Monday, October 11th 2021
PCIe Gen5 "12VHPWR" Connector to Deliver Up to 600 Watts of Power for Next-Generation Graphics Cards
The upcoming graphics cards based on PCIe Gen5 standard will utilize the latest PCIe connector with double bandwidth of the previous Gen4 that we use today and bring a new power connector that the next generation of GPUs brings. According to the information exclusive to Igor's Lab, the new connector will be called the 12VHPWR and will carry as many as 16 pins with it. The reason it is called 12VHPWR is that it features 12 pins for power, while the remaining four are signal transmission connectors to coordinate the delivery. This power connector is supposed to carry as much as 600 Watts of power with its 16 pins.
The new 12VHPWR connector should work exclusively with PCIe Gen5 graphics cards and not be backward compatible with anything else. It is said to replace three standard 8-pin power connectors found on some high-end graphics cards and will likely result in power supply manufacturers adopting the new standard. The official PCI-SIG specification defines each pin capable of sustaining up to 9.2 Amps, translating to a total of 55.2 Amps at 12 Volts. Theoretically, this translates to 662 Watts; however, Igor's Lab notes that the connector is limited to 600 Watts. Additionally, the 12VHPWR connector power pins have a 3.00 mm pitch, while the contacts in a legacy 2×3 (6-pin) and 2×4 (8-pin) connector lie on a larger 4.20 mm pitch.
There are already implementations of this connector, and one comes from Amphenol ICC. The company has designed a 12VHPWR connector and listed it ready for sale. You can check that out on the company website.
Source:
Igor's Lab
The new 12VHPWR connector should work exclusively with PCIe Gen5 graphics cards and not be backward compatible with anything else. It is said to replace three standard 8-pin power connectors found on some high-end graphics cards and will likely result in power supply manufacturers adopting the new standard. The official PCI-SIG specification defines each pin capable of sustaining up to 9.2 Amps, translating to a total of 55.2 Amps at 12 Volts. Theoretically, this translates to 662 Watts; however, Igor's Lab notes that the connector is limited to 600 Watts. Additionally, the 12VHPWR connector power pins have a 3.00 mm pitch, while the contacts in a legacy 2×3 (6-pin) and 2×4 (8-pin) connector lie on a larger 4.20 mm pitch.
97 Comments on PCIe Gen5 "12VHPWR" Connector to Deliver Up to 600 Watts of Power for Next-Generation Graphics Cards
www.helpguide.org/articles/mental-health/benefits-of-play-for-adults.htm
this is why steve gamersnexus review of the ps5 vrm's hitting like 90+ celsius worried me... longevity... its like when a car salesman tells you don't have to change your transmission fluid because it will last for the life of the car anyway, well the salesman means the powertrain warranty length, but it can last longer than that if you just change the fluid every 50k miles... LOL
Which is an utterly ridiculous train of thought, underlined by my link up there.
My bad! However, earlier up in the topic, mining was indeed brought up as a main reason to up the power limit, I kinda ran with that somehow.
I guess if there’s a positive on these modern designs, the GPUs and CPUs appear to only take that extra current when conditions allow, so I suppose the end result is less performance when the motherboard or PSU are overwhelmed. More of our components are adaptively overclocking themselves now, to where the system builder mostly just needs to “feed the beast.“
Oh yeah, so I finally got an Evga RTX 3080 Ti FTW3 Ultra last week. Had to order a new PSU because my older SS 850W has a sensitive OCP (over current protection) circuit, and the gfx card has a flaky RGB controller that flickers. Not going to send it back, who wants a $1420 refurbished used card? I'll just leave the RGB off.
12-guage wire is horrible stuff for the tight turns of PC cable routing; Can we perhaps not have 600W graphics cards instead?
Also some consumers are nuts, like driving a gigantic pick up truck to take the kids to school
Companies put THEIR OWN interests first, not that of the consumer. Otherwise you wouldn't need marketing. Companies put profit first.
Yes, what consumers want is important, but not the primary motivation of a company.A person is going to look for convenience first.
If a pickup truck is what's available, then they use that.
Usually the alternative is that they get a pickup truck AND an SUV and use them for different things.
Barring some people(who are in the know-how), mileage is not a concern for the average consumer.
SOO hoppely they make enginering enought for next generations or for other using of gf cards ,,than gaming,,))
also remember my two nvidia 690 in sli,,, crazy )) was soo hot
What this means is instead of having a random number of six and eight pin connectors between different SKUs you can have a standardized single cable for any PCIe device.
funny: or they have to make simply just another one/two 24 pin for each gf card :D ... even if they(companys) dropping support for sli (for incomming 3090 ++)
"one more 24 pin " cannot by problem for PSU producers ....:laugh:
While it'd be a VERY bad idea, theoretically an 11.4v-12.6v *battery bank* could power a GPU. It just needs available current, minimal ripple, and sticking within Voltage spec.
Speaking of current, that's probably why this connector even was proposed. Average and Load power consumption on GPUs are still 65-250W; but momentary peak power consumption on 6900s and 3090s have been exceeding 30-35A. Which, has been crashing some otherwise seemingly 'excessive' PSUs.
All in all though, why does my PSU need a dataline connection to my GPU? This is asking for a security risk; if only in malware that damages hardware.
It's not likely anything resembling what we consider "data" will be going over the signal wires. It could be something as mundane as additional voltage monitoring, or more likely an extremely simple serial protocol like I2C. But even assuming more complex communication, I'm not sure how much could go wrong re: security. Nothing else talks to the PSU (yet), so you wouldn't have a vector from PSU --> GPU. I suppose if someone tried hard enough, it might be possible to send bad data back to the PSU through the graphics card to force the PSU to misbehave, but that's making quite a few assumptions about what kind of attack surface might even exist.