MP 1,1-5,1 EVGA PowerLink with AMD GPUs

[pierceal]

I purchased a power color red dragon Vega 56 and a powerlink. I followed post #41 but my Mac Pro won’t turn on if two HDD SATA cables are plugged in. It will only turn on if one or less are connected. Would it be the wrong cable? It is a dual SATA to 8pin here:

Cable Matters 2-Pack 8 Pin to SATA Power Cable (SATA to 8 Pin PCIe) - 5 Inches

Cable Matters 2-Pack 8 Pin to SATA Power Cable (SATA to 8 Pin PCIe) - 5 Inches

www.amazon.com

Testing with Heaven on extreme settings, the card pulls 3A peak from HDD SATA port 4 and about 7A peak from each booster.

 

[MIKX]

Perhaps for one of the Red Dragon's 8 pin sockets use a TWO X SATA to ONE X 6 pin . .but . . plug the MALE 6 pin socket into the RIGHT side of the 8 pin socket.

look at the pic below

look at the 2 X SATA to 1 X 6 pin cable ( bottom left )


You CAN plug a 6 pin male into the RIGHT SIDE of an 8 pin socket.


So . . plug the 2 X SATA to 1 X 6 pin into the RIGHT SIDE of the 2nd. Red Dragon 8 pin female socket

( not to the PowerLink.) . . . . . .

direct from the SATA sockets to the Red Dragon 2nd. 8 pin female socket.

Sorry, I should have included this in my initial posting re: your Red Dragon Vega 56

8 pin cables draw more power than 6 pin ones.​

============================================

NOTE : You could also ..

1. Install the PowerLink's extra 6 pin MALE socket to the PowerLINK'S INPUT SIDE.

2. Now connect a 2 X SATA to 1 X 6 pin cable to the RIGHT side of one of the PowerLink's 8 pin INPUT socket but do it as shown in the pic above = RIGHT SIDE of the powerLink's 8 pin INPUT socket.

3. Connect TWO 8 pin MALE to 8 pin FEMALE from the PowerLink's OUTPUT to the Red Dragon's two 8 pin INPUT sockets.

Actually . . I feel this is a better solution.​

Sorry, I should have remembered the 8 pin " draw's more power " issue.

Hope this solves your problem.

 

[pierceal]

Sounds like regardless I need a different cable (2x SATA to 1x 6pin). Does anyone know the proper pinout? I tried modifying my existing cable to the following but ran into the same issue of it not turning on.

ATX Pin 1 -> SATA 1 (12V)
ATX Pin 2 -> Empty
ATX Pin 3 -> SATA 2 (12V)
ATX Pin 4 -> Empty
ATX Pin 5 -> SATA 1 (GND)
ATX Pin 6 -> SATA 2 (GND)
ATX Pin 7 -> SATA 2 (GND)
ATX Pin 8 -> Empty

 

[MIKX]

pierceal

Do you actuallly have an EVGa PowerLink installed in your cMP ?

 

[pierceal]

Yes of course.

Dual mini six pin -> Powerlink 8pin input 1
Dual SATA -> Powerlink 8pin input 2
Powerlink 8pin output 1 -> GPU 8pin
Powerlink 8pin output 2 -> GPU 6pin

 

[MIKX]

pierceal

I thought your Red Dragon was 2 X 8pin. oops . .

The DUAL SATA should be 2 X SATA to 6 pin to PowerLink 8 pin ( right side of the 8 pin socket input. )

 

[pierceal]

Yes but I have modified the pinout in the 8pin in an effort to imitate a 6pin before buying another cable (see post #53).

 

[MIKX]

A new standard dual SATA to 6 pin cable is way cheaper than a new Mac Pro motherboard.
I bought mine ( cable ) in a PC shop here in Japan for ¥600.

I'm no electrician but I think one of the ground pins in an 8 pin socket needs to be disconnected -no idea which one.

 

[pierceal]

There appears to be a few variations in pinouts for the 6pin to dual SATA cables. Which is the right one?

 

[MIKX]

pierceal

EDIT : Your Powercolor Vega 56 has a BIOS SWITCH . .which position is the switch set to ?

=================================================
Sorry, as I said, I'm not an electrician but I'm sure that someone who knows more than us will shortly chime in with that information.

==================================================

I just ran Furmark for the first time on my MSI Armor RX 580 8gb with this setup = no problems.

TO PowerLINK

2 X MINI 6 pin to 1st. PowerLink 8 pin INPUT socket.
+
DUAL SATA to 1 X 6 pin to 2nd. PowerLink 8 pin socket ( right side of the socket )

---------------------------------------------------------

FROM PowerLink to RX 580.

1 X FEMALE 8pin to MALE 8 pin to RX 580..

 

[pierceal]

It’s in the efficiency bios switch position.

 

[pierceal]

Got an off the shelf dual SATA to 6pin cable. Same issues but I figured out the problem. The issue was not the cable but the SATA ports being connected to. HDD 3+4 will not work. HDD 2+3 will. Is there an explanation behind this?

I am now pulling the following running Heaven on extreme settings and the Vega 56 bios switch in efficiency mode.
24W from HDD2
30W from HDD3
72W from PCIe Boost A
72W from PCIe Boost B
15W from PCIe Slot 1

For those who are curious, the pinout of the cable is:
ATX Pin 1 -> SATA 1 (12V)
ATX Pin 2 -> SATA 1 (12V)
ATX Pin 3 -> SATA 2 (12V)
ATX Pin 4 -> SATA 1 (GND)
ATX Pin 5 -> SATA 1 (GND)
ATX Pin 6 -> SATA 2 (GND)

 

[MIKX]

This post is just an update as I finally got down to tidying up my EVGa PowerLink cabling.

NOTE : I use X-Plane 11 set to very high vid settings. So just for an experiment I also added
a TWO x SATA to ONE by 6 pin to the PowerLink which already had the 2 x Mini 6Pin to 1 x 8 pin installed.
Everything worked but the cMP probably doesn't need this much power. I have removed the SAT cable since but I've read quite a few reports of RX 580 8 gb cards using more power then advertised by AMD so I'll keep the 2 x SATA 1 x 6 in cable handy.

I am also going to buy another PowerLink to see if I can hack it to have the PowerLink's 8 pin OUTPUT socket rotated 180° so that it can be mounted directly onto the RX 580.

=============================================================

PS : The Drive activity LED from the NVMe M.2 adapter ( Samsung 970 EVO ) has become
incredibly useful in determining boot times and generally telling me when the 970 EVO drive is active.

The cMP door is from a 2,1 cMP.

 

[Pending]

I understand from tsialex the Vega 56 reference card when set to low power bios mode work with the 2 x mini pcie 6 pin cables works fine when used with the Powerlink.

 

[MIKX]

I understand from tsialex the Vega 56 reference card when set to low power bios mode work with the 2 x mini pcie 6 pin cables works fine when used with the Powerlink.

You can also add a 2 x SATA to 1 x 6 pin ( use the spare 6 pin socket in the EVGa box) to the PowerLink ) that will add a little extra power to the total. In this case, use a 6 pin to 6 pin from teh PowerLink and plug this cable into the RIGHT SIDE of the other Vega 56's 8 pin socket this would add extra power without putting too much strain on the motherboard.

Also, I think that a 3 x SATA to 1 x 8 pin to the PowerLink would be safe to use from the 2nd.Powerlink 8 pin socket too; correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Pending]

I was meaning 2 x mini pcie six pin to 2 x 6 pin cable into both 8 pin on the Powerlink.
In other words power supplied from the backplane only.

 

[KingCachapa]

You can also add a 2 x SATA to 1 x 6 pin ( use the spare 6 pin socket in the EVGa box) to the PowerLink ) that will add a little extra power to the total. In this case, use a 6 pin to 6 pin from teh PowerLink and plug this cable into the RIGHT SIDE of the other Vega 56's 8 pin socket this would add extra power without putting too much strain on the motherboard.

Also, I think that a 3 x SATA to 1 x 8 pin to the PowerLink would be safe to use from the 2nd.Powerlink 8 pin socket too; correct me if I'm wrong.

jumping in here because I'm playing with the installation of a Vega 56. Could I safely just connect 2 cables of mini6pin to 8pin (motherboard to P.Link). Like this both P.Link 8pin ports are plugged in (eliminating SATA cables from the equation).

Then connecting from the P.Link to the Vega 56 with 2 cables of 8pin to 8pin. Am I missing something?

 

[MIKX]

I don't have a Vega 56 so I cannot speak from first hand knowledge and it has a considerably lower TDP than the Vega 64 but if you have two SATA bays not being used it certainly wouldn't hurt to use the 2 X SATA to 1 x 6 pin.as an auxiliary boost through the PowerLink.

I've seen some reports that some Vega 56's have sharp, sudden power spikes so that is where the PowerLink will come in to smooth out those spikes.

Best to wait for posts from other Vega 56 owners, better safe than sorry & patience is a virtue .. . .

 

[flyproductions]

Then connecting from the P.Link to the Vega 56 with 2 cables of 8pin to 8pin. Am I missing something?

Why would you use cables to connect the PowerLink to the card? It is not intended to be used like that and has two male 8pins to go directly to the card's inputs.

For the setup, you are planning, just to balance the load, you can just use a dual-mini6pin to 8pin an then a femal 8pin to dual-6+2pin going to the card's inputs.
[automerge]1583230627[/automerge]

So just for an experiment I also added a TWO x SATA to ONE by 6 pin to the PowerLink which already had the 2 x Mini 6Pin to 1 x 8 pin installed.
Everything worked but the cMP probably doesn't need this much power.

Nice conclusion!

Yes! Anything with no more than just one 8pin input should get along nicely whith no more than the backplane connectors and the slot itself can offer without hurting anything. Even a GTX 1080. There may under stress be peaks slightly over 75 watts for seconds. But that’s it!

In most everyday scenarios even a 1080 gets along with less than 20 watts for most of the time. Right now i'm running a 1070 which draws 7 watts of the slot and 2.2 of the cable.

 

[KingCachapa]

I don't have a Vega 56 so I cannot speak from first hand knowledge and it has a considerably lower TDP than the Vega 64 but if you have two SATA bays not being used it certainly wouldn't hurt to use the 2 X SATA to 1 x 6 pin.as an auxiliary boost through the PowerLink.

I've seen some reports that some Vega 56's have sharp, sudden power spikes so that is where the PowerLink will come in to smooth out those spikes.

Best to wait for posts from other Vega 56 owners, better safe than sorry & patience is a virtue .. . .

Patience indeed a virtue and time is money haha.
I want to avoid the SATA cables since there is safety concern there and currently all bays are full.

Since having enough power is the concern, and there's two mini6pins to connect to on the motherboard, why not just use those 2 mini6 pins instead of just 1 of those mini6pin outputs + SATA uglies? That should more than fulfill the power reqs no? according to the last couple years of usage in the community I'm being told that the SATA part of the solution is overkill (for the 56 at least).



@flyproductions well, I'm using cables because the flavor of Vega56 I have (Sapphire Pulse) has the 8pin ports in the middle, which makes me have to plug in via extension and not directly. Seems plenty others have had to do this fitment with diff. cards. The EVGA will balance the load and like this I can simplify cabling.

They say one 6pin from the MOBO is enough, and we want to be safe, so I'll plug in to the second mini6 pin too

(actually labeled as AUX PCIe) instead of the SATA cabling. Neater, more power than the SATA cables provide in case of power draw needs. Am I missing something?

Using a dual 6pin to 8pin leaves me with one EVGA 8pin open and one mini6pin open, so I'm trying to confirm that mini6 to 8pin (two of these) from the MoBo to the EVGA will do the trick.

 

[flyproductions]

Using a dual 6pin to 8pin leaves me with one EVGA 8pin open and one mini6pin open,...

A dual mini-6pin like this one uses both of the mainboard connectors. And leaving one of the EVGA-inputs open shouldn't be any matter as both of them ar feeding the same rails. In fact this is what makes the PL balance the load.

 

[MIKX]

Kingcachapa

One Mini 6 pin to 8 pin is incorrect. If you power the 7970 the way you have in your last post #70, expect shutdowns under load.

You can Google " Radeon HD 7970 TDP " and see for yourself how much power a HD 7970 can use under load.

Definitely use a TWO x Mini 6 pin to ONE x 8 pin cable.

Plus .. TWO x SATA to ONE x 6 pin to the PowerLink

(NOTE 01 : You will have to 'snip off' one of the locking lugs on each of the SATA plugs)

(NOTE 02 : You will have to change one of the PowerLink's INPUT power sockets to the included 6 pin socket in the PowerLink box. Use the supplied Allen key.)

. . . then the relevant cables from the Powerlink power output to the GPU.
= ONE x 8pin female to one 8pin male & ONE 8 pin female to ONE 6 pin male.

Incidentally you can relocate two SATA drives in the DVD drive cage & use an external DVD drive,
spinner drives get HOT, they heatup the PCIe area considerably; summer will be here soon.

 

[KingCachapa]

Kingcachapa

One Mini 6 pin to 8 pin is incorrect. If you power the 7970 the way you have in your last post #70, expect shutdowns under load.

You can Google " Radeon HD 7970 TDP " and see for yourself how much power a HD 7970 can use under load.
View attachment 897188

Definitely use a TWO x Mini 6 pin to ONE x 8 pin cable.

View attachment 897185


Plus .. TWO x SATA to ONE x 6 pin to the PowerLink

View attachment 897186



(NOTE 01 : You will have to 'snip off' one of the locking lugs on each of the SATA plugs)

(NOTE 02 : You will have to change one of the PowerLink's INPUT power sockets to the included 6 pin socket in the PowerLink box. Use the supplied Allen key.)

. . . then the relevant cables from the Powerlink power output to the GPU.
= ONE x 8pin female to one 8pin male & ONE 8 pin female to ONE 6 pin male.

Incidentally you can relocate two SATA drives in the DVD drive cage & use an external DVD drive,
spinner drives get HOT, they heatup the PCIe area considerably; summer will be here soon.

Thanks for clarifying! For the sake of understanding why though – can you help me understand why this doesn't work?

"One Mini 6 pin to 8 pin is incorrect. If you power the 7970 the way you have in your last post #70, expect shutdowns under load."

[Vega 56 card) In this example, I'm still trying to use BOTH Mini6pin from the MOBO, what I'm suggesting is instead using (2) separate mini 6 pin to 8pin cables in order to use both 8pin ports without using SATA. My reasoning for this is that:

- a few people have stated concern for using the SATA for aux. powering cards like mine and deemed unnecessary for this card.
- I forget where but remember running into a couple of posts where they had issues whenever the 2nd 8pin port on the P.Link is left open (setup using 1 cable of 2xMini6pin to single 8pin)
- Isn't the whole point of the P.Link for it to act as a control point avoiding shutdowns?

 

[MIKX]

Thanks for clarifying! For the sake of understanding why though – can you help me understand why this doesn't work?

"One Mini 6 pin to 8 pin is incorrect. If you power the 7970 the way you have in your last post #70, expect shutdowns under load."

[Vega 56 card) In this example, I'm still trying to use BOTH Mini6pin from the MOBO, what I'm suggesting is instead using (2) separate mini 6 pin to 8pin cables in order to use both 8pin ports without using SATA. My reasoning for this is that:

- a few people have stated concern for using the SATA for aux. powering cards like mine and deemed unnecessary for this card.
- I forget where but remember running into a couple of posts where they had issues whenever the 2nd 8pin port on the P.Link is left open (setup using 1 cable of 2xMini6pin to single 8pin)
- Isn't the whole point of the P.Link for it to act as a control point avoiding shutdowns?

Look at the pic ( graph) in my previous post that shows how much power a 7970 can draw under load.

A single Min 6 pin + the power from the PCIe slot cannot supply enough. but ples

===========================================

Ideal cabling with an EVGa PowerLink to a HD 7970

This pic says it all but please look at post #1 in this thread again.
You will be getting power from THREE sources . .
. . . . The two Mini 6 pins + the PCIe slot + the two SATA busses.

That should be enough to handle any 7970 load with the added bonus of having the PowerLink 'smoothing' out all three power sources into one 'balanced' stream.
An ideal, stress-free situation.

NOTE : depending on your 7970 you 'might' have to cut away a small part of the GPU fan shroud to allow the PowerLink to be directly connected to your 7970 . . I had to with mine but it's only cosmetic.

=====================================

The 7970s ( and R9 280X ) are still nice cards and not that far off from my MSI Armor RX 580 but they use more power. My RX 580 8gb uses far less power but alas no EFI bootscreen.

 

[KingCachapa]

Look at the pic ( graph) in my previous post that shows how much power a 7970 can draw under load.

A single Min 6 pin + the power from the PCIe slot cannot supply enough. but ples

===========================================

Ideal cabling with an EVGa PowerLink to a HD 7970

This pic says it all but please look at post #1 in this thread again.
You will be getting power from THREE sources . .
. . . . The two Mini 6 pins + the PCIe slot + the two SATA busses.

That should be enough to handle any 7970 load with the added bonus of having the PowerLink 'smoothing' out all three power sources into one 'balanced' stream.
An ideal, stress-free situation.

View attachment 897200
NOTE : depending on your 7970 you 'might' have to cut away a small part of the GPU fan shroud to allow the PowerLink to be directly connected to your 7970 . . I had to with mine but it's only cosmetic.

=====================================

The 7970s ( and R9 280X ) are still nice cards and not that far off from my MSI Armor RX 580 but they use more power. My RX 580 8gb uses far less power but alas no EFI bootscreen.

Appreciate all the info and pointers! Only one thing, I don't have a 7970 I have a Vega 56, but I'm assuming this all still applies the same. This is why I'm saying I've read in these forums that others have found that it is enough without SATA connections. The card has 2 8 pin ports, and in the middle, so I can't attach directly to the EVGA.

Again, I'm not saying to use a single mini 6pin, I'm saying use both mini6pins but individually with a cable that turns each of them into an 8pin. This should be enough draw and would take care of using both 8pin ports on the EVGA. Is this not balanced, on top of the balancing the EVGA does?

On the GPU side I just use two 8pin to 8pin to connect to EVGA. So:

[mini6pin]–>[8pin] [.EV.] [8pin] –> [8pin] [GP]
[mini6pin]–>[8pin] [.GA.] [8pin] –> [8pin] [.U]

VS

[.......2x.....] –[NOTHING]-[8pin]-[.EV.] [8pin] –> [8pin]-[GP]
[..mini6pin..] –-––-------->[8pin]-[.GA.] [8pin] –> [8pin]-[.U]


I thought I remembered reading that the EVGA sometimes doesn't like having one of the 8pin sockets open so that's why I'm trying to keep things tidy and balanced in a scenario where SATA is not used. I'm not an engineer, but I am curious haha, and I'm trying to understand