NVIDIA was the first to adopt a 16-pin power connector on its graphics cards. AMD and Intel stayed away, but it seems that both companies eventually It also ends up jumping to said connectoras they have already started some tests together with their main partners.

The 16-pin connector has a very important advantage, which is that it allows power Up to 600 watts of power using a single cable. 8-pin power cables can only supply a maximum of 150 watts stably, so we would need three 8-pin cables to power a graphics card that uses 450 watts, and four 8-pin cables for one that uses 600 watts.

For this reason, 16-pin adapters may require up to four cables 8pin, something that left nothing aesthetic inside the chassis and can spoil any configuration. For the development and introduction of more powerful graphics cards with higher consumption, the 16-pin cable seems essential, and therefore AMD and Intel will work on the implementation of this connector.

It is important to emphasize one thing, that when we talk about the 16-pin connector, there are two versions that are fully compatible, the model 12VHPWR, who was the first to arrive, a 12V-2×6, which is an evolution of the previous one with some important improvements such as the inclusion of longer pins to better secure the connection.

Intel and AMD are working on implementing a 16-pin connector in a 12V-2×6 version, which It is the best and the safest. It’s unclear whether the two companies will adopt this connector into their next-generation Radeon RX 8000 and Arc Battlemage graphics cards, or instead wait until the next generation, but it’s quite evident that eventually this connector will eventually be standardized among the big three players in the mainstream consumer market graphics cards.

AMD already said at the time that it did not rule out the use of a 16-pin connector and expressed that it was just waiting Let’s see how it developed said connector before such an important decision. Now that the 12V-2×6 version has been shown to be safer and more reliable, Sunnyvale may decide to implement it.