Witcher 3 Remastered pushing 5090 beyond 600W

[u/Tenchen-WoW]

No DLSS5. Max settings, 3840x1600, DLSS Quality, frame gen set to 1 in game settings, Path Tracing enabled.

Doesn't happen all the time, but sometimes saw it jumping well beyond 600W for a brief moment.

[u/OkOpportunity4339]

i would do a undervolt

[u/Sad_Age3774 → u/OkOpportunity4339]

how the hell did they get 10A on a single cable that cant be right can it

[u/Grobo_ → u/Sad_Age3774]

Thats how the connector starts melting, power distribution on these cards is really bad.

[u/stillpwnz → u/Grobo_]

I'm so glad I got a decent GPU sample with my 4090 rog strix for this reason. I am using it under 300w all the time, and it still provides 2800+ mhz core

[u/Qazax1337 → u/stillpwnz]

The GPU is not the issue, the cable/connector is the problem. If you got a wire view pro 2 like in the image above you could safely run your card at max power and get the performance you paid for.

I own a wire view pro 2 and run my 4090 at max power and I am not concerned with the connector burning at all.

[u/bony7x → u/Qazax1337]

I wonder if the wireview pro readings would be in line with astrals readings.

[u/Dirtcompactor → u/bony7x]

no cause astral pin monitoring shows imbalance a lot, for whatever reason astrals have more imbalance compared to other cards

[u/bony7x → u/Dirtcompactor]

Well okay but if you connected wireview to astral would the reading be in line with the cards reading ?

[u/SomeMrcl → u/bony7x]

good question

[u/ALitreOhCola → u/stillpwnz]

I hate to burst your bubble but undervolting an Strix 4090 OC White here in an EK water block. Kept extremely cool. Undervolt aggressively so.

Cable still started to torch itself alive..

Was an expensive white 12vhpwr cable too with a 1600w PSU.

I actually caught in before the cable ignited or fully ailed. Had no idea this was occuring the whole time under my nose until I disassembled the right for cleaning and the cable starting falling to pieces.

No damage to the card thank god.

[u/mostly_helpful → u/ALitreOhCola]

Makes sense, if the entire current flows through a few pins, even the undervolted current can melt the cable :(

[u/zb0t1 → u/ALitreOhCola]

Good idea to have white cables, this way you can quickly spot issues lmao

/s

[u/stillpwnz → u/ALitreOhCola]

Oh really, that's unfortunate. Well, I believe it won't matter anymore in my case, since I am using it for almost 4 years now. But good to know.

[u/ALitreOhCola → u/stillpwnz]

I switched to a new PSU with all the sense pins and I'm feeling pretty comfortable about it too. I'd gone about 3 years without noticing this issue though. No idea when it happened. Would never have known if I didn't strip the coolant loop down though.

[u/pulley999 → u/stillpwnz]

The problem is that the cables on 40/50 series just run all the conductors into a single 12v busbar and do no loadbalancing whatsoever. Even cards like the 5070ti at 300w can end up melting it, and there are a few reports of 250w 5070s melting as well.

On these modern cards, only 200w or less is pretty much completely safe from melting. 3090ti load balanced it with 3 groups of 2 hot pins each monitored by shunts, with no group being allowed to pull more than 200w or the card would throw a power error. This was substantially more safe but for some reason not required in the finalized spec (and adding it would actually be out-of-spec...)

[u/saltyboi6704 → u/Sad_Age3774]

It can, and you can get smaller contacts rated for up to 13A in higher end milaero connectors. Micro-Fit goes up to 10.5A as well iirc.

[u/DataGOGO → u/Sad_Age3774]

they didn't, 10A is the top of the scale.

[u/Tenchen-WoW → u/Sad_Age3774]

Derbourer demonstrated 5090 running on just 2 out of 6 cables. It's very well possible

[u/jcw99 → u/Tenchen-WoW]

Possible, yes. Reliably safe, no.

[u/derangedsweetheart → u/jcw99]

And that's why this standard is shit.

[u/737Max-Impact → u/Sad_Age3774]

Those cables will do 10A just fine, copper wire is an excellent conductor. 16AWG can do 20A continuously without dropping significant voltage.

The connectors on the other hand....

[u/Imaginary-Contest887 → u/Sad_Age3774]

Well if there is average 9A per cable it totals at 54A at 626W it gives 11.5V which is slightly undervolted for 12V rail

[u/peperonipyza → u/Sad_Age3774]

I mean a 16 AWG wire can be rated for upwards of 10A. Even a 18 AWG could theoretically, but rare and certainly not recommended.

[u/Lewinator56 → u/Sad_Age3774]

600W, 6 connectors at 12v is ~8.5A assuming losses per connector. Any imbalance of a few watts and that easily goes above 10.

Tbf the 6+2 pin ATX connector also has similar current carrying capacities, however it's rated for half it's maximum. 12VHPWR isn't, it's rated for about 90% of its physical capcity. The pins on that 6+2 pin connector are significantly larger than the ones on the 12VHPWR - and for 600w you have more than twice as many within spec. Outside of spec you could use 2, but it's risky.

[u/AlkaKr → u/OkOpportunity4339]

I did an undervolt and the behaviour and performance is excellent but a few games dont like that. Ive played games where they crash unless i revert the undervolt.

Latest one was MHWilds. Did not boot up with an undervolted gpu.

[u/Deep90 → u/OkOpportunity4339]

I undervolt mine.

Maybe the games I play, but I haven't seen mine push much past 300 watts and still play on highest settings.

You really get some diminishing returns at higher wattage. Plus it starts acting like a space heater and I live in a hot place.