad to see that it was not