Nvidia yet has to formally announce its GeForce RTX 3090 Ti graphics card presumably due later this month, but details about custom boards are beginning to emerge already. Well-known leaker @wxnod has published an alleged image of Galax's custom GeForce RTX 3090 Ti graphics card that features the next-generation 12+4-pin (12VHPWR) PCIe 5.0 auxiliary power connector. Hat tip to VideoCardz for highlighting the connection. As ever with leaks, take the news with a pinch of salt until official confirmation is announced.
Galax's custom GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Boomstar graphics card will allegedly use a triple-wide cooling system and a 12+4-pin (12VHPWR) auxiliary power connector, according to a picture published by @wxnod (note that other pictures published here are the Galax GeForce RTX 3090 Boomstar from the company's website). The new ATX 3.0/PCIe 5.0 power connector can deliver from 150W to 600W of power to an add-in-board (AIB), so we can only make guesses about power consumption of the Galax product.
Galax's Boomstar series is exclusive to China, notes VideoCardz, so it is hard to say whether all of Galax's GeForce RTX 3090 Ti will use the next-generation 12VHPWR power connector, or some will keep using an eight-pin PCIe auxiliary power plugs.
Nvidia itself has been using a 12-pin power connector on premium GeForce RTX 30-series Founders Edition graphics boards since September 2020. While the 12-pin power plug is considered to be one of Nvidia's proprietary technologies, the key difference from industry-standard 12+4-pin (12VHPWR) auxiliary power connectors is the lack of four sensing lines. In fact, Nvidia's Founders Edition boards work perfectly with next-generation PSUs featuring next-gen auxiliary PCIe 5.0 power cables.
Nvidia is expected to announce its GeForce RTX 3090 Ti flagship graphics card on March 29 and start its sales immediately. The new top-of-the-range product is reportedly based on the GA102 GPU with 10,752 CUDA cores (up from 10,496 on the RTX 3090) that is connected to 24GB of Micron's GDDR6X memory using a 384-bit interface. With specifications like these, the board will likely top our list of the best graphics cards for gaming in the first half of 2022. Power consumption of the unit is expected to be about 450W.
