Last night, I found a spanking deal on a 9800GX2 (paid $150) on Craigslist. After bringing the card home and taking another look at it, I realized that the card has two power inputs, which need both a 6 pin and an 8 pin PCI-E power connector. Nobody locally carries the adapter and I don’t want to wait 3-5 days for it to come in the mail. *&^%!!! I want to game, tonight!
I tried using 2x 6 pin PCI-E power connections, but the video card didn’t like it and refused to output anything. So I got to thinking, what the heck is an 8 pin PCI-E connector and what is so special about it? After a bit of Googling, I found my answer:
The only difference between a 6 pin and an 8 pin PCI-E connector is that the 8 pin connector has two additional grounds. So, theoretically, you could take a 6 pin PCI-E connector, add two more grounds to the right side and be good to go.
Luckily for us, this is not only theoretically possible, but very feasible as well. Creating the connector is pretty easy and straightfoward for anyone the least bit handy.
First, take an old ATX connector (or similar) and cut off two pins from the end using a Dremel.
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Cut the wires of the two pin connector down and strip them:
Now, instead of wiring these extra two pins directly to my power supply, I decided to wire it up to a spare adapter I had to avoid canabalizing my Power PC & Cooling 510. You could wire directly to your power supply, but you would end up making permament modifications (explained later). I ended up using a 2x 4 pin molex to 6 pin PCI-E adapter I had laying around.
Strip each of the black wires (ground) somewhere in the middle.
Solder the wires from the two pin connector to the exposed wires you just stripped. NOTE: I said solder, but you can get away with electrical tape; however, that’s the lazy way, which is more apt to fail.
Then, just cover the solder points with electrical tape and tape the two pin connector to the 6 pin PCI-E connector and VOILA! Your new 8 pin PCI-E adapter is finished! It would be a good idea to test fit your new plug before attaching the two connectors together.
Lastly, everyone wants to know, “Does it work?”
Heck yes it works! And it fits like a glove.
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For creating a 6 pin PCI-E connector for graphic cards.
6 pin connector supplies 75 watts.
8 pin connector supplies 150 watts.
do you really want to fry your vid card? the only way this would really work is if you can get 2 6 pin connectors to work together and supply 150 watts out of the 8 pin connector.
I’m not sure that “get[ing] 2 6 pin connectors to work together and supply 150 watts out of the 8 pin connector” has anything to do with this article.
This article shows you how to convert a 2x Molex 6-pin adapter to an 8-pin adapter. The result is used to supplement an additional 6-pin connector from your power supply in the event that your power supply only comes with 2x 6-pin connectors, and not a 6-pin and an 8-pin.
No video cards were fried in the making of this article.
Nice article.
If you notice, there are only 2 yellow 12v wires in your new plug. Where there are 3 in a real 8pin plug. I think it is best if you buy a converter, so you don’t overload the wires.
There is properly a reason why the card don’t allow you to overclock it when using a 6pin plug.
Lets have a look at this great page:
http://www.playtool.com/pages/psuconnectors/connectors.html
The official rating of some plugs:
Video 6pin: 75W
Video 8pin: 150W
Molex 12V: 60W
Well, the 2 moxel connectors can hit 120W (and properly a bit more). So if you connect them to 2 different outtakes on your PSU, you should be OK.
CableCat – Nice observations; I completely missed the fact that the 2x molex -> 6-pin connector only had 2 12v wires. I agree, if you’re using 2x molex connectors (instead of 1), you should be fine under most cases.
i had the same problem and i needed a 8 pin
wipee it works i took a big chance in doing this but thank you
its good for temperary bases
thank you again m8
the cable does work when you want to run your pc for internet browsing but when you want to play games with the cord it crashes the pc or well it does on mine.
thank you any way.
What power supply do you have strider? It’s probably because it can’t take the strain. Use HWMonitor and monitor the 12v rail; that’ll tell you if your power supply is at fault. Using my PC Power & Cooling 510 SLi and a 9800GX2, my 12v voltage dropped down to ~11.85v under load. It would play games fine, but as soon as I tried to overclock, everything would lock up, probably from the increased draw.
I got inspired by this blog entry and decided to modify my old PSU.
There is the video I made:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nf8lR_u8L48
Worked great! I got an ATI Radeon HD 4890 and the thing came with an 1x 6 pin and a 1x 8 pin connector instead of the 2x 6 pin like the pictures showed.
So happy I don’t need to get another PSU, thanks for this!