Inno3D Hides Power Port On New RTX 4070, RTX 4060 Ti GPUs

News
By Zhiye Liu
published

A clever way to improve cable management.

Inno3D
(Image credit: MyDrivers)

Inno3D has thought of a way to hide the power connectors on the brand’s upcoming GeForce RTX 4070 and GeForce RTX 4060 Ti, two of the best graphics cards on the market. Unlike Asus’ concept of ditching the power connectors, Inno3D ingeniously placed them at the back of the graphics card.

Inno3D is preparing to launch the GeForce RTX 4070 AX eSports and the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti iChill X2 White in the Chinese market. Consumers will surely like the idea of having the power cables routed to the back of the graphics card since it would facilitate cable management and improve the overall aesthetics of the build.

The power connectors reside on the back of the PCB, located in an área between the heatsink and backplate. Inno3D rotated the power connector in a 180-degree orientation so it faces the motherboard instead of the side panel of your case. The good news is that the graphics card only requires a single power cable, so consumers don’t have to worry about routing multiple cables.

Image 1 of 8
Inno3D
(Image credit: MyDrivers)

In Inno3D’s case, the two upcoming graphics cards leverage a standard 8-pin PCIe power connector. However, we can see the utility of the design for models that use the 16-pin power connector. With all the cases of the 16-pin power connector meltdowns, consumers are paying extra attention when connecting and vending the cable. Inno3D’s design offers ample clearance space for bending the cable, and consumers can discard the power adapter, assuming they have an ATX 3.0-compliant power supply. 

Although both graphics cards have hidden power connectors, they differ slightly in implementation. The GeForce RTX 4070 AX eSports comes with a partially-removable backplate. Users can lift one-half of the backplate to reveal the 8-pin PCIe power connector. On the other hand, the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti iChill X2 White isn’t as long as the GeForce RTX 4070 AX eSports, so there was no way for Inno3D to use the same design. Nonetheless, consumers won’t have to remove the entire backplate to access the power connector. Instead, the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti iChill X2 White features a sizeable cutout where you can plug in the same 8-pin PCIe power cable.

According to MyDrivers, the GeForce RTX 4070 AX eSports and the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti iChill X2 White will have bundled white power cables to match the graphics cards’ white theme. Inno3D didn’t share the availability or pricing for the graphics cards yet.

 

Zhiye Liu
Zhiye Liu
RAM Reviewer and News Editor

Zhiye Liu is a Freelance News Writer at Tom’s Hardware US. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.

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10 Comments Comment from the forums
  • BillyBuerger
    Nice to see some good ideas like this for better cable management and cable clearance. Not that this is perfect. Specifically the one with the covered back plate as it seems to leave little room between the bottom of the GPU and the motherboard for the cable to fit. The picture they show of it mounted looks like the cable is smooshed in there pretty tight. The bottom of the GPU should have a channel of sorts that the cable could follow along and come out the back of the GPU or the bottom after clearing the motherboard where you would expect the case to have some openings for cables to reach the back and stay out of sight.
    Reply
  • edzieba
    I wonder if Inno3D see the irony in selling a 'solution' to the problem of incorrectly seated power connectors... by showcasing them with the power connectors not even close to seated.
    Reply
  • ManDaddio
    Wouldn't it get hot being where it is?
    And where are all the cases of power connectors failing? What percentage of 500,000 4090s actually were a problem? .5% in manufacturing is usually a given. I think AMD and Nvidia have each fallen way below that in the past years with faults. That's pretty great.

    And we still don't know what caused the melts. I still think it's user caused whether from overclocking or not plugging a cable or cables in correctly.
    I have a 4090 and have felt my cables under load several times and no heat at all felt in the cables or connectors.
    Reply
  • SyCoREAPER
    I don't know how I feel about that.

    First, the 12VHPWR is laying on the fin stack, not sure how the heat will affect it long-term.

    Second and more importantly, you can't see if the cable is seated correctly. You can plug it in and you put the card in, the cable can become unseated. That one tiny latch isn't a good securing mechanism. I've had it come lose two different 4090's with two different PSU while jiggling surrounding cables.

    Personally I'd rather just use a 180 adapter.
    Reply
  • Friesiansam
    sycoreaper said:
    First, the 12VHPWR is laying on the fin stack, not sure how the heat will affect it long-term.
    You didn't read the article properly, it has a single 8 pin connector.
    Reply
  • digitalgriffin
    These do the same thing and make your setup so much cleaner.

    https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0BVHWJ3ZC?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title
    Just pay careful attention to see if your connectors are reversed or normal.
    Reply
  • digitalgriffin
    sycoreaper said:
    I don't know how I feel about that.

    First, the 12VHPWR is laying on the fin stack, not sure how the heat will affect it long-term.

    Second and more importantly, you can't see if the cable is seated correctly. You can plug it in and you put the card in, the cable can become unseated. That one tiny latch isn't a good securing mechanism. I've had it come lose two different 4090's with two different PSU while jiggling surrounding cables.

    Personally I'd rather just use a 180 adapter.
    First off most fin stacks are cool to the touch compared to a backplate or GPU die. Finstacks barely get luke warm.

    Second it's bad connections that are ruining the 12VHPWR. A non bending straight connection would actually put less stress on them. And these are standard pcie, not 12VHPWR.
    Reply
  • TheOtherOne
    ManDaddio said:
    And where are all the cases of power connectors failing? What percentage of 500,000 4090s actually were a problem? .5% in manufacturing is usually a given. I think AMD and Nvidia have each fallen way below that in the past years with faults. That's pretty great.
    The HUGE and somewhat unfortunate difference is, we now live in the age of 24hrs connected Broadband Internet and Social Media. In the past even if they had failure rate of 5%, it wouldn't affect them too much since things would get replaced with warranty (as it's STILL the case) and only "reports" of any failures would be printed in those weekly/monthly magazines that hardly 5% of consumer base bought or read to begin with.

    Now a days even just 0.5% failure (again, with the replacement option via warranty) gets bashed to no end on Social Media and manufacturer is suddenly labeled as worst than the devil himself!
    Reply
  • bit_user
    An underappreciated aspect of this (and quite possibly their primary reason for doing it!) is that it enables you to orient these cards vertically, in a 3U rackmount chassis. This is why Nvidia workstation cards usually have their power connector on the end.

    Maybe Nvidia prevents gaming cards from mounting the power connector on the end, but it seems Inno3D found a loophole. Nice!
    Reply
  • Viking2121
    I like that, better idea than that card that get its power threw the motherboard, that will only ever work on that board.
    Reply