Nvidia's flagship RTX 4090 graphics card has been in the news lately due to the melted cable controversy, so why not double down on the cable fun? That's the idea with a new Galax 4090 board that comes with two 16-pin power connectors, instead of the usual ones, but there's a lot more to this story than meets the eye.
First, let's take a look at the graphics card itself, which Tom's Hardware (opens in a new tab) reports is a Galax RTX 4090 HOF. HOF is the acronym for the "Hall Of Fame" editions the card manufacturer produces, which are specially designed cards for attempting to break world records and dominate the rankings of extreme overclockers. And that last point is key for the Galax 4090 here, and we'll get to it shortly.
The RTX 4090 HOF hasn't been released yet, but photos of the card have surfaced courtesy of Nordic Hardware (Opens in a new tab), and the site sourced them from expert Norwegian overclocker Rauf, who received a Galax HOF model for try.
The photos show the two 12-pin 16VHPWR connector ports, and also that the board offers a 24+4 phase VRM (heavy duty power distribution configuration), with a BIOS that allows 1000W of power to be delivered to the GPU. Yes, 1000W, compared to the 450W TGP of the graphics card, and the 600W or so typically seen when pushing the overclocked flagship.
Analysis: How powerful, again, isn't that just a dumb idea?
A GPU that draws 1000W and has two 16-pin power connectors? Aren't you getting silly now? Well yes, it does, but the whole point of this Galax RTX 4090 HOF is that it pushes the limits for overclockers chasing world records, as mentioned.
At first glance, people may worry that this all seems very unwise since there are wire fusion issues when using the adapter (4 x 8 pin to 16 pin) to adapt the 4090 to an ATX 2.0 power supply. Could two cables duplicate any risk, perhaps, if they're bent to fit inside the case (as is the guess as to what causes the alleged fire hazard with the adapter setup, though we won't know the truth until Nvidia completes their research).
All this controversy is more of a red herring here though, though, because the kind of professional overclockers that will be buying this HOF (limited edition) board are people that will be using it with a high-end ATX 3.0 power supply that doesn't need a adapter anyway. (There's a power supply with two 16-pin connectors, in case you're wondering: the Thermaltake Toughpower GF3 1650W, and there's probably more to come.)
In fact, going further, the most extreme versions of this 4090 HOF will probably not have a PC case and will use liquid nitrogen cooling. So talk of melting the adapter cables is really redundant in the case of a card like the Galax HOF edition, and in fact both cables are actually necessary to facilitate the (admittedly ridiculous) maximum possible power of 1000W.
As for whether it's wise to push for 1000W, well, probably not, but for the kind of people who will be gaming this hardware, it's safe to say they know what they're doing and have taken safety precautions (you hope).
Bottom line: This is not a card for high-end consumers using adapters, but a card for experts trying to break world records with exotic cooling for the most part. And it goes without saying that the premium of the already very expensive RTX 4090 will increase significantly when it comes to the hole that the HOF edition will blow in your wallet. By the way, the price has not yet been confirmed.
Keep in mind that Galax wouldn't be our first choice of graphics card vendor for the average user, and it's not a brand we'd normally recommend for a regular PC, but as noted, the HOF series is a pot of very different fish. And Galax actually makes HOF editions of Nvidia's 900-series GPUs (no real competition now in this extreme realm, as Kingpin cards are no more since EVGA left the graphics card scene).
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