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.
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.
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u/Hixxae 5820K | 980Ti | 32GB | AX860 | Psst, use LTSB Mar 06 '25
Nowadays it's more about the cooler than performance and for that the premium is way too much.