Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 PCIE_12V power connector

Hello.

The Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 has a 1x4 Molex power connector described as a
“PCIE_12V power connector” and a description in the manual that reads:

“The PCIE_12V power connector supplies extra power to the PCIE x16 slot.
Connect this connector depending on your system requirements”.

Does anyone know when to use this connector? I have two eVGA 7600 GT-OC
cards running quad monitors. I am using the connector but uncertain if I
need to have it connected

Thank you

 

Try to unplug it ???

MM

 

OK, here is the way this works.

Video cards draw 12V from the PCI Express socket. Each card can draw 4 amps.
Two video cards can draw up to 8 amps max. (The PCI Express socket is rated
for 5 amps, but the video card companies limit their current draw to a little
over 4 amps. Overclocking a video card may result in the current climbing
above the 4.x amp level per card.)

If you plug a 20 pin main connector, it has one 12V wire on the connector.
The wire is allowed to carry up to 6 amps. That would be sufficient for
a single video card. But not enough for SLI. (The fan headers also draw
current from the single 12V wire. Maybe 0.5A or so. So one video card
plus fans could be 4.5A total.)

If you plug a 24 pin main connector (removing the little cover over the
pins on one end of the main connector), the 24 pin connector has two 12V
pins. The total current they can safely carry is 12 amps. That is sufficient
for 2 x 4amps of an SLI configuration.

Any motherboard product that offers an "extra" connector, to help the PCI
Express video card sockets, offers an extra 12V wire on that Molex connector.
By using the 20 pin connector, plus a Molex disk drive connector, plugged
to the motherboard, you have enough current carrying capacity for SLI.

If you plug both a 24 pin connector, plus the Molex connector, you have
tons of current carrying capacity. Which is a good thing.

You can afford to be as stingy or as generous as you like with
current carrying capacity. If you use a 20 pin connector only
(6 amps max), and plug two video cards drawing 8 amps, the system
will likely function fine for a period of time. The connector
will get warm or hot near the 12V pin, and eventually the pin metal
surface could oxidize. Once the metal finish on a connector pin
deteriorates, it cannot be recovered. The connection gets hotter and
hotter, until the nylon part of the connector melts.

Using the above rules, there are three configs that are valid
for your SLI application:

1) 20 pin main plus Molex plugged in.
2) 24 pin main by itself.
3) 24 pin main plus Molex plugged in.

HTH,
Paul

 

It goes onto PCI Express cards that have a socket for it. These are
almost always video cards.