Power Adapters

[Generic User #2]

EDIT: keep in mind, I am someone who A-ed chemistry and biology units in highschool, but nearly failed my electricity and magnetism unit. I really don't know a shit about watts, amps, volts other than the fact that those words are in the dictionary.

I just saw a BitFenix Alchemy cable that turned a molex into 3 molex....how on earth is this possible? are these 3 molex connectors 'real molex' or are they just running at 1/3rd wattage (not sure if wattage is what i'm looking for....)? So that if I required 'full power' on each of the connectors, something would end up failing (and possibly frying)?

as well, I saw adapters going from sata power to molex and vice versa. On the other hand, I saw a cable with the molex converted into 4 sata power plugs.

what gives?

EDIT:

PSU = CX430

I really actually want to know if I can convert my 6+2 PCIE pin from my PSU into two separate 6-pins to plug into my graphics card. As I understand it, 8-pin is twice the wattage of a 6-pin.

alternatively, I want to split my remaining molex connector into 2, so that i can power the fractal r4 fan controller AND the h80 pump. The h80 will always be staying at it's lowest setting if that matters.

[Arinoth]

Well with the Molex to 3 Molex splitter, all it is doing is using the fundamental principles of a parallel circuit, which is how your power supply is set up anyways.

What it means is that the voltage supplied is always the same amount but the current differs based on the load's need. This means you have dynamic power consumption without altering/changing the 12V or other voltage rails coming from your power supply, and it's why power supplies are rated based on their voltage rails (like 40Amps on the 12V rail).

With molex to sata, the only difference is the header/connector, all the wires are exactly the same, it's just the connector head is different.

Let me know if you need some more depth on either answer.

[Generic User #2]

thanks! Actually I think I need LESS depth lol

here's how I understand it: (assuming single rail system) A PSU has a certain set of components that can produce 430W of power for the PC to use across a range of voltages. The PSU engineers consider the set of all plugs and divide the 430Ws among them in what they consider to be a useful configuration. So, when I use adaptors, I'm basically 'adapting' the plugs from what the engineers thought is useful to what is actually useful to me. That is to say; if I'm not using one of the default 60W cables, I can take a 30W cable, use a 3-way splitter on it, and have a total of 3 30W connectors?

EDIT:

in that scenario i described above, if the 60W cable was on the 12v line and the 30w cable was on the 7v line, then i would NOT be able to safely do what i described because the 'extra power' would be on a separate rail?

EDIT2:

off the CX430, I've attached the following:

motherboard with 8-pin CPU power
H80
2 hard drives
1 SSD
GTX 660 Ti (2 6-pin - 1 6-pin is powered by the PSU 6+2pin and the other is using a 2-molex adapter)

i still need to attach the R4 fan controller with a sata to molex connector and that would use up every single connector from my PSU


however, I want to use my 6+2 pin for both 6pins on my GPU. I think this will make everything cleaner and save me the effort of finding adaptors if i want to add something to my setup in the future. will this work?: Works 6 Pin PCI-E Splitter Cable - 1 PCIe Female 6 Pin to 2 PCIe Male 6+2 Pin (6 or 8)

[sf101]

its just going to draw harder on that cable.

[Generic User #2]

seems like that isn't something I need to worry about....but better safe than sorry, is 'drawing harder' something I need to worry about?

[Bond007]

You can attempt to draw too much current through a cable. Ex: trying to run my electric pressure washer on an extension cord that is not of a thick enough gauge to carry the required amperage resulted in a warm extension cord and the pressure washer itself never reaching full pressure. For the most part if your power supply doesn't have a cable I wouldn't add more. An exception being if you are no where near the limit and require more molex/sata...those aren't going to be killing a PSU any time soon.

[Generic User #2]

hm, 6-pin = 75 watts and 8-pin = 150 watts, right?

so technically, I wouldn't drawing more than the PSU was specced for. I would just have to trust that the cables are high-grade enough?