One of the most important changes that we are going to have in graphics cards has to do with the new 12+4-pin power cable and its ability to deliver up to 600 W of power directly. Well, in the ATX v3 design guide there are details about 12VHPWR that we were unaware of up to now and that complement the little information about it.
One of the biggest problems in graphics cards is consumption, and for the moment a type of VRAM memory has not been found that is cheap to manufacture and at the same time has a moderate consumption. As GPUs become more complex, the requirement for bandwidth increases and with it power consumption, hence the need for higher wattages, which has led to the creation of a power cable of up to 600 W.
New details of the 12VHPWR cable in ATX v3
The ATX v3 standard is a series of specifications that the creators of motherboards and PC cases must follow as long as their products are compatible with those of other brands and allow the correct operation with the rest of the components. Especially with motherboards, since these will suffer from an increase in power and the appearance of the new connector 600W PCI-Expressalso known as 12VHPWR and that it has a 12+4 pin configuration.
And what new details can we about the 12VHPWR are there in ATX v3? First of all we have to connector is 20.85mm wide, which is slightly more than the 19mm of the 8-pin connector. Regarding the assignment of each pin we have that 6 of them are for grounding and 6 others can each deliver up to 12 volts with 9.2 amps of current. so we talk about 110.4 watts per pin and a theoretical total of 662.4Wbut they will stay at 600.
That is in terms of the 12 main pins, but in terms of the 4 smaller ones that can be seen on the connector at the moment the assignment of each of them is unknownsince these details have not been leaked yet, but we should not take long to see them.
Does the 8-pin PCIe connector have an expiration date?
One of the things that has been leaked with the documentation is the fact that we are not only going to see 450 W and 600 W cables, but that it is also contemplated versions with less power with 150 W and 300 W. So this means that a user who has a motherboard and power supply with the 12VHPWR connector could connect their graphics card that used 1 or 2 8-pin connectors to the new connector. We may even see in the future mid-high or mid-low range models that make use of 12 + 4.
If we think about it, it does not make much sense to keep 2 connectors that give the same power in power supplies and graphics cards. So it is possible that the 8-pin connector could already have an expiration date. Which would lead to the use of a special adapter to connect the old graphics on future motherboards.
