Aurora R10, GPU upgrade from 3060 TI to 4070 Super FE

@ProfessorW00d​ Great to hear, thanks!

I just read the following from a connector standpoint on the 4070 Super: "the 12VHPWR is not fully standard on modern power supplies, Nvidia supplies an adapter to convert two 8-pin PCIe power connections to a 12VHPWR."

So, with the included adapter this will be plug and play?

@Trawls​   should be plug & play. If you do not see anything on your monitor, you may need to re-install your Dell OEM graphics card to disable Secure Boot in BIOS. However, I just learned from @JamieLinux that the historical Secure Boot issue is no longer applicable in the Ampere and Ada Lovelace graphics cards.

Let us know if you were able to successfully boot your R10 without disabling Secure Boot.

@Trawls​ if you do not have 2 8 pins, Dell ships some systems with 1 8 and 1 6 pins. You will need a 6 to 8-pin adapter.  Which is safe to use as the other 2 pins are sense pins and don't draw power. Then plug the 1 8 and 1 6 to 8 pin into the 16-pin adapter and you are good to go. 

Depending on what driver you have installed, you may not even have to re-install the GPU drivers.  when testing I never got the  GPU re-install prompt on any of the 40 series cards.  It just was there and ready to go. 

The difference between a 6 and 8 pin GPU power connector is not 2 sensing pins.

The difference is a 6 PIN connector can deliver up to 75 Watt of power, while an 8 pin can deliver up to 150 Watts of power.

Using a converter to "convert" a 6 to 8 pin does not change the power capabilities of the wiring or the plug, and I would highly recommend not to use a converter as you could cause serious issues.

@Vanadiel​ @JamieLinux Thanks for the additional details.  

I confirmed that the PSU shipped with my R10 seems to have the 6 pin connector on the back...

Additional details I confirmed: 

"This unit was shipped with Part # G9Y40: ASSY,CBL,PCIE,850W,1ST GFX,R5  and Part # JX68G: ASSY,CBL,PCIE,850W,2ND GFX,R5 

Power supply unit shipped with this unit is 0WTGN which has 6 pin connectors on the back."

@Trawls​ 

This is the funny thing with Dell power supplies... The back of the Power Supply will have nothing but 6 PIN connectors, in different colors.

Whoever designed it must have really liked 6 PIN connectors.

So you have to look at the supplied cables, specifically the end of the cable that does not plug into the Power supply, to determine the configuration.

Let's take for example the 24 PIN motherboard connector.

- On the Power supply side the cable consists of 4 x 6 PIN connectors that plug into the

   appropriate color coded 6 PIN sockets on the back of the Power Supply.

- The other side of that cable will have a  single 24 PIN cable for the motherboard connector.

   that plugs into the motherboard.

They DO NOT ship all cables with the Power supply, like retail power supplies. Instead they ONLY ship with the cables as per your OEM configuration at the time of ordering.

You will have to confirm the 8 PIN connectors availability of the cables that shipped with yours.

It would not surprise me if they shipped only 1 x 6 PIN cable for the 3060.

However it is shipped, you might need to order additional (correct) OEM cables. DO NOT use any other cables than original OEM from Dell on the Power Supply, because it will more than likely go boom.

Based on this photo (if it posts) it appears the R10 ships with spare PCIe cables and they look to be the 'snap together' 6+2 style, which I believe makes a bonafide 8-pin connector.

3060Ti Dell OEM has conflicting information.

Pictures show 1 x 8 PIN power connector, Official FAQ says 2 x 8 PIN.

Going by my eyes and the power requirements for that card, I would say a single 8 PIN is correct.

Video Card FAQ

Picture

So hopefully they tucked away an extra spare 8 PIN. I know they did on my R10, but I had a 3080 which already requires 2 x 8 PIN connectors.

If it is tucked away, it will be exactly like in the picture.

You will need 2 x 8 PIN GPU power connectors for the adaptor that is included in the 4070 Super FE box.

@Vanadiel​ Correct it does not change the power but the 2 pins you are converting for the 4070 Super are not power delivery they are sense pins according to the Nvidia pinout. so it will NOT be carrying any additional current. Secondly, the extra 2 pins of any 6+2 connection are daisy-chained 2 of the 6 pins.  Here is a diagram of 6 +2 adapters. 

If the PSU did in fact ship with 2 8 pins then they don't have to do anything but plug the 2 8 pins into the adapter that comes with the GPU  into the the GPU. 

Please note that the 4070 super's max TDP is the same as the Rtx 3070 that was shipped with these systems. Which it could get off 1 8-pin connector. 

75 watts off the PCI E bus + 125 off the 2 6+2s = 220 

125 / 2 = 62.5 off each side. 

@ProfessorW00d​ yes if the pci has 6+ 2 makes the 8 pin. 

@Vanadiel​ However it is shipped, you might need to order additional (correct) OEM cables. DO NOT use any other cables than the original OEM from Dell on the Power Supply, because it will more than likely go boom

If it was for the power connectors to the motherboard 100%, however PCI-E cables or Sata or Molex if you had a system that old are standard pinouts. Dell doesn't customize those cables as they know customers may install aftermarket or they offer aftermarket PCIe cards or other accessories that may or may not need those cables.  They are not going to have every manufacturer make a custom Dell Part.  Using aftermarket cables is pretty safe so long as it is a modular psu that has the ports for that cable, most older Dells do not ship with modular PSU's though. 

@JamieLinux​ R10 are modular PSU's, with all sockets at the back of the PSU being 6 PIN color coded.

It's as OEM as you can get, as I know of no retail manufacturer that has that design.

That is why you should never use any other cables than the OEM cables to connect this PSU with the rest of your system.

And then there's the custom OEM wiring design where the 8 PIN EPS that connects to the motherboard can be an 8 PIN connector wired with 6 wires, so a standard 8 PIN extension cable will not work, like this person found out: EPS 6 PIN I actually had this peculiar 8 PIN wired as 6 PIN on my R10, while others posted pictures of their R10 with that same connector fully wired up like you would expect.

@Vanadiel​ once again we are talking about 2 different things. The motherboard wiring can be 100% custom The PCI E for the GPU and or any additional cards would be 100% stock regardless of what the 8-pin EPS plug for the motherboard or the ATX connectors would be. 

Once again your PCI E pinout will always be 100% standard 100% of the time, Dell is not going to have them custom wire PCI E connectors Which means they would need to have everything from GPUS to internal capture cards and audio devices  PCI E NVME adapters 100% custom for them. That is not happening. 

It doesn't matter what the cable is as the cable itself doesn't determine the pinout on a modular supply its the pinout on the psu the cable itself is meaningless. 

So yes for the cables to the Motherboard, 100% always use OEM for PCI-E Devices you can 100% use third-party cables because 100% of the time as I said the PCI-E pinout on the PSU will be stock. 

From Dell: 

Dell follows industry standards for PCIe pinouts, ensuring compatibility and performance across generations. Whether you’re using Dell servers or other systems, PCIe remains a critical interface for connecting peripherals efficiently and flexibly