One thing is very clear, the power of our PCs with respect to their energy consumption is getting higher, however if we look at their history in terms of consumption we will see that their increase has been increasing over time and we find ourselves with that facing the graphics cards of the future, a new power connector is necessary that gives the necessary power that the current ones cannot give.
What is the new PCIe Gen 5 power connector?
Until now, the connector with the most power under the PCI Express standard was the 8-pin one with the capacity to give a total power of 150 W, but from the launch of its RTX 30 in 2020 NVIDIA began to introduce a 12-pin cable pins with the capacity to deliver up to 600 W of power, which has become the basis for the new PCIe Gen 5 power connector and that will allow to deliver powers of 150 W, 300 W, 450 W and 600 W. The two being latest power levels impossible to achieve with the old connector for graphics cards.
Why do I need a power supply with a PCIe Gen 5 connector?
The answer to this is very simple, in the high-end graphics cards we are going to start seeing models that use this connector. Since in order to power the powerful GPUs that they will have inside, the double 8-pin connector is no longer enough along with what the PCIe interface provides by itself. That is, 375 W is no longer enough to power said monsters and the memory that goes with them.
If this power boost did not exist, then we would find that there would not be enough power for each core of future top-of-the-line GPUs, causing clock speed and performance hitches in certain parts of the 3D pipeline. Not to mention the bottlenecks of having much slower memory.
All this translates into the increased consumption of graphics cards, which has brought with it the new PCIe Gen 5 connector, which receives two names: 12 + 4-pin connector or also known as 12VHPWR. So in the near future we are going to see graphics cards that use it, either with just one or with two of them.
How much real power does the new 12VHPWR connector give?
In many places you will see that consumption will be 600 W, in others 450 W. In both cases the answers are correct, since the sources with a 12VHPWR connector must have the capacity to feed the graphics card with four power levels. different ones that are 150 W, 300 W, 450 W and 600 W.
For the 150 W and 300 W consumptions we do not believe that a new power supply is needed. What’s more, the cards that use this level of safe consumption will bring with them an adapter cable to 8 or 8+8 pins, respectively. Moreover, everything indicates that unless you are looking to have a high-end graphics card, you will not need a power supply with a PCIe Gen connector.
Differences with the NVIDIA cable and connector
The reason why the PCIe Gen 5 cable is known as 12+4 instead of 16 pin is because it is a expansion to the proprietary cable that NVIDIA began to include with its RTX 30. So despite the fact that at first glance we can use a graphics card with the 12+0 connector in a power supply that has one of the 12+4 type, we must bear in mind that while the second type is backwards compatible, the first it is not in the opposite direction. And it is that as you will understand the cable cannot grow 4 more connections and neither can the socket.
A source with a 12+0 connector will work for the RTX 30 generation graphics cards, but not for the future. Especially if you opt for graphics hardware from AMD or Intel. NVIDIA may continue to use its 12+0 connector in the future. However, it is important to know the differences because we are going to see sources without the full PCIe Gen 5 connector, but they will use the NVIDIA one.
The best sources with PCIe Gen 5 connector
At the moment there are few that we can find on the market, since outside of the NVIDIA RTX 3090 Ti there is currently no type of graphics card that requires this connector. However, since the connector can give a great variety of power levels, there is the possibility that in the 300 W models it completely replaces the double 8-pin connector for the same power. Especially if manufacturers can save an additional cable per product.
Be that as it may, if you are a fan of PC games and are saving to buy a mid-high range graphics card from the AMD RX 7000, Intel ARC Battlemage or NVIDIA RTX 40 families, you have to keep in mind that you have to have a of these sources with PCIe Gen 5 connector installed in your computer to be able to use
ASUS ROG Loki SFX-L
This power supply with PCIe Gen 5 connector has a 1200W power of power and stands out for its compact format, which makes it perfect for mounting inside a tower or box of the type Mini-ITX due to its size. Not for that reason it falls short in specifications, since it comes with certification 80 PLUSTitaniumwhich makes it win first place as it is the most energy efficient next to its size.
MSI MEG 1000/ 1300W
Of the MS proposal to date we know rather little except for the fact that they can deliver 1300W of power and have a certification 80 PLUS Platinum. There is also a version of 1000W with the same specifications. We do not consider it the best because it is not designed for compact boxes like the ASUS model.
GIGABYTE UD1000GM
From its name you may have already guessed that it is a GIGABYTE power supply that can deliver up to 1000W. At the time of writing this article, it is possible that we will see models with a much higher power from the manufacturer, especially when we have graphics cards that require those 600 W of power for the GPU.
It is a modular power supply with 80 PLUS Gold certificationso it has an efficiency of 90% and has a 120mm fan to keep it fresh as long as possible. Their trainers are the so-called Japanese or KMR that differ from conventional ones by having a useful life up to four times longer. If we are already talking about the typical protections against sudden voltage and voltage changes, as well as short circuits, we have the complete set in this source with a PCIe Gen 5 connector.
