Tests of PSU power cables? PSU breakers?

Soldato
Joined
1 Apr 2014
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Aberdeen
This thread about a PSU GPU power cable failing got me thinking. PSUs don't typically detail the current that each cable can take. Do reviews of PSUs test the cables going from the PSU to the individual components? I've seen plenty of reviews that test the overall capacity, ripple, and whatnot, but can't bring to mind any that go into such detail. It just needs something like, "This 8 pin GPU power cable has two GPU connectors and is rated at 300W. We tested it at 300W for X hours and it did not fail. We increased the wattage by Y every 10 minutes and it was still stable at Z Watts." Or more simply, "The cable uses X gauge copper wire and is therefore good for Y Watts."

Secondly, surely the next step is to install breakers in the PSU? If the current on the GPU power cable exceeds 300W, the breaker trips.
 
Man of Honour
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12 Jul 2005
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Aberlour, NE Scotland
I have never seen a review from any source that tests what wattage the cable can actually deliver but I could see how handy that may be. I expect the reason they don't do this is down to time constraints. A lot don't even say what wire gauge is used and I had to look through several reviews to find what gauge Seasonic used on the Focus Plus. I thought it would be 16 AWG but all of the main cables are 18 AWG probably to keep costs down on that series. Sadly it's not the first time I have seen connectors melt and we have had several instances on here in the past where the 8 pin or 24 pin connectors to the motherboard have melted (overclocked Bulldozer springs to mind) and a couple with Vega 64 as well. We all know that Vega 64 is a power hungry monster, even more so when overclocked and past threads on here have shown that Vega does have problems being powered from a single lead which are then cured by powering from two seperate leads. Even so, if a psu has the necessary connections on a single lead then it shopuld be up to the job of powering the card without melting.

I got my new psu yesterday, a Aerocool Project 7 650w Platinum which was developed in association with Techpowerup and it has 4x 6+2 pcie connectors. The interesting thing is that they are all on seperate leads which is a first for me on any psu that I have owned as usually they have a pair of daisy chained connectors per lead. Initial thoughts are that it's a solidly built psu. It's reassuringly heavy, silent as the fan only spins up once you hit 60% load, all of the motherboard/cpu cables are 16 AWG while the pci-e, sata and molex are all 18 AWG. It would have been nice if the pci-e cables were 16 AWG as well but I only have a GTX1070 so it's not a problem. The cables are all of the flat ribbon type and are black with black connectors. It has a RGB fan that can be controlled by the motherboard (lead included) but I haven't bothered with that as I have a strong dislike for anything RGB and the fan is facing down anyway.
 
Soldato
Joined
12 Apr 2007
Posts
11,838
Would be nice to see, they go into lots of detail about all other aspects.. Seems odd the cables don't really get a mention other than how many you get and whether they look pretty or not.
 
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