Hey all, is it ok to step down from 16ga wire to 18ga wire on a 6-pin PCIe cable? I got some beefy 6-pin extension cables but found out the pico PSU theyre being plugged itino only uses 18ga wire. So it will go like this:
[HP PSU] → 16ga 6-pin cable → 18ga pico plug → Motherboard
What could go wrong? 
noooo!! really? so you’re sayin i gotta stick with 18ga only end to end? 
you asked what could go wrong…
as for your other question, if it meets min required specs you should be okay but I’d defer to @ShredZ
Sometimes specs can be deceiving or don’t follow the 80% electrical rule (Goldshell) You are better off with the 16ga end to end if you can. Smaller AWG number is larger diameter of the conductor. If you have seen box miners with burned up connectors or anything like that, it can go catastrophic quick. I was running a bitmain PDU second hand, someone swapped the connectors to 18ga. After an hour the wires were physically hot to the touch.
so you’re saying it does not meet the minimum specs…
Yep, I’m aware the lower number is a thicker wire. That was my hunch that it was no good, but I thought since maybe the PC side had the “weaker” wire it would be alright since it would just pulling less juice at the source. Does that make sense?
Like if I was using 18ga at the PSU and it went up to 16ga at the motherboard, the motherboard would be pulling as much as it can out of that 16ga wire, and the thinner 18ga wouldn’t be able to keep up with it or something. But I guess that can go both ways? I dunno how this stuff works, lol.
They both def meet the min specs. The pc will pull a max of 200w (prolly even way lower like 150w) and the pico is rated at 300w (300 * 0.8 = 240w) I’ve read that 18ga 3-pin PCIe wires can handle 300w. (And 16ga can obviously handle a bunch more than that.)
I apologize by all means was not insulting your knowledge, didn’t mean to come across that way. It was my intention to be informative as possible.
No offense taken! All good! As it turns out, after closer inspection the Pico plug was ALSO 16ga, lol. So this was a totally pointless post. My bad!