over a week ago there was a big discussion i had on twitter about sea sonic power cables and i
got asked if the advice given in the c sonic manual was good advice which details that if
your graphics card has a total tdp rating of over 225 watts then seasonic advises that you
should not use what is known as a piggy backed connection from piggy tail cables and instead
use two separate 8-pin pcie cables so why would they recommend this is it sound advice
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first of all what is a piggy tail cable exactly well a piggy tail cable is a single cable
from your power supply that essentially splits into two eight or six plus two pin pcie connectors
which connect to your graphics card these are very common especially on more budget orientated power
supplies that are not modular though why are they included on nearly every power supply of sea sonic
is starting to recommend against them we'll meet exhibit a this is a power supply i picked up off
a miner over a month ago and while one of the connectors was fused at the modular connection
point going from the cable to the power supply and this was as you guessed it on a piggy tail cable
the power drawer simply became too much for the three pins that put out the positive 12 volt power
to the graphics card they in turn heated too much to a point where the insulation around it melted
and therefore expose the wiring to oxygen in turn oxidizing the wire and this process compounds in
itself because as the wire loses conductivity it has to pull through higher resistance in turn
producing more heat and the process literally gets to a breaking point where your power supply then
just turns off if it has safety precautions if not then i would suggest having a fire extinguisher
handy this is because the gravis card can no longer pull the power it needs
through the wire so in order to avoid this sea sonic recommends using a single cable for a single
pci 8 pin connector over and this is important this next bit for tdp graphics card power draw
of over 225 watt now relating this back to the original question in the intro that we asked
why include these power supplies the piggy tails with power supplies in the first place well over
the years and especially with most recent rtx 3000 series launch and amd's rx 6000 series launch
average gdp tdp power requirements have risen significantly compared to previous generations
for example take a gtx 1080 it has a power draw requirement of 180 watts so piggy tail cable that
splits one connector into two eight pins would be fine however if now we compare that to an rtx 3080
it has a tdp recommendation of 320 watts so according to c sonic's own recommendation we
should not be using a piggy towel cable for the rtx 3080 on both the eight pin connectors and
instead use two separate cables even if one of those eight pins comes from one of the portions
of the piggy tail cable also we can take amd's rx 6800 xt it has a power draw requirement of 300
watts so just like the rtx 3080 recommendation two separate 8-pin power connectors coming from
the power supply directly to the gravis cards would be advised the most important thing we
can see here with the gtx 1080 versus the rtx 3080 is that over the years the power drawer of
these cards are going up and up in general and you may be asking why is this especially since
the efficiency of the cards that is the fps per watt has improved well as amd and nvidia compete
for the top spot for graphics performance they do so at the cost of adding more stream processors
on their cards so even though the cards become more efficient they add more power draw in total
because overall the stream processes that they have added has produced more power
draw than efficiency itself derived from the architecture and node shrink gains can take away
leaving us the consumer with more overall power draw so a lot of manufacturers of power supplies
in the past would have not envisioned this when producing 650 750 and 850 watt power supplies
for example since they thought that perhaps gpu tdp power requirements would have not ballooned
especially as fast as they have to the levels that we're seeing with new graphics cards though
what you see going forward is unlike this piggy tail cable right here in my hand is you'll see
more singular 8-pin power cables on mid-range and higher-end power supplies to account for
this though for now the simple recommendation that c sonic has given out i would simply follow
it is sound advice from one of if not the most reputable power supply companies in the business
and for them to make such recommendations would simply be backed by experience knowledge though
to simplify the recommendation going forward on rtx 3060 3060 ti and 3070 piggy tail connections
should be fine to use since they all have a power requirement of under 225 watt though the 3070 ti
3080 and 3090 all come over this so i'd follow the recommendation from seasonic and use separate
eight pin cables for these pci power connectors on these cards mentioned over to amd's camp the
rx 6700 xt 6800 6800 xt and 6900 xt all come over that 225 watt power recommendation so for all the
rx 6000 series cards currently available i would use separate cables though in the case of the 6700
xt you should be fine with a piggy tail cable lastly it is simply a matter of heat the weakest
point being the modular connection from the power supply to the piggy tower cable if we look at this
hx 1200 watt power supply that i bought here clearly the miner that i bought it off did not
follow this advice though it's good to see that the power supply still works absolutely fine
and the safety features corsair have implemented on this power supply work fine too though in
the example of this miner and the power supply cable used it may be a little bit different of a
situation as before because they may have used two rx 570s for example on one piggy tail cable where
these cards have a tdp rating of 150 watt each therefore becoming 300 watts together going well
over that 225 watt recommendation and hence if these two cards were used for mining for example
it could have melted the cables fast and caused the oxidization that we're seeing
right on this cable that i'm holding anyway guys hope you enjoyed today's video if you did then
be sure to hit that like button and let us know in the comment section below have you had any
experiences like a burnt out cable here or have you had perhaps a different experience where the
cable gauge isn't thick enough and the whole system perhaps shuts down while you are gaming
this is another reason in favor of sea sonic's recommendation though i've never had this happen
on a sea sonic power supply since the gauge of the wiring they use is very generous anyway if
you stayed this far and you're enjoying that tech yes content then be sure to hit that sub
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bye
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