Third Sapphire Radeon RX 9070 XT NITRO suffers from burned 12V-2×6 power cable
Are we past the point where NITRO+ cards equipped with the newer 16-pin power connector are starting to show their ‘hidden features’? The hidden power connector design is no longer the only thing these cards are known for, unfortunately.
Within two months, there have been three cases of NITRO+ cards with their official blue-tipped 12-2×6 power connector showing visible burn marks. The Redditor hasn’t mentioned how the issue was first spotted, but usually it is a black screen or random shutdowns that give the first sign. Some say that a clear smell of melted plastic is also a good moment to perform a PC check (obviously).
As we can see in the image, only the current-carrying pins were burned (the top is 6x 12V and the bottom is ground – the connector is reversed). The Sapphire NITRO cards have a hidden power cable design like shown below, but compared to the renders, Sapphire added a special heatsink cover to protect the cable. This is more about preventing the cable from being cut than protecting it from thermal issues.
RX 9070 NITRO+, Source: Sapphire
The first case of a NITRO+ 9070 with a burned connector was reported in August and the second just last week . The update on the second case is that Sapphire agreed to take the card under its RMA , but they would not cover shipping, which is quite unfortunate.
RX 9070 NITRO+ burned connectors, Source: Reddit
Perhaps we will revisit the 16-pin power connector issues on Radeon cards if the cable and connector heavily melt (which has not happened yet). Usually we only see burn marks and some small deformations. Perhaps a 300W GPU is not as susceptible to issues as 600W RTX 5090 cards. Yet we have not seen many cases on RTX 5070/5080 series, unless they went unreported.
Source: Radeon/Reddit
