Please note that this post is tagged as a rumor.
No 12VHPWR connector on RDNA3 GPUs?
Multiple sources now claim that AMD will not be adding a new PCIe Gen5 power connector to its new Radeon GPUs.
Kyle Bennett recently revealed RDNA3 Navi 31 GPU will support unannounced (at the time) DisplayPort 2.1 specifications, only for the VESA consortium to formally announce 2.1 specs a few days later.
According to Kyle’s sources, AMD is not planing to add PCIe Gen5 power connector to new Navi 31 reference cards, in fact, no board partner card is now confirmed to be using such connector either.
After the @NVIDIAGeForce melting drama, I have verified through multiple sources that @Radeon Navi 31 ref cards will NOT use the 12VHPWR power adapter, and I could not verify any AIBs using 12VHPWR on N31 either. Picture in case you don’t know what a smoked 12VHPWR looks like. pic.twitter.com/hLWhjqSm4v
— Kyle Bennett (@KyleBennett) October 25, 2022
This news comes just as NVIDIA is facing reports about melting 16-pin power connectors on their 450W GeForce RTX 4090 graphics cards. The company adopted 12-pin power connector for its RTX 30 Founders Edition GPUs back in 2020, only for the new ‘Ada’ series to feature the full implementation with 12+4pin and defined as 12VHPWR spec and offering up to 600W of power.
As a matter of fact, Kyle’s claim is not the only one. It was Angstronomics who were first to break the news that AMD is not planning to use the new power connector on their reference designs. The company would rely on dual 8-pin power connectors on their Navi 3X based model:
The reference card appears to have an updated 3-fan design that is slightly taller than the previous generation, with a distinctive 3 red stripe accent on a section of the heatsink fins near the dual 8-pin connectors.
— Angstronomics
The site correctly mentioned 3 red stripes on the reference design, which was revealed by AMD in late August. However, AMD’s official render did not show any power connector:
AMD RDNA3 Reference Design, Source: AMD
There is also a report from Igor’sLAB who revealed a PCB design for the upcoming RDNA3 GPU, possibly a custom variant. That card reportedly features triple 8-pin power connectors. With that in mind, there are now three sources with relatively good track record claiming that AMD is not using 12VHPWR connector on RDNA3 GPUs.
If these reports turn out true, then NVIDIA will remain the only company using this new high-power connector. And that’s despite Intel and AMD launching new desktops cards almost at the same time.
Source: Kyle Bennett, Angstronomics
