12VHPWR Cable Protections from Cooler Master at CES 2026

One of the biggest concerns expressed by the enthusiast community are the reports that 12VHPWR video card cables are melting under high stress and extended usage.  This heat damage often burns the power connections, cables and can damage the video card.  While there have been attempts to mitigate with color coded cables and PCB based bridges it seems like the wrong way to address the issue.

Cooler Master was showing their MWE Gold V4 PSUs during CES 2026.  These gold rated PSUs are available in wattage levels between 750w and 1000w and come with an interesting feature that will monitor the individual wires of the 12v-2+6 (12VHPWR) and will detect if there are changes in the power delivery.  This would indicate a situation where a wire has broken or become disconnected a warning would be shown and the normally green LED would start flashing red.  This will also cause the PSU to begin to throttle power to that connector.

If the power situation started to become critical, the flashing red LED would become solid and will trigger an internal protection to shut down the system.

While having LED indicators on the PSU, they can be difficult to see.  To help provide a better visual users can install an In-line monitor that will replicate the LED effects and does help with cable management to a certain degree.