Hi everyone, yeah I just viewed HardwareCanucks 3000 series line-up preview and, yes, I don't like where EVGA went with their products from an aesthetic perspective, but that's not really why I'm an EVGA enthusiast (3 year transferable warranty, putting card under a water block doesn't void said warranty) and I'm concerned that overclocking the 3090 will be limited to how much wattage can be conveyed over 2x8 pin or single 12 pin power (2x150 +75w over PCI-E). I was already leaning heavily towards the XC3, because I really appreciate the iXC3 sensors and the fact that it will be "reference PCB" with the hope that water-blocks will be quickly available for "reference PCB" (assuming that all the manufacturers have some standard, agreed upon PCB layout that is "reference PCB" because this time around apparently there technically is no "reference PCB") but was concerned about power issues with 2x8 pin power. Having watched this this morning, I was hoping to confirm here whether or not the XC3 does indeed have 3x8 pin power? 
 
https://youtu.be/Iv9XvKzb1Ys
 
Personal preference but I think the Gigabyte Aorus cards look the best this time around, too bad they have non-existent customer service and the 3090 is only 2x8 pin power though. 

Airikay
They have said it is 2 x 8pin.

Scrutinizing the video, it appears that the 3090 pictured, although hard to tell, has only 2x8 pin power. You can confirm this because a slide or two later the 3070 is shown clearly with 2x8 pin connectors with the heat-sink resuming at the iCX, if you rewind to the 3090 the heat-sink resumes here as well. The footage sucks on the part of HardwareCanucks. 
 
How much power can be conveyed over 2x8 pin? I'm hearing that it's 150w per 8 pin and another 75w via PCI-E slot but I'm also hearing that the PSU can deliver much more than that over 8 pin. 
 
Overclocking the 3090 is going to require at least 450-500w. There's no way 375w is ample. So now I'm looking at a 3x8 pin power card which means waiting forever for a water block to come out. No way in hell am I sticking EVGA's HydroCopper block on a FTW3 if I go that route, whoever was in charge of the aesthetic change with the 3000 series needs to be fired. I'm sorry, it's not growing on me. The red stripe, the hexagonal hole pattern, I don't like anything about this. 

Airikay
They are rated at 150W.  I am not sure on the exact numbers, and I think it changes depending on the wire gauge, but I do know 2 cords can deliver over 500W.  There was a test on reddit recently from some bitminers and I want to say they had like 280W with 16awg from 1 8 pin(most PSUs use 18awg I believe so it should be higher)I will try to look for it later and post it if I find it.  

Yeah because I'm running FTW3 bios on my XC2 @ 373w and theoretically I should be at the limit of 2x8 pin power and I have zero problems. Not sure. I've never had a card over 373w but I imagine that 3090 will really need 450w to see the potential of a good memory overclock. 

XC3 = 2x8Pin
FTW3 = 3x8Pin

omccrer2
2x8pin has fed, without issue, through OEM cables and extensions, over 550W (not counting the PCIe slot) to my EVGA Titan Z.  
 
This is not an issue

Interesting, thanks for relaying this, why are people saying that 2x8pin is limited to 375w then? How long were you at 550w? 

 
 
My question is this: are the 2x8 pin connectors going to be usable  are we going to have to get different extensions. It might seem like a silly question, but I saw this about Nvidia
having a 12 pin connector. 
 
 Edit: the techreport article says only the FE cards will use this, but this would cause a shift for PSU makers and end users if true. 
 
 

https://techreport.com/ne...-12-pin-power-adapter/
 
 

 
I guess I won't worry about it since I plan on getting EVGA's Hydro-Copper card anyway. It just seems like an odd thing by NVIDIA to throw out before the launch of a new lineup.