How Intel is changing the future of power supplies with its ATX12VO spec

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FlyingPenguin
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How Intel is changing the future of power supplies with its ATX12VO spec

Post by FlyingPenguin »

The ATX12VO spec removes voltage rails from the power supply, all in a bid to improve efficiency standards on the PC and meet stringent government regulations. But while the spec essentially removes +3.3-volt, +5-volt and -12-volt and +5-volt standby power from the PSU, they aren’t going away—they’re just moving to the motherboard. That’s the other big change, so keep reading to find out more.
https://www.pcworld.com/article/3518831 ... -spec.html
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Re: How Intel is changing the future of power supplies with its ATX12VO spec

Post by Pugsley »

MEh... so just moving regulators out of the PSU and onto the MOBO in an effort to keep more load on the 12v rail to improve idle efficiency.

By getting rid of the standby voltage I wonder if it will have an actual switch that has to go back to the PS to turn it all on like old school computers used to be.
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Re: How Intel is changing the future of power supplies with its ATX12VO spec

Post by normalicy »

I'm sort of a fan of this, but I'm a bit worried about motherboard prices.
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Re: How Intel is changing the future of power supplies with its ATX12VO spec

Post by Err »

ASRock is releasing a Z490 with ATX12VO: https://www.techpowerup.com/266488/asro ... iy-channel

From an installation standpoint, you have more connectors to connect to the MB. I see 2 x 8 pin and 1 x 6 pin. techpowerup speculates the 2 x 4 pin are for SATA but that makes no sense to me. I wonder if they are connect to the power supply as well for monitoring or switching. I haven't looked to see if there are power supplies that support this yet. If you're running a mid to high end video card, you'll need additional 8 and/or 6 pin connectors. I'd like to see all of these connectors turned 90 degrees. I think it makes installations look cleaner. I hope we get benchmarks on these Z490 boards with and without the ATX12VO spec. I'm excited to see how these perform.

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Re: How Intel is changing the future of power supplies with its ATX12VO spec

Post by Pugsley »

You know drives and what not take 5V too. So now the MOBO is responsible for providing power for legacy devices... more cost on the MOBO now.

If you run a M2 drive only its not an issue... but I need some MASS storage in my PC... I guess now that could be a SSD but you would still need to power it.
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Re: How Intel is changing the future of power supplies with its ATX12VO spec

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Yeah, at least one of those blocks has to be a connection for power for the drives since, as Pugsley pointed out, the 5 volts is generated on the mobo.

Gut feeling is this leads to more wiring to the mobo, larger current handling traces on the mobo, and you're moving all the noisy (electronic noise) power conversion electronics to the mobo. I'm sure the memory and address bus will be well shielded, but that's more noise the audio chip and any built-in wifi or bluetooth has to handle.
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