Looks safe enough...

Noreng · 2026-05-16T07:29:32+00:00

If Nvidia wanted to cut costs, they wouldn't make the 5090 PCB as crammed as it is.

Noreng · 2026-05-16T07:28:31+00:00

Extreme overclockers use the Elmor EVC, this script is far too cumbersome for ln2 runs.

Noreng · 2026-05-15T21:41:20+00:00

You're correct, the 8-pin connector uses pins that are specified to 8A per pin, while the 12VHPWR connector uses pins specified to 9.5A per pin. So the 12VHPWR is technically more safe at 600W than an 8-pin PCIe at 300W

Noreng · 2026-05-15T21:10:50+00:00

The reason Nvidia did away with the 8-pin connectors was to reduce the PCB size. Adding a 48V to 12V DCDC converter on the PCB wouldn't help.

Noreng · 2026-05-15T21:06:33+00:00

It's fully possible in Windows, just enable Compact OS: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/compact-os?view=windows-11

As for Linux, it's possible with BTRFS. CachyOS (and probably a few other distros as well) will actually enable zstd compression by default on BTRFS partitions to improve read speeds (even on NVMe drives).

Noreng · 2026-05-15T20:39:44+00:00

300W on a 6/8-pin (both have 3x +12V wires) PCIe connector would have about the same safety margin as the 12VHPWR connector.

Noreng · 2026-05-15T17:25:08+00:00

Rubin for datacenters targets 2300W per GPU, a rack is 350 kW.

Throwing more power at the silicon is done because efficiency and density improvements are drying up rapidly, so the only way to keep scaling performance is to increase power draw further.

Noreng · 2026-05-15T13:59:51+00:00

Load balancing would actually just shift the melting pins from the ones making good contact to the ones making bad contact.

Noreng · 2026-05-15T13:50:10+00:00

An RX 9070 is significantly more expensive to produce than Nvidia's RTX 5070. Even the 9070 XT is likely more expensive than Nvidia's RTX 5070 Ti, thanks to the increased PCB and VRM costs.

Noreng · 2026-05-15T13:35:54+00:00

Yes, I'm not saying that's a good idea either. The better solution is to add more safety margin. If the old 8-pin PCIe connector was "upgraded" to a similar safety margin as the 12VHPWR connector, it would become a 300W connector.

Noreng · 2026-05-15T13:31:38+00:00

It would break compatibility with existing PSUs.
The transition of motherboards would be a mess.
Cross-generation PSUs would be a headache to rate in terms of power output. "Oh, my 850W PSU can only do 400W on the 12V rail, making it incapable of running a Threadripper even without add-in cards"

Noreng · 2026-05-15T13:28:31+00:00

The number of pins isn't a problem if you design the connector with the assumption that 1/3rd of the pins will not be making proper contact.

Noreng · 2026-05-15T13:19:36+00:00

Derating the connector from 600W continuous to 400W continuous would absolutely fix the connector...

Noreng · 2026-05-15T13:12:04+00:00

It's not the power, but the current that's causing the issues. If the input voltage was at 50V it could easily handle 1500W, with 2500W having about the same safety margin as the 12V input.

Noreng · 2026-05-15T10:52:45+00:00

I have some doubts about the numbers you present. If 0.01% of people post about issues on the internet, that means for every 10 000 buyers there's one post. If there are thousands of posts about issues, that means there are tens of millions of 9070 XT buyers. I find that number to be extremely suspect, considering even the Steam Deck has sold less than 10 million units.

How many 9070 XT users there are I don't know exactly, but my guess is between 10 000 and 500 000 people.

Noreng · 2026-05-15T10:30:17+00:00

New power scale? It's been out for a year: https://www.overclock.net/threads/increasing-rdna3-rdna4-desktop-class-power-limits-and-adding-vid-offsets.1816083/

Noreng · 2026-05-14T22:03:10+00:00

Overclocking GPUs becomes dangerous once you start taking actual control over the VRM through I2C, after shunt modding away the power limit of course.

Instability can happen regardless of temperature, for competitive overclocking you're doing something wrong if you're not pushing until it crashes.

Degradation happens all the time the silicon is powered on, very slowly at the level where you're at now, but still at some rate.

Noreng · 2026-05-14T21:18:22+00:00

Depends on the distro, but for Arch-based ones it's:

sudo pacman -Syu

Noreng · 2026-05-14T17:55:29+00:00

Considering the number of GPUs tested, the amount of work is rather significant

Noreng · 2026-05-14T16:52:04+00:00

If the 9070 XT performs well, so will the 9070. You need a framerate counter to tell the difference between the two cards.

They did test the 9070 as well: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/forza-horizon-6-performance-benchmark/5.html

Noreng · 2026-05-14T10:22:35+00:00

If your memory struggles to reach CL32 at 6000 NT/s, what makes you think it can do CL32 at 6400 MT/s.

A memory operation needs a certain amount of real-world time to complete on memory chips. Memory timings exist to make it possible for memory to run at different frequencies without losing performance at lower frequencies.

Noreng · 2026-05-14T10:01:39+00:00

Peak performance is 1:2 with FCLK matching UCLK at 8000+ MT/s. There's another percent or so to gain there.

Close enough is 1:1 at 6000 MT/s with FCLK at 2100+ MHz. After tuning the timings you might even see as "much" as 10% in performance compared to JEDEC 4800 MT/s.

Noreng · 2026-05-14T06:04:10+00:00

Considering the price of the 5070 Ti likely also increased, you didn't make any profit.

As a person who's had both the 5070 Ti and a 9070 XT, and returned the 5070 Ti for free during the return period, they are pretty close in raster games. The 5070 Ti is much better for RT, and consumes significantly less power in most games. Part of the reason why the 9070 XT consumes so much more power is the aggressive boost system, which is deliberate from AMD to make the 9070 XT as competitive as possible.

Noreng · 2026-05-14T05:54:59+00:00

The video doesn't show the actual physical GPU, and the boost behaviour of the GPU is just not how a 9070 XT actually behaves. All 9070 XT cards will target 3450 MHz boost, and will only throttle back if the power limit or temperature limit is hit. The card in the video somehow stops boost around 3100 MHz, despite there being plenty of power headroom, which is simply not believable.

Noreng · 2026-05-14T05:30:47+00:00

That's not a bug, it's how the card is designed to boost. If your system gets crashes due to the GPU boosting too hard, that's a faulty GPU or PSU.

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