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NVIDIA is a huge company, if they can not manufacture a safe (and durable) 12VHPWR connector, then the PCI SIG design is bad and should be recalled. The design

NVIDIA is a huge company, if they can not manufacture a safe (and durable) 12VHPWR connector, then the PCI SIG design is bad and should be recalled. The design should be such that it would be difficult even for a shoddy manufacturer to create a fire hazard.

spookie 4y ago
Come on now... The parent even included a link detailing it's Nvidia's fault. And that other manufacturers have done a better job.
- stingraycharles 4y ago
  Exactly, most likely some amount of bureaucracy / subcontractor / cost-cutting yielded this subpar connector. The linked article gives very good insights in what’s going on.
- incrudible 4y ago
  I'm not saying it's not NVIDIA's fault, but that the spec has been setting companies up for failure, and it's not just NVIDIA who had these cables fail. Rather NVIDIA is the only company actually shipping these cables at scale into the real world to see the extent of the damage.
Tsiklon 4y ago
There’s power supplies from reputable manufacturers which ship this cable and they do this connector correctly. Unfortunately NVidia has really screwed the pooch with this as this dangerous adaptor is the first encounter most people will have with the 12VHPWR form factor
- incrudible 4y ago
  Perhaps so, but these power supplies are few and far between, so we'll have to see about how these actually perform in the long run. However, you're missing the point. The spec should be designed such that even "non-reputable" manufacturers with sloppier manufacturing methods wouldn't create a fire hazard. These connectors are extra-delicate even though they're supposed to carry higher loads. They will be less robust in practice, for very little gain. That's a poor tradeoff, which makes it poor design.
  - Tsiklon 4y ago
    I am not here to defend Nvidia, nor the quality of the design, I’m not in anyway capable of judging it on it’s technical merits. I think this debacle is a farcical mess. These new adaptors are included with products Nvidia themselves ship, with themselves as OEM. They know this standard is not common, and they know they need to ship adaptors with them, If they can’t guarantee the quality of it’s manufacturing, then it says there’s possible more worrying things going on behind the scenes.
tuvan 4y ago
600W from a tiny connector is questionable but the issue isn't caused by the 12VHPWR connector. Fault happens on the part that converts 4x older PCIe into the new headers. So this is an adapter issue and not something related to the PCI SIG design. According to Igor's labs investigation what happens is one or two of the welds in the adapter crack and adapter turns into 2x PCIe to 12VHPRW which is not what it's specced out for.
- trashtester 4y ago
  I think the 50A is a bigger issue than the 600W. Consider that the latest spec for usb-c allows up to 240W in a much smaller cable, but does so at 48V, meaning that the current is only 5A.
  - willis936 4y ago
    Note that it's in a much smaller cable. Galax tested a 12VHPWR connector at 1530W and the outer jacket stayed under 70C. https://twitter.com/hms1193/status/1585257428291325958 https://twitter.com/hms1193/status/1585257428291325958
    - lazide 4y ago
      To be clear - the typical temperature rating you’ll find on mains power cabling in a house is 60c. The highest you’ll typically be able to find is 75c. 70 Celsius is NUTS for that usage, not ‘oh, that’s ok then’
      - wongarsu 4y ago
        It's easier to spec out heat resistive materials for a 5cm cable than for the entirety of a house's mains power cabling. Sure, 70°C is a lot, but I think the point is that it would work if it had to.
        lazide 4y ago
        It’s a sign of a lot of resistive heat losses and requires specialized insulation and connectors at that level (same for mains). Typically insulation is starting to weaken or even melt at that point. It’s well outside normal expected operating temperatures for wire.
lambdasquirrel 4y ago
I think some of the other comments miss an important point. 600W of power draw means that you need 50A of current through those connectors. Or a bunch of transformers. You can design it around the old 12V standard but why? For reference, the amperage leading into the house is typically around 100A; you only need around 24A for an electric range / oven. 50A at 12V is probably not optimal. Does the old way of building PCIe cards still make sense when the GPU now draws more power than all of the other system components combined? GPU sag (i.e. the card weighs so damn much) is such an issue that one manufacturer actually put a level in their card.[0] The 4090 probably needs three slots just to keep it attached to the motherboard. When someone buys a desktop these days, it's very often because they need a discrete GPU. You buy a dedicated desktop GPU because the thermal envelope of a laptop can't support a card that would draw 600W - even if it were possible to shrink the card into a laptop (or make the laptop big enough to fit the 600W card). The top of the line Intel processors draw in the neighborhood of 150W but that doesn't necessitate going to a different form factor. Future motherboard and south bridge designs should mount the GPU independently of the other components. [0] https://www.tomshardware.com/news/geforce-rtx-4090-has-a-spirit-level-to-prevent-gpu-sagging https://www.tomshardware.com/news/geforce-rtx-4090-has-a-spi...
- nordsieck 4y ago
  > You can design it around the old 12V standard but why? For reference, the amperage leading into the house is typically around 100A; you only need around 24A for an electric range / oven. 50A at 12V is probably not optimal. In your opinion, if you could force power supply makers to add another voltage rail, which voltage would you pick?
  - davrosthedalek 4y ago
    48V is kinda industry standard, and just below "low voltage" thresholds is most jurisdictions (often 50 or 60V). The cards have switching stages anyway, so it's not that much change (but probably means different power transistors)
  - xnyan 4y ago
    There's not exactly a right choice of voltage per say, it's more of which tradeoffs you are willing to accept. Nothing is free, and higher voltage means more noisy, complex, and expensive SMPS power supplies. Solving for the problems of higher current, lower voltage DC we use in ATX format supplies today requires higher gauge copper, but the cable run between the GPU and PSU is so shot that the cost of extra copper could very well be less than the increased cost of a higher voltage supply.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

spookie 4y ago

Come on now... The parent even included a link detailing it's Nvidia's fault. And that other manufacturers have done a better job.

stingraycharles 4y ago
Exactly, most likely some amount of bureaucracy / subcontractor / cost-cutting yielded this subpar connector. The linked article gives very good insights in what’s going on.
incrudible 4y ago
I'm not saying it's not NVIDIA's fault, but that the spec has been setting companies up for failure, and it's not just NVIDIA who had these cables fail. Rather NVIDIA is the only company actually shipping these cables at scale into the real world to see the extent of the damage.

Tsiklon 4y ago

There’s power supplies from reputable manufacturers which ship this cable and they do this connector correctly. Unfortunately NVidia has really screwed the pooch with this as this dangerous adaptor is the first encounter most people will have with the 12VHPWR form factor

incrudible 4y ago
Perhaps so, but these power supplies are few and far between, so we'll have to see about how these actually perform in the long run. However, you're missing the point. The spec should be designed such that even "non-reputable" manufacturers with sloppier manufacturing methods wouldn't create a fire hazard. These connectors are extra-delicate even though they're supposed to carry higher loads. They will be less robust in practice, for very little gain. That's a poor tradeoff, which makes it poor design.
- Tsiklon 4y ago
  I am not here to defend Nvidia, nor the quality of the design, I’m not in anyway capable of judging it on it’s technical merits. I think this debacle is a farcical mess. These new adaptors are included with products Nvidia themselves ship, with themselves as OEM. They know this standard is not common, and they know they need to ship adaptors with them, If they can’t guarantee the quality of it’s manufacturing, then it says there’s possible more worrying things going on behind the scenes.

tuvan 4y ago

600W from a tiny connector is questionable but the issue isn't caused by the 12VHPWR connector. Fault happens on the part that converts 4x older PCIe into the new headers. So this is an adapter issue and not something related to the PCI SIG design. According to Igor's labs investigation what happens is one or two of the welds in the adapter crack and adapter turns into 2x PCIe to 12VHPRW which is not what it's specced out for.

trashtester 4y ago
I think the 50A is a bigger issue than the 600W. Consider that the latest spec for usb-c allows up to 240W in a much smaller cable, but does so at 48V, meaning that the current is only 5A.
- willis936 4y ago
  Note that it's in a much smaller cable. Galax tested a 12VHPWR connector at 1530W and the outer jacket stayed under 70C. https://twitter.com/hms1193/status/1585257428291325958 https://twitter.com/hms1193/status/1585257428291325958
  - lazide 4y ago
    To be clear - the typical temperature rating you’ll find on mains power cabling in a house is 60c. The highest you’ll typically be able to find is 75c. 70 Celsius is NUTS for that usage, not ‘oh, that’s ok then’
    - wongarsu 4y ago
      It's easier to spec out heat resistive materials for a 5cm cable than for the entirety of a house's mains power cabling. Sure, 70°C is a lot, but I think the point is that it would work if it had to.
      - lazide 4y ago
        It’s a sign of a lot of resistive heat losses and requires specialized insulation and connectors at that level (same for mains). Typically insulation is starting to weaken or even melt at that point. It’s well outside normal expected operating temperatures for wire.

lambdasquirrel 4y ago

I think some of the other comments miss an important point. 600W of power draw means that you need 50A of current through those connectors. Or a bunch of transformers. You can design it around the old 12V standard but why? For reference, the amperage leading into the house is typically around 100A; you only need around 24A for an electric range / oven. 50A at 12V is probably not optimal. Does the old way of building PCIe cards still make sense when the GPU now draws more power than all of the other system components combined? GPU sag (i.e. the card weighs so damn much) is such an issue that one manufacturer actually put a level in their card.[0] The 4090 probably needs three slots just to keep it attached to the motherboard. When someone buys a desktop these days, it's very often because they need a discrete GPU. You buy a dedicated desktop GPU because the thermal envelope of a laptop can't support a card that would draw 600W - even if it were possible to shrink the card into a laptop (or make the laptop big enough to fit the 600W card). The top of the line Intel processors draw in the neighborhood of 150W but that doesn't necessitate going to a different form factor. Future motherboard and south bridge designs should mount the GPU independently of the other components. [0] https://www.tomshardware.com/news/geforce-rtx-4090-has-a-spirit-level-to-prevent-gpu-sagging https://www.tomshardware.com/news/geforce-rtx-4090-has-a-spi...

nordsieck 4y ago
> You can design it around the old 12V standard but why? For reference, the amperage leading into the house is typically around 100A; you only need around 24A for an electric range / oven. 50A at 12V is probably not optimal. In your opinion, if you could force power supply makers to add another voltage rail, which voltage would you pick?
- davrosthedalek 4y ago
  48V is kinda industry standard, and just below "low voltage" thresholds is most jurisdictions (often 50 or 60V). The cards have switching stages anyway, so it's not that much change (but probably means different power transistors)
- xnyan 4y ago
  There's not exactly a right choice of voltage per say, it's more of which tradeoffs you are willing to accept. Nothing is free, and higher voltage means more noisy, complex, and expensive SMPS power supplies. Solving for the problems of higher current, lower voltage DC we use in ATX format supplies today requires higher gauge copper, but the cable run between the GPU and PSU is so shot that the cost of extra copper could very well be less than the increased cost of a higher voltage supply.

deleted 4y ago

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