[Hardware] RTX 30 Series of NVIDIA graphics cards, concern has grown

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With the arrival of the new generation RTX 30 Series graphics cards from NVIDIA, there has been growing concern among users about whether their power supply will be compatible, and more specifically about whether it will have enough power that these new generation GPUs require. So, in this article we are going to tell you what is the theoretical maximum power that each cable of your power supply supports, whatever you have, so you can be sure.

Generally, when choosing a new power supply for the PC we look at factors such as power, warranty, the number of connectors it has and little else, but hardly anyone takes into account how much power each key can supply, and with the consumption Of the new NVIDIA GPUs this can be a critical compatibility factor, as it can cause problems on some PCs by forcing users to use two different PCIe cables because one might not be able to supply enough power. Let's see it.

What power does each power supply wire give?
First of all, you should know that there is no standard regarding how much power each cable can supply, and this generally depends on the manufacturer. As a general rule, the cables all have the same section and therefore the amperage they support is "more or less" the same in all cases, although some manufacturers have special wiring (such as Corsair sleeving) in which they add a filter to deliver the cleanest energy, which reduces its capacity.

In any case, there is a kind of unwritten agreement on how much power each of the cables is capable of delivering safely, that is, without running the risk of overheating or overloading. Thus, an 8-pin PCI-Express cable from the power supply is capable of safely providing up to 288 watts, while an 8-pin connector can deliver up to 216 watts. This leaves us 36 watts per cable.

maximum power PCIe cable

This means that on an RTX 3090, for example, that uses the new 12-pin connector and comes with an adapter, it would be advisable to use two different 8-pin PCIe cables from the power supply to service it, so that each of them can supply the maximum power without reaching its limit, and thus avoid risks. Could you do it with just one cable? Yes, you could, but it would probably go out of the safe range and it is not recommended.

As for the connectors of other devices, MOLEX 4-pin cables are capable of delivering up to 156 watts of power safely; Furthermore, when you have 2 connectors in a single cable, you must divide this power between them.

MOLEX cable power

When it comes to SATA power supply cables, the maximum they support is drastically reduced to just 54 watts for the entire cable. If the cable has more connectors, the power must still be divided.

SATA maximum power

In any case, when we talk about PCIe cables to service a graphics card - since it is the element that consumes the most in a PC, even more than the processor - our recommendation is that you calculate approximately 12.5 W per pin of the connector, that is, an 8-pin PCIe connector can supply up to 100W of power by itself. The maximum as we have shown you above is much higher than this, but with that value you can always be sure that you will avoid any type of problem due to overload or heating.