The 16-pin power connector (12VHPWR) has already had meltdowns on some top graphics cards, but these incidents have so far were related to NVIDIA solutions. Now, the first data about a similar situation with an AMD video card has appeared. A Reddit user with the nickname Savings_Opportunity3 reported about damage to the 16-pin power cable on the Radeon RX 9070 XT.
Most mass-produced AMD models do not use 16-pin connectors. The Radeon RX 9070 XT with a TDP of 304W normally works with two standard 8-pin connectors. However, some AMD partners, such as ASRock and Sapphire, have chosen to integrate 16-pin connectors into their RX 9070 XTs — presumably for design reasons or to differentiate themselves from the competition.
In the case of Savings_Opportunity3, the ASRock Radeon RX 9070 XT Taichi OC model was affected. The same user reported a month ago wrote on Reddit that he noticed several pins in the 16-pin connector darkening while replacing the motherboard. Eventually, one of the pins melted, but the damage appeared to be localized, so the video card was probably still functional.
ASRock does not officially specify TDP for the Radeon RX 9070 XT Taichi 16GB OC, but recommends using a power supply with a minimum of 850W. AMD recommends 750W for the reference Radeon RX 9070 XT, so ASRock’s model can consume around 340-360W in real-world scenarios.
The user clarified that he used a cheap Kolink 700W power supply — below the minimum requirements from both ASRock and AMD. His system is based on a Ryzen 7 5700X3D processor. He had previously encountered an OCP (overclocking protection) error during the Battlefield 6 beta test, which could have been a signal of power instability.
The Kolink 700W power supply does not comply with the ATX 3.1 standard and does not have its own 16-pin cable. The user used the 16-pin → three 8-pin adapter that came with the video card. Given the nature of the damage, which affected only one pin, it is likely that the connector was not connected tightly. This is a common risk for 16-pin connectors, which require special care during installation. However, it is difficult to confirm this for sure.
For now, Savings_Opportunity3 has ordered a Corsair RM850x power supply to replace the cheap Kolink.
Source: tomshardware
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