Didn’t somebody show during a tear down video that the 3070’s 12-pin connector only had 8 of its pins wired up anyway? This would make sense since the 12-pin adapter that comes with the 3070 only has a single 8-pin plug on the other end. Not like the 3080’s 12-pin adapter which splits off to dual 8-pin connectors.

ScottishPickle:

Dude you are the one who seems to know, how about looking it up and posting a link???

Seems Nvidia used a 12-pin on the RTX3070 for aesthetic reasons and design consistency. If you think about it logically, if there's only an 8-pin power supply going into it, even if the 12-pins on the card are all hooked up to the PCB, there's still only 8-pins worth of power being fed to the card. They could have just used a regular 8-pin socket if they wanted. [youtube=50SMJR8dPyQ]

RavenMaster:

even if the 12-pins on the card are all hooked up to the PCB, there's still only 8-pins worth of power being fed to the card. They could have just used a regular 8-pin socket if they wanted.

thats incorrect. 3 of the 6 12pin wires are still up to 320w of power on the insulation grade and awg used for the adapter, so long as the power from the psu and its cabling isn't limited to less by design capabilities. the 8pin socket on the card is where the 150w limit comes in, and 150+60w (the typical peak slot output) does not make 220w also several 8+6 pin 3070's have swapped for the 12pin on the production model (pny uprising dual for instance).