PCIe 5.0 graphics cards are awesomely powerful, but they’re running into some teething troubles, specifically with the fancy new power cables required to deliver that power. The new 12+4 rail design, also known as 12VHPWR, has been shown to have some design flaws that can cause an expensive, burning short if the connection isn’t maintained perfectly. MSI might have fixed the problem, and it’s showing off the solution at Computex 2023.
As PCWorld’s Gordon Ung explains, it’s about as simple a solution as they come: just a bit of colored plastic. On the new power supplies at the show, the 12VHPWR rail connections are colored yellow on the tips. Insert the cable in your power supply and your graphics card until you don’t see the yellow any more, and you know you have a solid, safe connection. Easy peasy. If you can still see any of the yellow plastic, it needs to be shoved in a little more.
This is the sort of innovative thinking that can make building a PC a lot easier with a tiny tweak, especially when you’re dealing with the cramped shadows of a high-powered PC case. Best of all, it’s a solution that other manufacturers and cable makers could copy without any problems. For more coverage of the coolest products coming from Computex, be sure to subscribe to PCWorld on YouTube.
Author: Michael Crider, Staff Writer
Michael is a former graphic designer who's been building and tweaking desktop computers for longer than he cares to admit. His interests include folk music, football, science fiction, and salsa verde, in no particular order.