I should have been more specific. When I said burned cables, it was actually the plug at the power supply getting hot enough to melt and darken the wires at the plug. When the plug gets that hot, it seems to melt together with the socket and become brittle enough to break when you unplug it. Thats what I figured happened to the socket on your card.
I was lucky. I had one card behaving erratically and found the problem when I removed it and the cables. Afterward, I checked my other machines for signs and found the darkened wires, so Ive been replacing them.
For reference, my power supplies were all Seasonic 1000 watt platinums with the 14 pin to 2x 6+2 vga. I recently bought a new Seasonic and they have changed the vga cable plugs. I thought it was coincidence, but maybe not.
If youre handy with a soldering iron, you can get replacement sockets. IIRC, theyre molex 8 pin mini-fit jr. Also, some overclockers solder leads directly to the card and ditch the sockets completely. Others here might be able to help you more in respect to these options.