It never stops, and it's not just the RTX 5090; mid-range cards are also vulnerable to the connector design.
Redditor Reports Burnt 16-pin Connector After Nearly Nine Months; System With Sapphire RX 9070 XT Nitro+ Suddenly Started Crashing As a Result
A new case of a burnt 16-pin connector on the RX 9070 XT just surfaced on Reddit. If you have been reading such reports, you might be aware that these are quite few, and for several reasons. Not only does the RX 9070 XT consume much lower power than the high-end GPUs like RTX 5080 and RTX 5090, but there are just two editions that bring the 16-pin power connector.
One is the ASRock RX 9070 XT Taichi, which already witnessed such an incident a few months ago, and the other is Sapphire's Nitro+ edition. The latter has been in the talks for two times, and this is the third case of connecting burning. The Redditor u/divinethreshold built his Sapphire RX 9070 XT Nitro+ based gaming build nearly nine months ago, and his system worked flawlessly.
However, he recently started facing sudden system crashes to a black screen. After trying various methods to get rid of the problem, the user had no other option than to inspect the configuration. Not surprisingly, he found the connector on his cable burned badly. As you can see from the pic, the entire top-row of the 16-pin connector was burnt, which seems familiar. This generally happens when the bottom row isn't connected properly, and the entire load is distributed to the top row.
The user reported that he used the Corsair AX1200i power supply, which isn't ATX 3.0/3.1 compliant and doesn't even have a 16-pin power port. So, he used the three 8-pin to 16-pin adapters that shipped with the GPU. Historically, we have seen adapters fail quite easily, and this has happened with RX 9070 XT GPUs previously as well. While this is one of the culprits that can easily result in the connector's death, the user argues that why even include the adapter when it isn't reliable.
That's true, though, but given that there isn't any substantial preventive measure taken by the GPU manufacturers yet, users have to take precautions to avoid losing hundreds of dollars to burn damage. Thankfully, his RX 9070 XT didn't take any apparent damage, but it's unlikely that the GPU connector pins weren't affected.
News Sources: Reddit, via @unikoshardware
About the author: Sarfraz Khan is a hardware reporter with a focus on PC components and the builder community. With years of experience writing about PC hardware and laptops, his work has been featured on several reputable technology publications. Sarfraz's hands-on experience is demonstrated through his first-person accounts of using and comparing different hardware configurations, providing practical and relatable insights for everyday users. His technical analysis is respected by peers in the enthusiast community and has been cited by specialized hardware sites such as Germany's Igor's Lab.
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