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
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124 Comments on Intel Encourages Adoption of ATX12VO Standard on Alder Lake-S Motherboards

#101
Legacy-ZA
nguyenPeople are way more likely to reuse their PSU throughout multiple builds, so higher cost of PSU is justified.
For motherboard, especially on Intel platform where people have to change board every 2 gen, increasing the cost of motherboard is just moronic.
And the difference in power saving at idle is only a few watts even if efficiency improve by 20%
Classic Intel - stupid inside
They sure like to skew numbers by using percentages, don't they? What annoys me more are people falling for their scams. :roll: :banghead:
Posted on Reply
#102
Caring1
MxPhenom 216Signal integrity will be better across a shorter distance on a motherboard after voltage being stepped down, than across relatively longer distance cable from the PSU as well.
So make the PSU bigger and move the CPU into there. ;)
Posted on Reply
#103
Chomiq
For those interested, here's a $900 prebuilt PC from DELL that uses custom board with custom 6-pin EPS connector plus a custom 12V only PSU and SATA power being pulled directly from the board.
Posted on Reply
#104
lexluthermiester
ChomiqFor those interested, here's a $900 prebuilt PC from DELL that uses custom board with custom 6-pin EPS connector plus a custom 12V only PSU and SATA power being pulled directly from the board.
Dell is not that same company it was a few years ago... It should be noted that the problems with this system are not the fault of the PSU12V standard..
Posted on Reply
#105
Chomiq
lexluthermiesterDell is not that same company it was a few years ago...
I mean, they made a cooler that screws in into the case.
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#106
lexluthermiester
ChomiqI mean, they made a cooler that screws in into the case.
That's actually a very interesting design choice. Provides a level of stability that seems very solid. Totally non-standard, but a solid design.

I think Steve was being a bit more harsh then was needed. He was right about the memory. It needed to be running at it's proper speed and a dual channel set. Beyond that, the system reviewed as decent.
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#107
The red spirit
ChomiqFor those interested, here's a $900 prebuilt PC from DELL that uses custom board with custom 6-pin EPS connector plus a custom 12V only PSU and SATA power being pulled directly from the board.
If I remember correctly, some other vendors were already putting those power supplies into computers. I might be wrong, but I remember Fujitsu boasting about "zero watt" power supplies. But then again, OEMs already had some weird power connectors and clearly were fine with using them.
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#108
defaultluser
lexluthermiesterDell is not that same company it was a few years ago... It should be noted that the problems with this system are not the fault of the PSU12V standard..
Well, as I said earlier, the fault of the 12v0 PSU standard is it's 5 years late.

Dell made this change back in their Skylake days. HP followed-suit, 2 years later.

Now, Intel finally figures out what the industry already did, and suddenly pretends that they have a chance of standardizing anything?
It's DOA, and has been for five years.

When both the PSUs Dell and HP use the exact same 180w ratings, plus the 12v- native, then all you have to do is produce two slightly-different connectors (the cheapest part of any PSU, if the massive number of variations in modular psu connectors are profitable?)
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#109
lexluthermiester
Steve has discussed PSU12VO here.
There seems to be a much bigger push at play.
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#110
Unregistered
No thanks, I'd rather not buy another PSU when I got a perfectly new and working Seasonic Prime.
Posted on Edit | Reply
#111
Nike_486DX
Why wouldn't they just switch to 10nm, increase the core count to 20, while maintaining support with the lga 1200 platform?
Posted on Reply
#112
The red spirit
Nike_486DXWhy wouldn't they just switch to 10nm, increase the core count to 20, while maintaining support with the lga 1200 platform?
10nm wouldn't allow 20 cores, unless they got rid of igpu.
Posted on Reply
#113
lexluthermiester
The red spirit10nm wouldn't allow 20 cores, unless they got rid of igpu.
And?
Posted on Reply
#114
The red spirit
lexluthermiesterAnd?
I don't think that Intel would ax the igpu.
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#115
lexluthermiester
The red spiritI don't think that Intel would ax the igpu.
Why not? Most people who would buy such a CPU wouldn't want the IGP anyway. Seems like it would be in Intel's best interests to make such a CPU.
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#116
R-T-B
Frank_100Seems to me it is just more green new deal non-sense designed to push work off the desktop and into the cloud where it can be data mined and sold to the highest bidder.

...but maybe I'm just a pessimist.
You are confusing "green" new deal with "the cloud"

These are separate buzzwords/issues and should not be confused.
Posted on Reply
#117
The red spirit
lexluthermiesterWhy not? Most people who would buy such a CPU wouldn't want the IGP anyway. Seems like it would be in Intel's best interests to make such a CPU.
Not really. Right now during 'Rona times igpu for some people is their gaming gpu. Also for many people igpu is all they need for their workloads. It costs Intel money to design separate chips, instead of binning one for different SKUs. And let's not forget that this is Intel's consumer socket, not high end desktop socket. It only has to be good enough and maybe a bit more. 10 cores are enough. 6 cores is all you need now. And even if Intel got 10nm right, then die space wouldn't permit 20 cores, likely 14 or 16. Which is not enough to compete with AMD as Intel lacks in single thread performance. Not to mention that without power saving features, i9 is brutal on cooling and consumes a lot of power. There's no point in refreshing Skylake once again, it's dead.
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#118
lexluthermiester
The red spiritNot really. Right now during 'Rona times igpu for some people is their gaming gpu.
That's not the rule and it will not remain a thing. Cryptocoin is crashing and being busted down by the governments of the world, the "chip shortage" is starting to ease with most fabs ramping up production again due to easing of CV19 restrictions and people are starting to actually go back to work.
Posted on Reply
#119
The red spirit
lexluthermiesterThat's not the rule and it will not remain a thing. Cryptocoin is crashing and being busted down by the governments of the world, the "chip shortage" is starting to ease with most fabs ramping up production again due to easing of CV19 restrictions and people are starting to actually go back to work.
It will remain relevant enough for the rest of Rocket Lake lifespan. Which is 1 year with several months. AMD is now in difficult times, when they don't have igpus in Ryzen 9.

Crypto was never that big enough to really affect computer hardware sales and chip shortage was mostly bullshit. Pretty much every component was made and sold at MSRP or close to it, except for GPUs. I'm starting to think that it could had been some marketing stunt or just GPU shortage due to some very specific things as there clearly wasn't any shortage of anything else. And what do you mean by "people are starting to actually go back to work"? People worked remotely if they could and those who couldn't, likely worked with gloves and masks. Some companies folded and went bankrupt, but besides that nobody really didn't work due to corona. Only some efficiency and work output was lost.
Posted on Reply
#120
defaultluser
Nike_486DXWhy wouldn't they just switch to 10nm, increase the core count to 20, while maintaining support with the lga 1200 platform?
Alder lake is already 10nm :confused:

You can't use the old 1200 socket, because you need DDR5 to feed that many cores (Alder Lake is starting with 16, but could get much higher on 7nm)
Posted on Reply
#121
Nike_486DX
defaultluserAlder lake is already 10nm :confused:

You can't use the old 1200 socket, because you need DDR5 to feed that many cores (Alder Lake is starting with 16, but could get much higher on 7nm)
So how does the 64core Threadripper work then? With ddr4 no problemo.
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#122
londiste
Nike_486DXSo how does the 64core Threadripper work then? With ddr4 no problemo.
4 channels. Which also needs more pins :)
IIRC AM4 uses 150-170 pins for one memory channel, plus a bunch for power. Roughly 150+150+100, so about 400 pins for 2 memory channels.
Posted on Reply
#123
Nike_486DX
londiste4 channels. Which also needs more pins :)
IIRC AM4 uses 150-170 pins for one memory channel, plus a bunch for power. Roughly 150+150+100, so about 400 pins for 2 memory channels.
Well, yeah. But i was just talking about the core count, since Intel should release a cpu that beats the 5950X in multithreaded loads while consuming less power. That is the only way Intel can make a return. If they just focus on 4-8 thread performance (aka gaming, which is pathetic), whey would loose.
Posted on Reply
#124
defaultluser
Nike_486DXWell, yeah. But i was just talking about the core count, since Intel should release a cpu that beats the 5950X in multithreaded loads while consuming less power. That is the only way Intel can make a return. If they just focus on 4-8 thread performance (aka gaming, which is pathetic), whey would loose.
This is the same shit everyone has been repeating for the last three years; in that time, Intel has slogged through Ice Lake, then Tiger Lake 4c, then Tiger Lake 8c (will be impossible to buy before August).

In three years Intel has barely doubled the number of cores - what makes you think they'll have mainstream 16-core parts before the end of next year?

Hope for Intel 10nm at this point is pointless1
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