The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT has now joined the list of GPUs facing melted 16-pin connectors, a problem previously associated with Nvidia’s RTX 50-series. 
The first reported case appeared on Reddit, where a user discovered that his ASRock RX 9070 XT Taichi OC suffered from a melted adapter cable after just a few plug/unplug cycles.
Unlike most RX 9070 XT models that stick with tried-and-tested 8-pin PCIe connectors, some ASRock and Sapphire cards adopted the newer 16-pin 12V-2×6 standard. This standard was supposed to be safer and more efficient, yet real-world usage has shown that poor adapters, cheap PSUs, or improper installation can still cause failures.
In this case, the owner was running a Kolink 700W power supply – below ASRock’s official 850W recommendation. Worse, Kolink doesn’t manufacture ATX 3.1 compliant units, which are designed for these high-draw GPUs. Combined with the use of a three-to-one adapter cable and no confirmation that the connector was seated properly, the odds were stacked against stability.
Thankfully, only the adapter side of the connector was damaged, and the GPU itself survived. The user has since upgraded to a proper ATX 3.1 PSU. Still, this incident highlights how unforgiving the new 16-pin design can be compared to the older 8-pin spec, which rarely required such vigilance.
With AMD’s RX 9070 XT pulling more juice than even Nvidia’s RTX 5080, buyers need to pair these cards with robust power supplies and ideally avoid adapter setups altogether. Otherwise, they risk joining the growing club of users with melted connectors and fried cables.
2 comments
Do 👏 not 👏 buy 👏 cards 👏 with 👏 this 👏 garbage 👏 connector 👏
ngl if u buy low tier psu u deserve melted plastic 🤷