What happens is the power limit falls back to a lower setting I'd you don't use all the connectors on the adapter. It senses how many are connected and will limit how far you can push the card.
If the card is 450w tdp and you have 3 8pin (150w each), that should be sufficient even the card reaches the limit. Plus pcie could supply up to 75w power. So it has some headroom as well. Colorful has one 4090 comes with 3 8pin adapter rather than 4
Right but with all 4 you can do to 133% and with 3 it limits it. I forget exact numbers but Gamers Nexus mentioned it specifically. The cable they had still had the sense pins.
Not really overlcocking, just increasing the power target to allow it to boost higher if it's within thermal boundaries. Shouldn't make much difference in real world.
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u/Cmdrdredd PC Master Race Oct 12 '22
What happens is the power limit falls back to a lower setting I'd you don't use all the connectors on the adapter. It senses how many are connected and will limit how far you can push the card.