How do I connect my PCI-E video card?

Cameron203 · Post by **Cameron203** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 9:00 am

Common sense tells me that you should just connect both six pin connectors but I just want to make sure. I can't believe the video card company didn't include some instructions on how to connect the card for the diy'er.

My card is the Sapphire ATI HD 4870 1GB Toxic Edition listed here:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814102815
My Power Supply is Corsair CMPSU-650TX listed here:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817139005
My question is how do I connect the power supply to the video card? My power supply has two six pin pci connectors each with a 2 pin connector attached to it. My video card is a 12 pin connector.

The Dude · Post by **The Dude** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 5:20 pm

Go to the Sapphire web site and look up your card. You should be able to download and or look at the installation instructions. Just about everything has a quick install guide available for download these days. It may even be on the CD or DVD that came with it.

Cameron203 · Post by **Cameron203** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 6:19 pm

The Dude wrote:Go to the Sapphire web site and look up your card. You should be able to download and or look at the installation instructions. Just about everything has a quick install guide available for download these days. It may even be on the CD or DVD that came with it.

Thats the problem the manual and online instructions talk about installing a VGA card not a PCI-E card lol

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 7:52 pm

so the 6pin plugs on the power supply also have 2 extra pins each ?

my guess would be that the extra 2 pins simply break off the other 6 and those extra pins are for more power hungry cards.

so you would plug both 6pin plugs in the card and have 2 sets of 2 pin as spares for later cards like a 280GTX or something.

now this is only a guess, so beware please

Cameron203 · Post by **Cameron203** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 8:03 pm

Mark wrote:so the 6pin plugs on the power supply also have 2 extra pins each ?

my guess would be that the extra 2 pins simply break off the other 6 and those extra pins are for more power hungry cards.

so you would plug both 6pin plugs in the card and have 2 sets of 2 pin as spares for later cards like a 280GTX or something.

now this is only a guess, so beware please

That was my guess too. The plastic bubble wrap the card came in confirmed it. I didn't think to check there I thought it would be in the manual but it wasn't it just showed how to connect a VGA card? Really weird they would include that with a PCI-E card. But your right the other two pins are for more power hungary cards. But unfortunately I guess I will not be able to run crossfire with this power suppyly because it only has two pci-e connectors I thought that would be enough, didn't realize that one card took both connectors.

David · Post by **David** » Tue Mar 03, 2009 4:56 pm

Some cards require 8 pin power connectors. I believe that these are extra grounds (3 power, 5 grounds)
6 pin..... http://is.gd/lEmj
8 pin..... http://is.gd/lEkr

Making them different from 8 pin motherboard power connectors, which have 4 power and 4 grounds.

Adapters are available for 4 pin molex to 6 pin pci-e video card.... In fact I am using them on my 4870.

david