300W+ on single 8-Pin - Thermal test
Hey everyone!
After seeing a lot of people discussing on the best way to feed power to our boards, I decided to run some tests :
How much power can we (safely?) pull from the 8-Pin connector ?
I'm not responsible for any harm or damage if you want to try this yourself !
As we know, MOLEX is rating those connectors to 150W max.
For this test, I used :
- BC250 running at 2100Mhz on all 40CU, 6 CPU cores non-OC.
- Open fins heatsink + Arctic P12 Pro
- custom VRAM heatsink + Arctic P12 Pro
- GPU 8+8 pin Cooler Master PSU cable (higher wire gauge than single 8 pin)
I ran a stress test with FurMark in 4K resolution and frequently checked how well it was running
This setup was pulling more than 300 Watts from the grid.
The results :
The board quickly heated up at the beginning, which is absolutely normal.
However, I was surprised when I saw nearly no temperature evolution during the following 30 minutes.
As you can see on the images, the 8-Pin connector and the cable stayed pretty chill (barely warm to the touch)
The 50°C+ hotspots are not related to the power connector. It is actually the PCB dissipating the nearby VRMs heat.
After more than 30 minutes, I decided to stop the test as nothing evolved.
Following the results, It might seem relatively "safe".
However, this test was done in open air environnement. The results could be different if done in a case.
So I'm not recommending to do so except if you are aware of the potential risks.
The next step is to try again with unlocked 8 cores CPU !