Seasonic is following on the heels of CableMod and releasing its own right-angle 16-pin 12VHPWR connector for GeForce RTX 40 Series graphics cards, according to a post that the company shared to its official Bilibili channel yesterday. The cable looks exactly like one would expect but has done its part in prompting discussion surrounding GeForce RTX 4090 GPUs and its new power connector, which is becoming controversial following reports and photos of it burning and/or melting. Some believe that the problem stems from bending stress, something that might be addressed by right-angle connectors such as Seasonic’s.
A machine translation of what Seasonic had to say about it:
For users who use 40-series graphics cards for in-line graphics card chassis, the most ideal solution is to use a 90°L-shaped 12VHPWR interface. The 1.4090 graphics card is too bulky, and the distance between the graphics card and the chassis side panel is too close. Chassis compatibility and optimized cable management. 2. It can solve the bending limitation problem of 16Pin interface and avoid interface burnout. 3. The direction of the 16Pin interface of the 40 series graphics cards of each brand is the same.
Seasonic has also shared tests from PCI-SIG that include possible root causes behind why the power connectors might be melting:
There are at least four reports of melting connectors thus far, including a newer one from NoDuelsPolicy, who shared a photo of their ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4090 with damaged connector earlier this week on r/NVIDIA. A Facebook user named Charlie Woods also ran into a similar issue with what is reportedly the same model of graphics card.