Monday, May 17th 2021
Intel Encourages Adoption of ATX12VO Standard on Alder Lake-S Motherboards
The ATX12VO power standard is a new specification for desktop power supplies which boasts greatly increased efficiency over regular desktop power supplies. The new standard requires a compatible motherboard with a 10-pin power connector along with a compatible power supply which only features 12 V rails. The standard requires that any voltage conversion above or below 12 V must be performed directly on the motherboard which increases the complexity and cost for motherboard manufacturers. Intel is interested in promoting the standard with their upcoming 600-series motherboards for Alder Lake-S however most enthusiast boards are unlikely to feature the standard. The standard may find higher adoption with entry-level motherboards for system integrators and pre-built suppliers who need to meet strict government power efficiency regulations.
Sources:
VideoCardz, Hardware LUXX
124 Comments on Intel Encourages Adoption of ATX12VO Standard on Alder Lake-S Motherboards
That changes nothing actually in the point. Otherwise, what exactly is stopping them from redesigning converters to work at 12V input voltage instead of currently used ones? It's not like components specc'd to work @12V don't exist, is it?
It's not changing that parts of PSU are not being moved onto the mobo, as, again, like VRMs mentioned before, those buck converters were already there to begin with.
As for ancient junk, most motherboards out there reuse VRM / trace layout even across generations to cut costs.
On cheaper motherboard some of those layout / componenets have been used for over a decade.
So what exactly stops them from keep doing what they have been doing?
How is it not moving parts of the PSU on to the motherboard? You either do the conversion from 12V to 5V and 3.3V in the PSU, or you do it on the motherboard as is shown.
Those SATA power OUT connectors on the Mobo are there to provide the SATA drives with the voltages they need. You just end up powering them from the motherboard instead of the PSU.
Even if you toss out all the "ancient junk" SATA drives like I did, USB Type A and M.2 still require 5V and 3.3V.
2. Yes I did have that backwards, but how did you get to this being an all win situation for everyone? as was said, more expensive motherboards with every upgrade (and in intel's case, that is about every time you want to upgrade) just so save a few cents on power consumption?
PSU is not providing that actual voltage, whichever it currently is for you. How do you think that voltage is derived?
So if those regulators are not fed with 12V currently, why are you so dogmatically opposed to them being fed with 12V instead? A few cents per mobo extra for higher spec'd components? As opposed to significantly higher savings in PSU? Which likely have additional VRMs anyways, as vreg/ripple of PSU itself may not be tight enough to feed components directly with PSU output.
These do not have their dedicated VRMs and is on very modern motherboard out there. So you will need to add extra components for them.
So shifting the goal post to RAM doesn't make sense.
The whole point of this 12VO standard is supposedly for efficiency. 12V in theory means it runs less current for a given power.
To minimized power lost on the power plane you want to do the 5V / 3.3V voltage conversion as close to what you are powering as possible.
Ideally you want have somekind of VRM for each of those M.2 slots etc.
All that is skipped is the sight power lost from the PSU cable, and that is insignificant compare to the motherboard traces' resistance.
What you end up doing is the extra "PSU" is just on the edge of the motherboard running through the higher resistance traces to the components you are powering. NVME and SATA drives are designed to be fed directly form the PSU and have quite a lenient range for voltage input.
Every PSU worth a damn have tighter voltage regulation than required.
And the difference during idle can be far more than 20%. That's because on lower power processors like i5 10400F, idle power consumption is really low and it inevitably translates into massive PSU loss of efficiency. PSU may be only 50% efficient at such load. Here's a video about those power supplies and power savings:
Those gains to me seem like no brainer to switch the standard, it's just unfortunate that lots of hardware will be rendered obsolete this way (unless you can connect power cable to motherboard).
www.techpowerup.com/review/be-quiet-pure-power-11-fm-650-w/5.html
As for dodgy PSUs, there are plenty of dodgy off-brand mobos out there as well.
However, it would increase the cost of motherboards more than it's likely to reduce the cost of PSUs, as neither side is going to be willing to lower their earnings percentage.
The real problem here, is the difference even easily measurable?
How much power lost is happening in the 18-guage PSU cable on the low power rails?
Also as you said, why would motherboard makers care to make their power conversion as efficient as in modern PSUs?
Those rails needs to be there but isn't easily marketable to incentize making them half decent.
PSU on the other hand are always tested in reviews as it is the PSU's only job.
Still no one can explain the technical benefit of this, accounting all the waste this process can make and the reengineering
That adds up to 24 pins. How is this any better then the old 24 pin standard?