The PCI Express standard has been with us for more than ten years, and with each new generation it has not only maintained backward compatibility, but has also doubled the bandwidth for each generation. As for the PCIe Gen 5 we know for example that it will be integrated into the motherboards for the Intel Core 12 CPUs, and in the case of the ARC Alchemist gaming GPUs they will use the new standard.
One of the reasons why we are interested in knowing about the new PCIe Gen 5 connector is because the increase in the bandwidth of the interface also means an increase in energy consumption. Actually, it is expected that despite the increase in the energy efficiency of the GPUs, we will see an increase in their total consumption. So it is necessary to use a new connector that gives enough power to the GeForce and Radeon of the future and that the current standard connectors cannot.
This is the PCIe Gen 5 power connector
The information comes from the description of a company called Amphenol, in which they describe a standard PCIe Gen 5 connector from which various information has been obtained.
To start with, the name of the connector is 12VHPWR and is not backward compatible with auxiliary connectors 2 × 3 and 2 × 4 from 12 volts, a figure that the new connector retains, but which combines with a current of up to 55 amps to grant a 600 W power. The highest of the PCI Express standard that has been achieved to date. Its form factor is reminiscent of the Microfit connector but with 16 pins.
Each pin corresponding to the 12VHPWR connector has a 3mm length, whereas the contacts for previous versions of the standard measure 4.2 mm. The safest way to reduce resistance in data transmission and reduce energy consumption when transmitting information through the said PCIe Gen 5 bus.
It is said that the first graphics card that will make use of the new connector will be the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 3090 Ti, which will use it to further push both the clock speeds of its GPU as well as its GDDR6X VRAM. With this increase in the energy consumption of graphics hardware, we wonder if we are going to see more complex cooling systems in each new high-end gaming GPU that hits the market, at the same time the problems due to M.
We will see how they take advantage of the extra power that the new PCIe Gen 5 connector will give them next generation graphics cards. Keep in mind that the fifth version of the standard will be the last before making the jump to PAM4 encoding in PCIe 6.
The new connector is bad news for everyone
The problems with the MLCC and Poscap that the current graphics cards are having increase as the consumption of the graphics cards does and the quality levels of the manufacturers go down. Not only that, but this will also mean that power supply manufacturers will sell more models due to the fact that support will be needed for the new PCIe Gen 5 connector.
So everything seems designed for consumers to change our power supply, a part that we did not expect to change and increases our financial burden when buying a PC. This will happen if NVIDIA and AMD do not offer adapters as in the case of the RTX 30, where on the other hand we hope that manufacturers continue to use the standard 8-pin connectors that have prevailed in the industry until now.
