Gadgetory

some of the most frustrating things to deal with when building a new computer is cable management and anything that comes along that can make that a little bit easier I am willing to take a look at so that's why today I'm gonna be taking a look at EVGA power link which is designed to relocate where the power plugs go on your graphics card and they claim it will make things a whole lot easier when it comes to cable management makes them look a whole lot tidy it becomes a curious part number on this is 600 - BL - 2 8 1 6 - LR what's up the new define nano s from fractal design supports full-sized power supplies full length graphics cards room for a complete custom water loop and heck even room for a couple of freeloaders click the link in the description for more details track - Josh not included we should order pizza that's an interesting part number four something that just relocates the power plugs but I digress I was trying to figure out what I was going to do with this video did actually want to use them don't want to put them in a build was I use them on the test bed you know what here's I'm going to do I am going to just turn the camera here we're going to take it out of the box we're going to show how it's configurable because you can configure it obvious there's a lot of different plug configurations on the market 2 x 4 pins 2 x 6 pins an 8 pin and a 6 pin 6 pin and a 6 pin so I'm going to show you how this can be configured and then we're gonna stick it in skunkworks and see whether or not looks better before or after I guess that's the best way to tell alright let's let's do it let's turn the camera alright so here they are right here we got it well these are graphics cards these are the adapters right here this is referred to as the power link one of these is already open there we go so basically it's a really simple device that simply does nothing but take a little bracket here that's in there good Jesus and then it will essentially just attached to your graphics card like that it plugs in and then the plugs are moved to the back of the card so ideally while the graphics card is in your case like this instead of having the plugs come and wrap all the way around have to make a 180 degree turn if they're going back to the motherboard tray they are just gonna be coming out the back and going into the motherboard tray a couple things you want to keep in mind though immediate Lee is one it's going to add obviously a bit of length to your graphics card on top of the plug thickness so you're going to be adding at least it's about an inch thick right here to the back of the graphics card and then of course there is the plug itself that's in the radius it's going to add some more length so if you take an 11 inch card here kind of like the 980ti then you're gonna be a making it 12 potentially as much as 12 and a half to 13 inches long ladies okay I couldn't help it I had to if sorry I had to don't be mad okay I digress now they guarantee it will work with all EVGA cards make sense it's an EVGA product they're going to make sure it's compatible theirs but not all PCIe power connectors on graphics cards are facing the same way for instance on this MSI 1063 gig right here the power plug the little prong that's used to latch the cable for the PCIe Express power is pointing up so when this is in your case a little latches on the top but when you look at Nvidia graphics cards that are designed reference and companies that don't flip the power plug around that little tab is pointing down so obviously if that was upside down that's not going to work and because the power on these rails are polarized there is a positive and a negative you cannot just flip the little plug upside down in there and plug it in so you're going to want to look right so something else you get in the box right here is the 6 pin PCI Express power that's because it comes pre-installed with the 2 8 pin power there's also a manual in here somewhere shows you the orientation that things are supposed to go in you should probably read that actually shows you how things go there's a little screw in there to tighten it down we don't need that because that's what this video is about gather way and then the last thing they include is the little allen key which you need to tighten them down also too if you're using a 10 Series card or any card that only has a single PCI Express power you're going to obviously be removing one of these as you're only going to use one so moving forward here's what you got to do you need to take your little allen key here and you've got to remove these little rubber covers right here that are going to expose little allen keys if I can get this in focus here as you can see right there there are some little allen keys in there which are holding those in place so we need to do now is loosen these up and I'm going to remove one of these a 8 pin and replace it obviously with a 6 pin because that's what the Pascal has the tight mix it doesn't have to 8 pins also tube as you can see they do simply have these little prongs that there's a little rail in there you can kind of see that there is a little rail and when you loosen them up they also can slide on the rail right there so that you can get the width set just right now because I have the 8 pin on the outside and 6 pin on the inside I need to swap this one to the other little rail in there take my 6 pin put it in there just like that now I can go ahead and plug these in and then once I do that they'll be able to slide technically I can even do it this way I can plug this in first like that plug it in like that and then I can line these up like this there's that so I now I can slide as you can see that how I want it so I'm going to put it flush against the back of the card and then I'm going to tighten down this little these little allen key so they don't slide and I'll do that on both ends it's actually very easy this is a very easy install if you can turn a screwdriver you can install this bad boy and then when you squeeze right here is actually a little plastic piece that pushes down then you can get them off so that's what it looks like now when it's set up properly for 980ti slash tight necks well I thought these lit up what says EVGA but maybe it doesn't so we'll be checking it all right what imma do right now is I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to get the other one ready to go and then we'll switch over to skunkworks and we'll do a before and after and we'll let you guys be the judge what we will let you guys be the judge if a device like this really does change the aesthetics I'm wondering if the movement you know rearranging the cables is going to be offset by this giant thing here now sitting on the end of your graphics card so now I guess we're going to find out one last thing I want to point out since I did try it real quick just to see what would happen is if someone was going to try and flip this over upside-down accidentally you can't accidentally flip it upside down because you can see in here there is the little rail system and there's a little tab right there it's not perfectly centered so it has to make room for the little latch to go in so it only goes in one way so you can't accidentally put it in upside down and blow up your card because you have the positive and negative backwards it simply won't go in so that's a good thing that's also why it won't work on cards like this where the tab is upside down now I'll be honest even though I'm a huge EVGA fan I found this to be a little bit gimmicky when I first saw it and I'm kind of glad I took a look at it because I can see that it does have some practical applications in terms of just kind of keeping things neat and tidy I do think it looks tidy or with these on in skunkworks because the cables for skunkworks the way they're routed never really kind of met the aesthetic theme of the build and because they're black they do not light up I thought they had white LEDs in there but they don't they are it's just very clean but something you have to keep in mind though is not only is it clean it's now very long so you have to make sure that the length is going to fit overall on a card like this the total length is about thirteen and a half inches long when you account for the the radius of the Bend of the cables now speaking of cables they're heavy I have cables here that have been trained to fit in a certain position so having to retrain them right now and they're pushing on that adapter quite a bit and causing a bit of sag and the only thing holding this to your card is the power connectors itself so you don't want to break the power connectors or the solder on the PCB for the the connectors so you want to be very very careful when plugging these in try and support your cables as best you can so that the adapter itself is not supporting the weight of the cables I would hate to see broken graphics card PCI Express power slot or plugs because of you weren't careful and as you were trying to manipulate your cables you cracked it or bent it and then put too much fatigue on it and then it breaks a solder point so it's definitely something to keep in mind but I think it looks pretty good skunkworks was one of those systems that was kind of everything a square in skunkworks and when I had to have those cables you know kind of a rounded kind of a swooping look to them it never really met the aesthetics or the theme of the build so I do think that this looks really nice it does also add a little bit of bulk to it it's kind they're kind of big so I'm gonna leave them off a little bit see if I can get used to him and then we'll go from there anyway guys that's all for today I hope you guys have enjoyed this video let me know let me know what you guys think remember this is this is a very subjective type of product so I'm curious as to what you guys think about tell me whether you liked it before or after the install of these adapters and sound off in the comments make your voices heard let's hear it is this a good product to use in terms of cable management and aesthetics or you guys think it just kind of it look worse I'm torn we're gonna see I'm gonna wait and see if it grows on me right now I do feel like they're a little bit bulky in there they do kind of add up I don't know it breaks up the lines of the graphics card a little bit so we're just going to wait and see if I don't like it then I can just put it back it takes a few seconds all right guys thanks for watching as always I will see you in the next video