Here's another gizmo to prevent your graphics card from melting - wouldn't it be nice if 12+4-pin connectors weren't a cause for concern at all?

Power supply manufacturer Super Flower has launched a new accessory that sits between a graphics card and its power cable to ensure neither ends up a hot, expensive mess as too many Nvidia cards seem to be.

It's called the VGA 12+4 pin OCP Dongle. It's a big lump of plastic and ARGB LEDs that measures for high current across the power pins that make up the 12V-2x6 (or 12VHPWR) connector. This connector is capable of delivering up to 600 watts—enough for an RTX 5090—but it's overcurrent (a current that exceeds the cable/connectors ratings) that could cause a catastrophic failure.

There are really six 'hot' +12V pins on the connector. That means each of those pins needs to carry around 8.33333 amps or thereabouts. That power load doesn't stay perfectly balanced between the pins, due to resistance and imperfections, which means some pins get less amps, while some get more amps. It's when they get a lot more amps that things start to get melty.

Super Flower's OCP Dongle keeps a close watch on those amps, and will indicate when any pin exceeds 9.5 A.

If any one pins is between 9.5 - 12 A, the dongle will light up orange and emit an intermittent buzzing sound.

If any one pin exceeds 12 A, the dongle will light up red and emit a continuous buzzing sound. If this continues for 195 seconds, VGA Black Screen Protection is triggered, which tries to buy you some time to check your connections.

It's a pretty neat solution and one that's not entirely new to me, as I've got something very similar in my own PC: Cooler Master's GPU Shield Adapter Cable. It operates on more or less the same principle, with lights and buzzers to let you know if it's all going to hell in a handbasket.

That might be a more reliable choice right now, as Uniko's Hardware, who spotted this Super Flower dongle, suggests it is only available in Taiwan right now, included in a bundle with a power supply. There are power supplies that offer similar features, too, such as those with MSI's 'GPU Safeguard+'.

Though why I have to deal with this gnawing worry about my expensive graphics card is another thing entirely. Surely it doesn't have to be this way?