Not long ago, ASUS announced a super-strong cable that promises to reduce load imbalance between pins. What’s more, it can handle higher currents than conventional cables. We’re talking about currents of up to 17A, compared with 9.2A for the basic standard. In any case, Der8auer has taken a closer look at the subject and found a few inconsistencies.
ROG Equaliazer: marketing first?
A bridge that unbalances the load?
To ensure a good load balance between the different pins of the cable, ASUS applies an internal bridge. This groups the power pins into two groups. Unfortunately, according to tests carried out, it seems to generate more imbalance than anything else. With it in place, Der8auer, using a WireView Pro II, measured a 4A gap between the pins. The “weakest” pin shows 6A, against 10A for the “strongest”. However, after removing the bridge, the measured gap drops to just 1.5A. Under these conditions, we’re talking about minima and maxima of 7.5A and 8.9A.
Thicker, tighter contacts:
The contacts used on the ASUS cable are also different from those of the competition. These are four-spring contacts, while their width is 23% greater than that of the competition. Despite this, the actual contact surface is much smaller than the total spring surface: 0.2 to 0.4 mm in diameter. What’s more, they are gold-plated, which also tends to leave traces of coating on the GPU connector’s tin-plated pins.
Unclear benefits?
At this stage, it’s hard to be completely convinced by the cable proposed by ASUS since, according to the overclocker, the ROG Equalizer offers a load balance that is not optimal on the one hand. On the other hand, the contacts used are indeed wider, but offer a rather limited contact surface. Of course, this doesn’t make it possible to assess stability over time, but as it stands, it raises a few small “inconsistencies” in ASUS’s design. Note also that the cable is advertised for $50.
