MSI Afterburner adds 16-pin power connector warning for its MPG AI PSUs — new update could save your expensive GPU from melting

Last month, MSI unveiled its new power supplies at CES 2026 that included two models with GPU Safeguard+, a new feature that pops up a warning on your computer if there's something wrong with your GPU. Specifically, it's trying to protect high-power cards like the RTX 5080 and 5090 from their incendiary nature. Today, MSI has released a new update for Afterburner that finally brings this feature to the public.

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Asus RTX 5080 Noctua Edition — (Image credit: Noctua)

The update in question is version 4.6.7, which is in beta currently, and can be downloaded from MSI's official Afterburner website. As you can see in the screenshot above, once installed, the software will throw a warning message at you if it detects a fault in the 16-pin connection. The infamously fragile nature of the 12V-2x6 connector (or 12VHPWR) has been documented for years at this point, so this is just the latest entrant in the ever-growing list of hopeful countermeasures.

GPU Safeguard+ only works on the new MPG Ai1300TS and MPG Ai1600TS power supplies; the cheaper MAG A1200PLS and MAG A1000PLS models have the basic non-plus GPU Safeguard, which doesn't have the pop-up capability synced with Afterburner. They'll still sound an audible alarm because the underlying active monitoring system is the same across all four units. Either PSU will lower the card's power limit to 75% to prevent overheating — or worse — by loading a predefined emergency profile automatically.

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This will happen on both Nvidia and AMD GPUs with the 16-pin connector, thanks to the new PSU.dll monitoring plugin that plugs into these smart PSUs. It will read telemetry data pertaining to voltage and temperatures coming from the power supply and communicate with Afterburner to keep everything in check. Alongside this new feature, MSI Afterburner's latest update also adds support for the company's RTX 5090 LIGHTNING series GPUs aimed at extreme overclocking.

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Hassam Nasir is a die-hard hardware enthusiast with years of experience as a tech editor and writer, focusing on detailed CPU comparisons and general hardware news. When he’s not working, you’ll find him bending tubes for his ever-evolving custom water-loop gaming rig or benchmarking the latest CPUs and GPUs just for fun.

4 Comments Comment from the forums

ezst036

I guess adding a warning system is cheaper than just adding load balancing circuits that prevent it all.

But look at the shiny new software. Yeah, that's great. So I get an interrupt when a game is playing instead of just having a card that self protects.

It is better than nothing.
Reply
qwertymac93

ezst036 said:
I guess adding a warning system is cheaper than just adding load balancing circuits that prevent it all.

But look at the shiny new software. Yeah, that's great. So I get an interrupt when a game is playing instead of just having a card that self protects.

It is better than nothing.
They may not be allowed to fix the hardware. There were rumors that Nvidia mandated (either directly or via the PEG as a proxy) the bus-bar type design on the 4000 and 5000 series, unlike the 3090 series which had three power rails. There has to be some reason more manufacturers haven't used the older, (apparently safer) design.
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derekullo

I hope it doesn't but I can see anti-cheat thinking this dll is malicious with bad things happening.
Reply
Kindaian

Not touching anything with the crappy cable with a pole until they release a newer version of the cards without such an issue.

It's idiotic that they insist that there is no problem. What does it need? Someone to die from a fire started by this? If this was a toaster, it would have been recalled long ago!
Reply