So AT how safe is this?

WelshBloke

Lifer
Jan 12, 2005
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v6vHIMy.jpg


That's a GTX 1080 if its relevant.
 

whm1974

Diamond Member
Jul 24, 2016
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What did you do, snip a wire? I'm not too sure if would want to use the card.
 

WelshBloke

Lifer
Jan 12, 2005
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My PS doesn't have an 8 pin pcie power cable. That's a six pin with the two extra grounds shorted to make it boot.
 

WelshBloke

Lifer
Jan 12, 2005
32,182
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A lot of people do it. If your 6 pin connector can safely carry the current and your PS can deliver the power, it seems to be okay.

Cool. I'll wrap some insulating tape around the twist and live with it until I upgrade my MB.
 

moonbogg

Lifer
Jan 8, 2011
10,677
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Yeah just don't go sticking your tongue on that thing. Otherwise looks good to me. I think the 8 pins are for marketing purposes anyway, right? Unless 1080ti MAX OC UBER VOLTAGE MOD LN2@!
 

MrTeal

Diamond Member
Dec 7, 2003
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I've done basically the same thing with dozens of cards, many that drew a lot more power than your 1080 (OC'd R9 290s). As LTC8K6 said as long as your wires are high quality you'll be fine.
 
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Dranoche

Senior member
Jul 6, 2009
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6-to-8-pin adapters connect the existing sense pin to the new sense pin, and one of the existing ground pins to the new ground pin. I think you end up with a little more resistance on the ground path with an adapter or the hack, but seeing as cards at least used to always come with adapters I can't see this being an issue. Amperage on the +12V pins would also be higher if you did this with one of the older 6-pin connectors that's missing the optional 3rd +12V line, to the point that you could potentially exceed what is allowed for cables bundled together with the typical wire gauges used, but that isn't the case here.

Never seen anybody report a problem from this, but I'm curious if/how this affects the sense function.
 
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Guru

Senior member
May 5, 2017
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6 to 8pin converters are dirt cheap and much safer. I'd look into that if I were you.
 

WelshBloke

Lifer
Jan 12, 2005
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Well it seems to be running ok. I've only loaded it up with the heaven benchmark thing yet but that seems to load the GPU if I push the settings up.

Its got that annoying flaw that every graphics card I've ever used has in that it wont idle properly with two dissimilar monitors attached so I might have to force some 2D clocks. Whats the go to program for forcing clock settings on Nvidia cards now? I notice that there isnt and overclock or temp monitoring ability in the drivers.

Edit: Nope, it seems to be clocking down on its own now! Must have had something running in the background! :)
 

Tuna-Fish

Golden Member
Mar 4, 2011
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Yeah just don't go sticking your tongue on that thing. Otherwise looks good to me. I think the 8 pins are for marketing purposes anyway, right? Unless 1080ti MAX OC UBER VOLTAGE MOD LN2@!

8-pin connectors exist because the spec for 6-pin connectors allows for crappy PSUs and cables that can only supply 75 watts. The two extra wires are not required for additional power. What is required is better-quality wire and PSU. To be within spec, the 8-pin connector must be able to supply 150 watts by itself. If your PSU is actually good, every 6-pin connector can also do that, so additional pins are really just a way to make sure no-one connects their cheap crappy just-barely-within-atx-spec PSU to a modern high-draw GPU and gets to see sparks flying.
 

2is

Diamond Member
Apr 8, 2012
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8-pin connectors exist because the spec for 6-pin connectors allows for crappy PSUs and cables that can only supply 75 watts. The two extra wires are not required for additional power. What is required is better-quality wire and PSU. To be within spec, the 8-pin connector must be able to supply 150 watts by itself. If your PSU is actually good, every 6-pin connector can also do that, so additional pins are really just a way to make sure no-one connects their cheap crappy just-barely-within-atx-spec PSU to a modern high-draw GPU and gets to see sparks flying.

Makes sense, I always wondered why the extra two pins were both ground wires.
 

ultimatebob

Lifer
Jul 1, 2001
25,134
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6 to 8pin converters are dirt cheap and much safer. I'd look into that if I were you.

Yeah, that's what I did to get my 1060 working with an older power supply.

I also needed to take a chunk out of a drive bracket so the card would fit, but that's another story :)

Nice hack, though.
 

Mopetar

Diamond Member
Jan 31, 2011
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I'd guess they are basically the same thing, but it would be neater.

It’s not inherently dangerous, but it’s also the kind of thing an insurance company would point to in order to deny coverage in the case of a fire.

No reason not to just buy an adapter.
 

WelshBloke

Lifer
Jan 12, 2005
32,182
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It’s not inherently dangerous, but it’s also the kind of thing an insurance company would point to in order to deny coverage in the case of a fire.

No reason not to just buy an adapter.

TBH I cant be a**sed to pull the case out and open it up again to put an adaptor in thats functionally the same as my hack. I'm considering getting a bunch of PWM fans and maybe a 970 EVO m.2 drive so I'll do it then if the case is open.

See this is why I hate updating one bit of a computer! Very soon you end up spending a fortune! :D