NVIDIA has issued a statement to Tom’s Hardware on a mysterious graphics card has had appeared in their marketing materials.
NVIDIA is still going to use a 12-pin power connector
Last week manufacturer published a Holiday #GIFTAGAMER contest where the GeForce RTX 3070 graphics card could have been won. While this isn’t something unusual or particularly newsworthy, the graphics card that was used promotion’s marketing materials certainly was.
By default, the GeForce RTX 3070 features a single 12-pin power connector, at least the Founders Edition does. This is actually a common feature for all Founders Edition from NVIDIA (RTX 3090, 3080, and RTX 3070). Thus, seeing an 8-pin power connector on Founders Edition was certainly unexpected. The picture that was used to announce the giveaway featured an RTX 3070 Founders Edition with an 8-pin connector.
In a short statement to Tom’s Hardware, NVIDIA clarified that this was a marketing mistake:
Tweet used concept art only, which is being replaced
— NVIDIA Spokesman
The original article further confirms that NVIDIA has no intention of changing the existing 12-pin power connector on the RTX 3070, which shouldn’t really be that surprising. The graphics card has a 220W power consumption by default, which is supported by both a 12-pin power connector and an 8-pin power connector (max 225W through cable and PCIe slot). What might be interesting is that so far only ONE board partner has used the 12-pin power connector or a custom model. Alongside RTX 3070 Founders Edition, the ASUS RTX 3070 EKWB (with preinstalled water block) is the only card known so far to NVIDIA reference board design with a 12-pin power cable.
Mistakenly posted concept art with GeForce RTX 3070 8-pin edition, Source: NVIDIA
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 12-pin power cable does not utilize all available power cables:
The 12-pin power connector does not even use all available cables, Source: TechPowerUP
Source: Tom’s Hardware
