motherboard 8 pin cpu power connector

Because you can supply more power down 8 pins, or supply power from more than one rail.

Its the same voltage, just more max total ampage.

Yeah you can use a 4->8 pin adaptor, or just connect the 4 pin on its own.



130W is the typical (not max) TDP of a QX6700. Thats over 10 Amps at 12v.

Thats quite a lot of power for the thin little wires on a PSU.

Overclock that QX6700 and it will easily be using 20 Amps of power or more at load. At that point you'd definately want to be connected with all 8 wires (half of these will be earths, so thats 5 Amps per +12v wire).

On the other hand, most of us are running dual core conroes with a 65w TDP, or about 5.5 Amps total. As long as you are not overclocking, or at least not overclocking much, this should be ok.