12VO Power Standard Appears To Be Gaining Steam, Will Reduce PC Cables and Costs (tomshardware.com) 79
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Tom's Hardware: The 12VO power standard (PDF), developed by Intel, is designed to reduce the number of power cables needed to power a modern PC, ultimately reducing cost. While industry uptake of the standard has been slow, a new slew of products from MSI indicates that 12VO is gaining traction.
MSI is gearing up with two 12VO-compliant motherboards, covering both Intel and AMD platforms, and a 12VO Power Supply that it's releasing simultaneously: The Pro B650 12VO WiFi, Pro H610M 12VO, and MSI 12VO PSU power supply are all 'coming soon,' which presumably means they'll officially launch at CES 2024. HardwareLux got a pretty good look at MSI's offerings during its EHA (European Hardware Awards) tech tour, including the 'Project Zero' we covered earlier. One of the noticeable changes is the absence of a 24-pin ATX connector, as the ATX12VO connectors use only ten-pin connectors. The publications also saw a 12VO-compliant FSP power supply in a compact system with a thick graphics card.
A couple of years ago, we reported on FSP 650-watt and 750-watt SFX 12VO power supply. Apart from that, there is a 1x 6-pin ATX12VO termed 'extra board connector' according to its manual and a 1x 8-pin 12V power connector for the CPU. There are two smaller 4-pin connectors that will provide the 5V power needed for SATA drives. It is likely each of these connectors provides power to two SATA-based drives. Intel proposed the ATX12VO standard several years ago, but adoption has been slow until now. This standard is designed to provide 12v exclusively, completely removing a direct 3.3v and 5v supply. The success of the new standard will depend on the wide availability of the motherboard and power supplies.
MSI is gearing up with two 12VO-compliant motherboards, covering both Intel and AMD platforms, and a 12VO Power Supply that it's releasing simultaneously: The Pro B650 12VO WiFi, Pro H610M 12VO, and MSI 12VO PSU power supply are all 'coming soon,' which presumably means they'll officially launch at CES 2024. HardwareLux got a pretty good look at MSI's offerings during its EHA (European Hardware Awards) tech tour, including the 'Project Zero' we covered earlier. One of the noticeable changes is the absence of a 24-pin ATX connector, as the ATX12VO connectors use only ten-pin connectors. The publications also saw a 12VO-compliant FSP power supply in a compact system with a thick graphics card.
A couple of years ago, we reported on FSP 650-watt and 750-watt SFX 12VO power supply. Apart from that, there is a 1x 6-pin ATX12VO termed 'extra board connector' according to its manual and a 1x 8-pin 12V power connector for the CPU. There are two smaller 4-pin connectors that will provide the 5V power needed for SATA drives. It is likely each of these connectors provides power to two SATA-based drives. Intel proposed the ATX12VO standard several years ago, but adoption has been slow until now. This standard is designed to provide 12v exclusively, completely removing a direct 3.3v and 5v supply. The success of the new standard will depend on the wide availability of the motherboard and power supplies.
but why? (Score:3)
why does anyone think that moving the power regulation to +/- 5V to the motherboard instead of keeping it in a cheap, easily replaceable part is a good thing ?
what about NAS setups? (Score:2)
for some you don't need an high end MB but with this you may as the basic ones may only have the power to do max 4 hdd / sata drives.
Also the mb needs to do the 3.3v and 5v usb + other on MB stuff.
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for some you don't need an high end MB but with this you may as the basic ones may only have the power to do max 4 hdd / sata drives.
Also the mb needs to do the 3.3v and 5v usb + other on MB stuff.
On NAS setups with wall warts and external power bricks, nowadays the voltage is 19V, and then downconverted on the mobo, this will actualy make things cheaper, as your power brick will go from 19 to 12V, and components to downconvert from 12 to 5, 3,3 ,1,25 etc are more plentifull than from 19 to said voltages.
If your PSU is internal, this is transparent to you, but, is unclear if the price will go up (for the need of more VRM in the mobo) or down (because VRM componenents in 12V are cheaper as the have ec
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I think it's because as the amount of things that have to use 5V and 3.3V on the motherboard has been reduced since the AT/ATX standards have been around. There's probably such a minimal amount of 5V/3.3V amperage and DC to DC is simple and reliable compared to AC to DC
Re:but why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because it hardly matters. These regulators are cheap, efficient and reliable. Unless you change your mainboard a lot more often than the PSU, keeping these in the PSU does not make sense. Incidentally, quality PSUs have been 12V designs for ages and just add a post-regulator for the other voltages.
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Have you read the story?
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Because of all the ATX power supply units sold probably only a very small fraction are bought with the intention of building or repurposing a custom NAS as opposed to dedicated units like Synology or QNAP.
It's not like standard ATX units are going away either, you'll be able to find them for probably a couple decades still.
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If they are cheap and reliable then why not keep them in the power supply so you PC can be repurposed as a NAS in the future? Because without a 5 or 3.3 v rail, you would need a dc dc convertor for each hard drive beyond what is built into the motherboard. (which would be expected to be few to none.)
Maybe stop commenting and go RTFA? Just an idea.
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Also, if you really want to put a lot of HDDs in there, just get one or two 20A step-down converters for like $10 or less. Incidentally, HDDs have stopped using the 3V3 rail a long time ago. It is in the connectors as a historical artefact only. As this is a specialist, low volume use, there really is zero need to think of in in PSU design.
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If they are cheap and reliable then why not keep them in the power supply
Because it makes no sense to split power into arbitrary different voltages which may or may not be used in units which may or may not be needed. Image if every outlet in your house delivered 230V, 110V, 50V, 12V and 5V. And you only plug in one device at a time. Or imagine that your 110V can deliver more power than your 230V but you have a high power toaster and are just pissed that it can't run off both at the same time.
That's a motherboard. Modern motherboards do not even use all the power pins ATX standa
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Having 240V, 120V, 12V, and 5V at every outlet in the house would be really convenient. I don't really need 50V, but the others would be nice.
And having 120V and 5V is actually pretty common now, outlets with built-in USB power sockets are a thing.
(110V is not a standard anywhere that I'm aware of. 120V and 240V are US standard.)
Re: but why? (Score:1)
If you have a NAS, any laptop, any Dell, most HP, Lenovo, server-grade equipment, you likely already have a 12VO. SuperMicro servers from a decade ago had a (now unnecessary) 12-5V regulator external to the power supply just for powering SSD.
Re:but why? (Score:5, Informative)
why does anyone think that moving the power regulation to +/- 5V to the motherboard instead of keeping it in a cheap, easily replaceable part is a good thing ?
A few reasons:
1.) Putting the regulatio in the mobo and feeding it with 12V diminishes current all the way up to the point of use, giving you better power delivery and better regulation for the parts.
2.) Modern chips stoped using TTL levels a long while ago, so pretty much 12V, 5V and even 3,3V are downconverted to something else.
3.) Mobo manufacturers know their boards and the tolerances those can support better than a PSU manufacturers, even the better ones.
And, even though VRMs have become much more reliable over the last few lustres, ever since the OG Pentium, one can always put the VRMs in replaceable modules. HEre is one (latter but still old) example:
https://www.intel.com/content/... [intel.com]
Finally, and I can not stress this enough, for a while now, on x86/x64 land, we live out of the crumbs of the server market. Our processors and GPUs are designed for the needs of the datacenter first and foremost. Even if the new architectures debut first for consumers, most of the tech is geared towards server, we get it first to gamma test it and help stabilize it. And, believe you me, this standard is a boon for datacenter use.
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I'm addition to williamf's excellent answer, because of the changing needs of computer systems. Power requirements for each voltage rail keep changing, and now it's pretty much mandatory to have two separate 12V rails to help distribute the power where it is needed.
Motherboards already have all those voltage regulators anyway. They don't use any of the supplies directly, because they are dirty. Full of switching noise and coupled to many other components.
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"why does anyone think that moving the power regulation..."
Because it is better.
400W @ 12v = 33.3333A
400W @ 5V = 80A
It's a HELL OF A LOT better to pump 33A through those long wires and tiny pin contacts than it is 80A.
Also, dirty connections affect 12V alot less than 5V.
You want as high of a voltage as you can for distribution and you want to step it down as close to the load as possible.
This is why power lines run in the thousands of volts when your house only uses 240V.
Re: but why? (Score:1)
Because we are no longer talking about 5V, a modern CPU and RAM and GPU and USB requires the regulation anyway and they already regulate to 0.9, 1.2, 1.5, 3.3, 5, 12 and 24V and a few other common voltages all on their own. Adding a slightly longer cable in many cases is enough to throw off the lower voltages far enough to be a problem. 12VO is good, smaller power supplies, less waste, more efficiencies and move power control to a system that has a CPU.
One has to wonder about the market, though (Score:2)
If desktop sales are under 20% of total personal computer sales, will many peripheral makers bother to offer two different types of products - one that's desktop-only, the other that works with any type of computer?
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Why would that be a thing? The mainboard still supplies USB voltages as usual in this new design.
Good idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Voltage converters have become very cheap and very efficient and very durable. There is a ton of them on a modern mainboard anyways since lots of things do not run 12V, 5V or 3V3, like CPU and RAM, for example. Adding a few more does not make much difference. Also cables, connectors and board space probably costs more. Quality PSU designs have been 12V for a while as well, with a post-regulator generating the other voltages.
boards don't have an lot of room for lot's of ext (Score:2)
boards don't have an lot of room for lot's of ext plugs.
will there be converters to go both ways?
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From a brief look at the spec, I don't see why not. Incidentally, 12V only to regular PC already exists for ages for smaller form-factor mainboards. No idea how high they go in power.
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For the PicoPSU ATX-plug style of converter I was able to get them at 150W
I have bought systems that had a 12V/250W DC supply and a semi-custom converter board on the inside, which I always found a bit silly as the 12V power brick was like 60% the size of the actual PC it was powering.
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Since that is the 5V/3.3V/-12V rating (12V is pass-through), this should be sufficient for even a high-powered gaming PC. An Enermax 850W PSU I have lying around for experiments delivers only 125W on these voltages.
So converters both ways: yes.
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Voltage converters have become very cheap and very efficient and very durable. There is a ton of them on a modern mainboard anyways since lots of things do not run 12V, 5V or 3V3, like CPU and RAM
The ram in my computer is powered by 12V provided by the motherboard. DDR5 has an onboard PMIC that runs the electronics. It is powered by either 12V or 5V depending on whether or not the ram is registered.
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The kid's HP has a 12 V only power supply. It has an i7 8700 CPU, it's not that new, Was this Intel's idea originally or are they copying HP?
Re:Good idea (Score:5, Informative)
Intel's idea is to standardize this approach for all power and mainbord classes, not to do some full-custom non-standard design.
for an new idea 48VDC may be an better fit but the (Score:3)
for an new idea 48VDC may be an better fit but then to much? and no room for atx to 48v converters
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This would be smart... 48VDC can use thinner conductors or deliver more power; potentially all the power the system needs off 1 pair of wires to the Main board. And a new PCI slot could be made to add a pair of 48V pins for the GPU.
That would leave most computers needing only 2 wires to power everything other than fans, since peripherals such as SATA have fallen out of use and everyone's storage will be NVMe flash - the power supply then only Needs 1 set of wires (Plus 1 or 2 more for the fans) t
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poe for an low end system! (Score:2)
poe for an low end system!
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48V is a poor choice and is not found in most consumer electronics for one reason: you can feel it. It will shock you.
12V won't.
(Standard disclaimers ... I'm sure you can find a way to make 12VDC shock you, but don't. If you do, it's on you. I told you not to.)
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The threshold of requiring warnings is 50 volts. That's why phone lines used 48 volts.
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The threshold of requiring warnings is 50 volts. That's why phone lines used 48 volts.
Nope, and nope
Depending on the application, the limit changes. For instance, in electric car land, the maximum voltage were they allow you to work without special precautions is 62VDC.
And phone lines use 48VDC (or, more exactly, -48VDC) because early telegraph and railroad semaphoser used that voltage because the available chemistry of the batteries of that era made it simple to make batteries (rechargeable or not) of that particular value, and then inertia took hold.
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Requiring a warning and getting a shock are not the same thing. 48V is unlikely to kill you, but it will still shock you.
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The threshold of requiring warnings is 50 volts. That's why phone lines used 48 volts.
Ehh, maybe.
POTS lines go from 40v to 54v when on-hook, and 5v to 20v when off hook. 48v is nominal, but there's a lot of tolerance there too.
And when the phone is actually ringing they'll throw an A/C voltage in there up to 110 volts. That will definitely shock you.
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48V is a poor choice and is not found in most consumer electronics for one reason: you can feel it. It will shock you.
12V won't.
(Standard disclaimers ... I'm sure you can find a way to make 12VDC shock you, but don't. If you do, it's on you. I told you not to.)
In Electri Car land, if you want to work without special precautions, like we did all life with 12V car electric systems, the maximum allowed voltage is 62VDC, so 48VDC is way below the limit.
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With that drop down ratio, buck becomes too inefficient. Moving to forward converters would require new converters and magnetics and an extra switch per phase. Possible, but a lot more engineering required.
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Years ago, I looked in to building a custom rackmount cluster with a 48V supply and 48VDC power supplies in the individual nodes. At that time, the cost was way too high. I suspect the issue was lower volume production rather than any technical hurdle. That wouldn't be a big issue in the long run if everything went to it, but it could present an issue during the early transition.
I suspect part of the reason for the 12VDC initiative is that ATX supplies already have one or more 12V rails so it's just a matte
12V is not enough (Score:2)
I think they should be thinking about reducing the number of 12V cables. 4 goes to the CPU, 8 to the GPU and several to the motherboard. All paired with a ground connection. This is already more than the old ATX connector.
Next Step: 48VO standard (Score:2)
REgulating from 240V or 480V to the datacenter is slightly easier than going from 480 to 12V
There is plenty of 48V infrastructure and componenst (capacitors, inductors, regulators) from telco lying around already to make this feasible.
Cars are moving from 12V to 48V in the low power side for effciiency reasons (with some mild hybrids leading the way).
Is only a matter of time for this to be the next standard.
Re: Next Step: 48VO standard (Score:1)
No, itâ(TM)s not, Cisco had it for a long time and removed the option recently. Current and next gen servers are going to need 1-2kW/U, having 48VDC rails to the rack, even to the unit for that is not feasible, too much current, losses and problems.
This will be nice for SFF PCs (Score:1)
My main PC is a micro-ITX board in a compact micro-ITX case. One of the more difficult aspects of building it was the routing of the ATX power cable along the front of the case while staying clear of the memory modules. Having fewer wires would really help with cable routing.
Another benefit of only having 12VDC power rails is that DC-DC PSUs for folks using external power bricks will be smaller, cooler, and potentially cheaper. I imagine that a pico PSU that plugs directly into the power header on the mo
Twelve volts (Score:5, Interesting)
If we standardize everything to 12V DC, then they could make simpler UPSes that have just 12V DC out, and don't need an inverter.
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How do you come to that conclusion?
A future UPS model would not need to provide 110V/220V AC, only an ATX12VO connector that would power the mobo directly, in a new UPS/PSU hybrid form factor that incorporates a battery. Like GP I feel annoyed that the UPS uses 12 V DC batteries to create 110V/220V AC, which the PSU converts back to 12V DC; it seems the intermediate conversions could be spared, leading to better efficiency.
Re: Twelve volts (Score:1)
You can with a 12VO power supply simply integrate the battery in your case. Think laptops. But then again, we have laptops for that use case. UPS for desktops is rare and 12VDC to the rack for servers isnâ(TM)t feasible.
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Can't get much simpler than a battery with a trickle charger and a transfer switch.
An onboard switching supply is not going to get offended by a 13 volt input when it expects 12.
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Would it get offended by 10.5V instead of 12V?
According to the standard, the 12V rail has to have +-5% regulation, 11.4V - 12.6V, while a lead-acid battery provides 10.5V - 14V
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There seems to be some dispute about the voltage to charge ration.
https://www.mmbalmainauto.com.... [mmbalmainauto.com.au]
But this matches my memory better,
https://www.rvtechlibrary.com/... [rvtechlibrary.com]
If the battery runs out at 20% remaining charge it seems tolerable.
If you prefer lithium,
https://dakotalithium.com/12-v... [dakotalithium.com]
But they run high, so you might need a regulator on that.
https://diysolarforum.com/thre... [diysolarforum.com]
For what it's worth in the old days an Apple //c would run directly off a car battery. For that matter I have a 12V to MacBook Air pow
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There is a difference between voltage with open circuit and voltage under load. If you pull higher current from the battery, the voltage will go down without the battery being discharged that much because of internal resistance of the battery. This is most noticeable when starting a car, as the starter motor uses a lot of power.
When charging the battery, you want to keep the voltage at 14.4V until the battery charges, then drop it ti 13.6V-13.8V to maintain the charge. This is what most UPSs do. It is possi
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They require the 12 volt source to be regulated between 11.4 and 12.6 volts. The nominal charge voltage for a 12 volt lead-acid battery is 13.2-13.8 volts and discharging a 12 volt lead-acid battery below 12 volts is generally considered to shorten it's lifetime considerably.
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The point you are missing is that there won't be a need for the UPS to have the 120 V inverter. You can feed the motherboard directly from the battery, at worst you need a high current 7812 voltage regulator to get the voltage down to 12.6. If the motherboard logic shuts down at 11.4 V the battery will still be fine, at least a deep cycle will.
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If we standardize everything to 12V DC, then they could make simpler UPSes that have just 12V DC out, and don't need an inverter.
Uh no. UPS will usually have monitors, switches, KVM, and other devices plugged in, and they can be far away. 12 volts at 100 amps is a HUGE wire compared to 120 volts at 10 amps.
Re:Twelve volts (Score:4, Informative)
Not really, unless you want to plug things in using jumper cables.
Current carrying capacity is dictated by the cross sectional area of wire, and lower voltages mean higher currents. Higher currents also mean higher losses because resistive losses in a cable increase with the square of the current ("IIR" losses)
It's why high voltages are generally preferred. After all, if you have a GPU needing 600W, that's 50A at 12V. if your computer needs 1200W, at 12V that's 100A, which is about as thick as the cables going into your house are (usually 0 or 00). Whereas at 120V it's 10A which is a nice 14 gauge wire or so and the heavy cables can be limited in distance from several tens of feet to a couple of feet.
Also, you're looking at welding currents. If your connections aren't 100% clean, you're looking at only making them once. There's no unplugging your GPU from your PC anymore - the connector's been welded together.
More connectors not less (Score:2)
Replacing a 24-pin ATX connector with a 10-pin ATX12VO still leaves you with a collection of other odd connectors. For example a 4+4-pin EPS12V CPU power and a 6-bin or 8-pin auxiliary power connector.
Circuits that supply a power rail are often the first things to break. They often have to deal with large current (versus signaling currents which are low) and temperature changes. Cheaper designs will suffer from a compromise between size, cost, and noise. And a noisy power rail is a big deal and not always
modular computers for at least storage & maybe (Score:2)
modular computers for at least storage & maybe ram will stay.
also still need add in cards or lot's of TB bues.
and no apple like systems with storage that is X3-4 the cost of pc m.2 drives and low base ram with big markups for ram upgrades.
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Sure but those other connectors are all already 12V and almost all ATX PSU units are very reliable on the 12V rail because that's where 95% of the work is done, those units are already doing all that 12V work already and doing it reliably, this really has no reason power rails would get less reliable compared to what we do now.
Smart idea (Score:2)
The only downside i can see is maybe needing a 5V converter for SATA drives etc. The mobo will have step downs for USB etc anyway so could repurpose those
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So now if I want to use more hard drives or SSDs, in addition to buying a more powerful PSU I will also need to buy a motherboard with a more powerful converter?
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You'll be able to buy a little DC-DC converter box that takes 12V from the PSU and spits out 12+5V for HDDs. In fact these already exist for people who need lots of 5V (e.g. the CORSAIR +5V Load Balancer -- although it's overpriced; a generic version could be easily a quarter that thing's price).
Best would be if HDDs ran only from 12V and did any necessary voltage regulation onboard. They already have onboard regulators for 3.3V (or is it 1.8V these days?) and I'm not sure there's even anything in a modern
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It would complicate the drive though. For example, 2.5" and 3/5" drives use the same SATA connector, but most 2.5" drives only need 5V, while 3.5" drives need 5V and 12V.
The drives that only need 5V can be easily turned into external drives, since USB is also 5V.
If all drives had to use only 12V it would make connecting them to USB harder. If they had to detect the voltage and switch between 5V and 12V it would complicate the drive design.
IMO, the current way is better - the power supply creates most of the
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Nah, the current way leads to a ton of unnecessary cabling, and motherboards and drives are already full of regulators anyway.
I wasn't thinking of this as a requirement for all drives. I'm fine with there being 5V-only drives, these could be powered from the motherboard or USB or whatever. But if your drive is going to require 12V anyway (as 3.5" drives do) then it'd be nice if it could work with only 12V, especially since I don't think there's anything in the drive that's directly running from 5V. The moto
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It would complicate things.
You would have three types of drives:
1. 5V only
2. 12V only
3. 12V and 5V (pretty much all 3.5" drives made today).
Would they use different power connectors? If so, it would be annoying to use them in servers or with backplanes (right now, any SATA drive works, as long as it physically fits in the bay).
If they all used the current SATA power connector, there would be at least two types of power connectors inside the PC case - those with 5V and those without. It would cause confusion
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They'd all use SATA. A 12V-only drive would work in all the situations a 12+5V drive did, it just wouldn't pull any power from the 5V rail. The 12VO spec only mentions 12V-only molex plugs, not SATA ones, so an SATA connector would normally power any drive, and basically every drive has its voltage requirements written on the top already. Your life could just be a bit easier when you're using more HDDs than the motherboard can support since you wouldn't need the extra DC-DC converter box, just a molex ->
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You consider external power bricks to be an advantage?
Because I didn't realize anybody thought those were anything but infuriating.
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You consider external power bricks to be an advantage?
Because I didn't realize anybody thought those were anything but infuriating.
In consumer-land Power bricks are a chore, but in datacenter-land you have an external thingie (actually a few, for the multiple PSUs of servers) called a PDU, short for Power Distribution Unit. In the olden days, this gave 110 or 220VAC power (depending on the equipment, NOT on the country) to all the things in the rack. Nowadays, with big cloud companies (hyperscalers) and HPC sites, it gives 480VAC. Is not far fetched for the PUD to morph into converting all the 480VAC to 12VDC and work in concert with t
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Likely Cost People Money for New Power Supplies (Score:2)
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So who cares? Do you really think someone upgrading to a new modern motherboard ($200+) typically to get a different CPU ($150+) which will use DDR5 ($more), is going to give a shit about spending $75 on a new PSU?
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USBC is kind of a fail. There is no retention mechanism. Because of the current/voltage modes, there is going to be growing schism of incompatible devices and power supplies--for a "stan
Not 11.1? (Score:2)
Or some other multiple of common Li-ion cell voltages?
safe choice (Score:2)
I suppose to some extent it doesn't matter so much what the voltage is, so much as there is a standard. But it sounds to me like 12vDC may have been picked for some non-technical reason, I'd love to hear the rationale, I hope it wasn't as simple as "because no-one will get fired for going with multiple +12v connections"
This is for desktop or rackmount-server type machines, right ? - so 120v to the chassis and 12v internally across a foot or so of multi-conductor cabling. I think I would have considered brea
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I'd rather they get rid of more connectors, one connector to mobo is all you need, next to the CPU. Oh no, the voltage rails might shift by 0.01V, that would surely matter if it had an analogue audio amplifier on board, so it doesn't. Moving SSD power a couple inches across the MB power plane is a non isssue.
Obligatory XKCD link... (Score:2)
Connectors (Score:2)
From the picture it looks like they're still using Mini-Fit Jr, see page 30. But weirdly they don't give a Molex part number. They list six suppliers and only one is quality (Amphenol). Weird. Then to double down on weird, they ONLY give a Molex part number for the 4-pin ATX12V (which persists in their design as an additional motherboard 12V connection.) They also only offer a 6 pin video card power connector, which is inadequate given the per pin current limits on these connectors. They do actually have an
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I'm guessing you're not too familiar with video card power connectors? That's exactly what the 8-pin connector does.
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Yeah, I wasn't aware of that, all of my cables have all black leads and I never bothered to look it up. How stupid. If they want a new standard they should replace all these shitty mini-fit jr connectors. There are phenomenally better connectors available now, and we have ultra-fine-stranded wire with silicone jackets that can bend just as tight with fewer conductors to go wrong.
Mini-fit Jr is trash.