PC energy provides haven’t seen a complete lot of change within the final decade or two. We’ve gotten modular cables for simpler routing, smaller requirements for itty-bitty builds, and that’s about it. However right now Intel has finalized the ATX 3.0 customary, coming quickly to a full-sized PC case close to you. The most important addition introduced right now is a brand new standardized connection for graphics playing cards and different PCIe units, delivering as much as 600 watts on a single connector.
Presently graphics playing cards are in a little bit of an influence pinch. The utmost throughput for an 8-pin ATX rail is 150 watts, so the most important and most power-hungry GPUs must double and even triple up, including further house necessities and extra advanced cable routing contained in the case. The brand new 12-pin 12VHPWR connection ought to be capable to ship extra vitality than even essentially the most highly effective graphics playing cards want for the subsequent era or two. Every pin housing can be bodily smaller, with a 3.0mm pitch versus 4.2mm on present energy provide rails.
Technically it’s 16 complete pins (12+4), with 4 further knowledge pins squeezed in beneath the first energy pins. That is to handle DC output voltage regulation and a collection of latest instruments designed to control excessive energy output effectively and safely, all dealt with intelligently by the ability provide. In line with Intel, the brand new 12VHPWR connection would be the customary for “most, if not all” PCIe playing cards utilizing the 5.0 spec.
A few of Nvidia’s 30-series Founders Version playing cards use a “dumb” model of this connection, with 12 major energy pins however missing the 4 further pins. Nvidia consists of adapters within the field for double-8-pin energy provide rails to extra simply conform with present PSUs, however that 12-pin connection needs to be forward-compatible with the brand new 12VHPWR rails. They’ll be restricted to 450 watts with out the additional knowledge pins for energy regulation.
ATX 3.0-compliant energy provides and pre-built methods are scheduled to hit the market later in 2022. Primarily based on all the pieces we’ve seen to this point, the subsequent era of energy provides needs to be bodily appropriate with all ATX-standard PC circumstances, although you could want adapters for pre-ATX12VO motherboards and SATA parts. There have been rumors that no less than some vendor variations of the forthcoming GeForce RTX 3090 Ti graphics card will function the brand new 12+4-pin 12VHPWR connection, however there’s no official phrase.