ASUS's recently launched ROG Equalizer 16-pin cable has burned out despite being a pricey safety solution for your graphics card.
It Looks Like Nothing Can Save Your 16-Pin GPUs From Burning Out As ASUS's Expensive ROG Equalizer Cable Melts
A few months ago, ASUS launched its ROG Equalizer 16-pin cable based on the 12V-2x6 standard. This cable featured various technologies to prevent the 16-pin connectors on the latest graphics cards from burning out. ASUS said that its ROG Equalizer cable offered Balanced Power Delivery, Reduced Cable temperatures, and a larger load-bearing capacity, but despite all of this, it looks like we have the first supposed case of the cable burning up.
Posted at Chiphell Forums, a picture has been posted of a chat log with a user holding the ASUS ROG Equalizer cable in his hands. The ROG Equalizer cable can be verified from the unique purple tint on the connector, and the ASUS ROG branding on the cable comb, which also acts as an electrical bridge.
You can see clear burned marks on at least three of the 12 primary pins, with the one on the top right being the worst affected, as the plastic around the connector pin is entirely melted. No details on what sort of GPU was used with the cable are mentioned, but we have seen most reports of 16-pin power connectors burning up on an RTX 5090 graphics card.
Last month, Der8auer shared his own tests of the ASUS ROG Equalizer cable and found it to be worse than standard 12V-2x6 connectors, as the cable caused big variances between the pins, up to 4A on a 5080. This load difference means that other pins have to work even harder to supply the required power to the graphics card, leading to higher temperatures and damage to the connector itself.
It was also discovered that the reason behind this was the electrical bridge under the cable comb, which added more resistance to the cable.
ASUS's ROG Equalizer cable retails for around $50 US, which is a very high price, and now that we've seen a first supposed picture of the 16-pin connector burning up, it looks like users will want to avoid it till an official response by ASUS. Meanwhile, vendors are still working to this day to address issues concerning the 16-pin connectors with new technologies and methodologies.
News Source: Uniko's Hardware
About the author: A Software Engineer by training and a PC enthusiast by passion, Hassan Mujtaba serves as Wccftech's Senior Editor for hardware section. With years of experience in the industry, he specializes in deep-dive technical analysis of next-generation CPU and GPU architectures, motherboards, and cooling solutions. His work involves not only breaking news on upcoming technologies but also extensive hands-on reviews and benchmarking.
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