Asus Offers 16-Pin Cables to ROG PSU Owners For 'Peace of Mind'

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ROG Thor and Strix PSU owners in China are the first to benefit from this policy.

Asus ROG PSU free cabling
(Image credit: Asus ROG)

Asus Republic of Gamers (ROG) has announced that users of selected power supplies can get a free official 16-pin power cable for "more peace of mind." It must be talking about connector gate, where power cables connected to Nvidia's flagship GeForce RTX 4090 have been reportedly melting, at an alarming rate. Notice of this free 16-pin offer was posted earlier today on official Asus ROG social media channels in China, like this one on Bilibili.

(Image credit: Asus ROG)

The image above shows Asus ROG is offering 16-pin power cabling to owners of Strix series PSUs (left) and first-gen Thor PSUs (right). It characterizes its actions as "giving back to loyal users," and invites anyone to apply for the free official 16-pin cable via an Asus ROG WeChat channel.

(Image credit: Asus ROG)

In some accompanying explanatory text, Asus ROG China highlights some important T&Cs, before floods of people start asking for the free cable. It says that first-gen Asus ROG Thor and Strix PSU owners can apply for a free cable, as long as their PSU is rated for 850W output or better. However, Asus isn't ignoring owners of ROG Strix 750W PSUs. If you have one of those PSUs, the company is asking for a proof of purchase for a GeForce RTX 40 GPU to qualify for a free official cable. Asus reasons that "750W is really a little small to be honest," but it might be adequate for the RTX 4080 or RTX 4070 Ti with 16-pin power connectors.

Newer gen Asus ROG PSUs with higher wattages, like the Thor II, should come with 16-pin connectors as standard, in the modular cabling bundle, but check the particular product specs before purchasing.

For those not following Nvidia's unfortunate connector-gate drama, it is generally believed that official 16-pin power cables supplied with PSUs (rather than bundled GPU adaptors) are less likely to suffer from melting issues, though there have seemingly been one or two instances to the contrary.

There are almost as many perspectives on connector-gate as there are tech experts on YouTube. So we're still waiting for some official analysis and / or guidance from Nvidia or heavyweight AIB partners. There was a brief Nvidia statement about the dual-sourcing of 16-pin power adaptors today, but the company's minions must still be very busy investigating and putting a report together.

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Mark Tyson
Mark Tyson
News Editor

Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.

6 Comments Comment from the forums
  • InvalidError
    power cables connected to Nvidia's flagship GeForce RTX 4090 have been reportedly melting, at an alarming rate.
    How many more seemingly confirmed melted connectors has there been since the initial 18 or so until the first alleged melting of a "native" HPWR cable? Reporting on failures has mostly died out after the first two weeks.
    Reply
  • spongiemaster
    InvalidError said:
    How many more seemingly confirmed melted connectors has there been since the initial 18 or so until the first alleged melting of a "native" HPWR cable? Reporting on failures has mostly died out after the first two weeks.
    According to this timeline, there have been 2 reported failures of native connectors and about 30 total. No reported FE failures yet.

    https://www.pcworld.com/article/1372988/heres-what-we-know-about-the-geforce-rtx-4090-12vhpwr-cables-melting.html
    Reply
  • MattyGTX
    This is not true. I ordered my 1000w Thor P2 a few weeks ago specifically because all the marketing mentioned it came with a 16 pin cable.

    When it came in, it only had a 12 pin cable.

    When I called in to Asus support to ask for the 16 pin cable that was promised he acted like he didn't know what I was talking about. I had to eventually pull up asus's own ROG website and read the exact quote that they were advertising on their own website. The 16 pin cable was heavily featured in Asus' own marketing as coming with the 1000w Thor P2.

    It also said, on their own website, that if you didn't receive a 16 pin cable with your PSU to reach out to them and they will send you one.

    Once I instructed the agent to check their own website and he saw all this he conceeded and took my info down and said someone would reach out to me within a couple days.

    Couple days later I get a very brief email from Asus and they just say sorry, the cable is out of stock. No other recourse, no eta on restock.. nothing. Just a sorry, kick rocks... On a $330 PSU lmao.

    I emailed back, mentioning that I was rather upset with this as one of the primary reasons I specifically ordered this PSU was because it was supposed to come with a 600w 16 pin 12vhpwr cable.

    I asked when they expected to be able to send me my cable and if they are refusing to send something that was marketed as being in the box and wasn't, what other recourse they had in mind.

    A few weeks later, I basically got the same brief sorry it's out of stock email with no real elaboration or care.
    Reply
  • Coffee Fueled Curmudgeon
    Given barely anyone can reproduce it regularly or reliably and several people have pointed out reproducing it involves not plugging things in properly, this smacks of PR nonsense from Asus.
    Reply
  • spongiemaster
    MattyGTX said:
    This is not true. I ordered my 1000w Thor P2 a few weeks ago specifically because all the marketing mentioned it came with a 16 pin cable.

    When it came in, it only had a 12 pin cable.

    When I called in to Asus support to ask for the 16 pin cable that was promised he acted like he didn't know what I was talking about. I had to eventually pull up asus's own ROG website and read the exact quote that they were advertising on their own website. The 16 pin cable was heavily featured in Asus' own marketing as coming with the 1000w Thor P2.

    It also said, on their own website, that if you didn't receive a 16 pin cable with your PSU to reach out to them and they will send you one.

    Once I instructed the agent to check their own website and he saw all this he conceeded and took my info down and said someone would reach out to me within a couple days.

    Couple days later I get a very brief email from Asus and they just say sorry, the cable is out of stock. No other recourse, no eta on restock.. nothing. Just a sorry, kick rocks... On a $330 PSU lmao.

    I emailed back, mentioning that I was rather upset with this as one of the primary reasons I specifically ordered this PSU was because it was supposed to come with a 600w 16 pin 12vhpwr cable.

    I asked when they expected to be able to send me my cable and if they are refusing to send something that was marketed as being in the box and wasn't, what other recourse they had in mind.

    A few weeks later, I basically got the same brief sorry it's out of stock email with no real elaboration or care.
    You spent $330 on a 1000W PSU? I hope that is a conversion from a non-US market.
    Reply
  • megadirk
    spongiemaster said:
    According to this timeline, there have been 2 reported failures of native connectors and about 30 total. No reported FE failures yet.

    https://www.pcworld.com/article/1372988/heres-what-we-know-about-the-geforce-rtx-4090-12vhpwr-cables-melting.html
    FE failure now on the megathread.
    nvidia/comments/ydh1mhView: https://www.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/ydh1mh/16_pins_adapter_megathread/
    Reply