The countdown to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas has begun, and for good reason—NVIDIA co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang is scheduled to
deliver an opening keynote, and it's widely expected that we'll see the unveiling of the company's next-gen GeForce RTX 50 series graphics cards. Several questions about the upcoming GPUs remain, and in the lead-up to CES, Corsair appears to have answered one or two of them.
A new style GPU power connector to replace the 12V-2x6 is not in the cards, or at least Corsair doesn't think so. In a new blog post, Corsair makes clear that its family of power supplies "will fully support the highly-anticipated next generation of graphics cards expected to launch in the coming year." Corsair doesn't mention NVIDIA or AMD (or Intel) specifically, but the timing is telling.
"The latest graphics cards now require a 12V-2x6 GPU power connector, a standard we expect will continue with next-gen GPUs. To meet these demands, CORSAIR offers a wide range of power supplies, with models ranging from 750W up to 1500W to suit even the most demanding users," Corsair states.
Interestingly enough, the topic of power supply connectors became a hot and somewhat
controversial one with the introduction of the 12VHPWR that was introduced for NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 40 series. Following its debut, reports of melted connectors began to surface. NVIDIA determined that the root cause was
essentially user error, with evidence suggesting the issue could occur when the connector is not fully plugged in.
This led to PCI-SIG to work on a
revised 12V-2x6 connector, which is nearly identical to the 12VHPWR plug with the same power capacity, but with an altered shape for the four extra pins on the outside. Subsequent
testing showed that it was better equipped to handle less-than-snug fits.
Corsair's
blog post suggests that we'll see the same connector for the next round of graphics cards. It also suggests that next-gen GPUs "could demand even more power than current models, which can draw up to 450 watts."
That statement is in line with previous rumors pointing to TGP increases. Leaker @kopite7kimi posted on X/Twitter that the GeForce RTX 5090 could
debut at 550W, versus 450W for the GeForce RTX 4090, and that the GeForce RTX 5070 could be "more than the rumored 220W."
So there you have it—while not outright stated, Corsair appears to confirm that the GeForce RTX 50 series will make use of the 12V-2x6 power connector and, depending on the SKU, consumer more power than the cards than the
outgoing GeForce RTX 40 series.