And I hope that never gains traction. I 'd rather pay a few bucks more for a Seasonic, FSP or even Corsair PSU, than leave that area to the likes of ASUS and Gigabyte.

FolterknechtAnd I hope that never gains traction. I 'd rather pay a few bucks more for a Seasonic, FSP or even Corsair PSU, than leave that area to the likes of ASUS and Gigabyte.

You are underestimating how much 12VO simplifies the PSU design and the number of things that can go wrong on a system. 12VO turns the PSU into glorified laptop power brick, and all the complexity of dealing with lower voltages goes to the motherboard. You won't need a seasonic PSU for stability if all it gives you is a single 12V line.

The reason you need "a quality power supply" is because loading the 12V power line, destabilizes the 3.3V and 5V and causes system problems.

If all you use throughout the system is 12V and all of it is behind a switching VRMs, you can brownout down to 8V and the system will still be standing and working normally. Any laptop power brick can handle that. In fact, there is a reason laptops never have problems with PSU stabilities. Its exactly because they are using a single voltage, and every power plane on the motherboard is behind a VRM. In fact, when laptops are switching between a power brick and the battery, the main voltage plane loses 2-3V, and the laptop is still ok.

With this change, the PSU quality discussion will go out the window. You will literally get 1200W platinum PSUs for 50-80$ instead of 250$.

BrainCruserYou are underestimating how much 12VO simplifies the PSU design and the number of things that can go wrong on a system. 12VO turns the PSU into glorified laptop power brick, and all the complexity of dealing with lower voltages goes to the motherboard. You won't need a seasonic PSU for stability if all it gives you is a single 12V line.

The reason you need "a quality power supply" is because loading the 12V power line, destabilizes the 3.3V and 5V and causes system problems.

If all you use throughout the system is 12V and all of it is behind a switching VRMs, you can brownout down to 8V and the system will still be standing and working normally. Any laptop power brick can handle that. In fact, there is a reason laptops never have problems with PSU stabilities. Its exactly because they are using a single voltage, and every power plane on the motherboard is behind a VRM. In fact, when laptops are switching between a power brick and the battery, the main voltage plane loses 2-3V, and the laptop is still ok.

With this change, the PSU quality discussion will go out the window. You will literally get 1200W platinum PSUs for 50-80$ instead of 250$.

So motherboard´s get more complex and price get´s a spike i presume. And much harder for a simple reviewer to gauge.
Right ?

EskimonsterSo motherboard´s get more complex and price get´s a spike i presume. And much harder for a simple reviewer to gauge.
Right ?

And then you'd get like what? 1500$ motherboards? We already do.
MBs will always get more expensive, no doubt about that unfortunately.

All this change does is move the DC-DC conversion from the PSU to the motherboard. Modern PSUs are basically 12VO already.

BrainCruserYou are underestimating how much 12VO simplifies the PSU design and the number of things that can go wrong on a system. 12VO turns the PSU into glorified laptop power brick, and all the complexity of dealing with lower voltages goes to the motherboard. You won't need a seasonic PSU for stability if all it gives you is a single 12V line.

The reason you need "a quality power supply" is because loading the 12V power line, destabilizes the 3.3V and 5V and causes system problems.

If all you use throughout the system is 12V and all of it is behind a switching VRMs, you can brownout down to 8V and the system will still be standing and working normally. Any laptop power brick can handle that. In fact, there is a reason laptops never have problems with PSU stabilities. Its exactly because they are using a single voltage, and every power plane on the motherboard is behind a VRM. In fact, when laptops are switching between a power brick and the battery, the main voltage plane loses 2-3V, and the laptop is still ok.

With this change, the PSU quality discussion will go out the window. You will literally get 1200W platinum PSUs for 50-80$ instead of 250$.

If this conversion would stay in the PSU, it would be reused every time I upgrade my motherboard. Now I will have to pay for it again every time I upgrade my motherboard. Since motherboards become obsolete much more frequently, e-waste and total expenditure is increased.

Regarding your points - why would the total cost and quality be different and/or dependent on the place where the electronics is located?

FolterknechtAnd I hope that never gains traction. I 'd rather pay a few bucks more for a Seasonic, FSP or even Corsair PSU, than leave that area to the likes of ASUS and Gigabyte.

Seasonic makes ASUS branded PSU's.

What's up with this picture? Has it been upscaled or why does it look like this?

nullingtonIf this conversion would stay in the PSU, it would be reused every time I upgrade my motherboard. Now I will have to pay for it again every time I upgrade my motherboard. Since motherboards become obsolete much more frequently, e-waste and total expenditure is increased.

Regarding your points - why would the total cost and quality be different and/or dependent on the place where the electronics is located?

Because you are replacing a single VRM in the PSU with 4-6 small 10W VRMs, which are basically a single 50c mosfet on the motherboard. The voltage conversion chip is literally cheaper than pulling power all the way from the 24 pin connector. The PSU has a single high quality 5V 100W power stage since it needs to handle all the possible users in the PC.

As I said laptops are already doing this for years. Desktops were still sticking to it to maintain the ATX standard, and it was adding complications to the design. Unnecessary complications. 12V only is better. Servers are all on 12VO for years as well.

And Motherboard vendors will cheap out as much as they can and when your 42cent mosfets pops it will surge all stuff on the board and left the customer in the dust.

nullingtonIf this conversion would stay in the PSU, it would be reused every time I upgrade my motherboard. Now I will have to pay for it again every time I upgrade my motherboard. Since motherboards become obsolete much more frequently, e-waste and total expenditure is increased.

Regarding your points - why would the total cost and quality be different and/or dependent on the place where the electronics is located?

I don't think this would increase motherboard prices so much that their cost would be the same as current mobo + PSU. If ATX12VO components are more expensive right now, it's not due to the added components but because they are produced in so low numbers.

MikeasWhat's up with this picture? Has it been upscaled or why does it look like this?

Right? Looks like an oil painting. It looks like they upscaled from a very low resolution and tried to upscale it 4x. (every time I've done something like it it turns out about the same).

InterventionSeasonic makes ASUS branded PSU's.

Thats the problem, Seasonic doesn't make Asus motherboards.

DragokarAnd Motherboard vendors will cheap out as much as they can and when your 42cent mosfets pops it will surge all stuff on the board and left the customer in the dust.

That is a trivial warranty replacement. We already have a system for it. Also, both motherboards and GPUs have 12V to 1.1V VRMs on them. That is what the VCORE, VSOC, and VDDR voltage planes are doing, taking 12V and turning them to local voltages. Now all that will happen is you will get VUSB and VSATA planes. That is it. And SATA is already on the way out. It will either go away completely, or turn to 12VO SATA.

As I said, laptops have been doing this for decades, and we have never had problems with voltages popping. The only thing that gets damaged in laptops is the power plug, but that is just from repeated removal and insertion, not electrical damage.

BrainCruserThat is a trivial warranty replacement. We already have a system for it. Also, both motherboards and GPUs have 12V to 1.1V VRMs on them. That is what the VCORE, VSOC, and VDDR voltage planes are doing, taking 12V and turning them to local voltages. Now all that will happen is you will get VUSB and VSATA planes. That is it. And SATA is already on the way out. It will either go away completely, or turn to 12VO SATA.

As I said, laptops have been doing this for decades, and we have never had problems with voltages popping. The only thing that gets damaged in laptops is the power plug, but that is just from repeated removal and insertion, not electrical damage.

And what doe you replace on most laptop boards? Right the VRM because they pop left, right middle and center because they take the cheapest crap and put it on. The same will happen to the boards, and it will kill your CPU, GPU and so on. Remember my words. The industry is not built around reliability for customers anymore. That period is sadly long gone, and a good and reliable PSU company will step in and replace your parts if the PSU failed horribly (had this with be quiet). Companies like MSI, Gigabyte and Asus are avoiding it like hell and will blame the customer.

Battler624MBs will always get more expensive, no doubt about that unfortunately.

Says who? B350>450>550 had limited price inflation(?) if any at all.

Those boards look.. extremely price conscious..

aktpuThis thread could be summarized: "I hate change, even though I do not understand this change"

Well, BrainCruiser is right regarding the tech part, but at the same time this would be a little sly to paint it like entirely that: part of the problem is that average enthusiast out here on the forum has much more trust in Seasonic or Bequiet to get their part of equation right than they do with the likes of Asus, Gigabyte or MSI. And for a good reason imho.

I'm really excited for 12VO, but the boards and power supplies are nigh unobtanium unless you want to overspend like crazy or get a prebuilt.
Theoretically these should allow for much much lower power consumption in lower power states which makes them very interesting for NAS like solutions.
If you want anything modern and high-performance you have to get something mobile which brings a whole assortment of downsides with it (upgradeability and component selection).

R0H1TSays who? B350>450>550 had limited price inflation(?) if any at all.

B350/B450 no, because they were practically rebrands. But B550 was so much more expensive that people kept buying B450 boards to use with Ryzen 5xxx CPUs.

Only initially IIRC, that too probably due to Covid. Heck zen3 chips were continuously overpriced/out of stock for at least a year! Also B550 had much better VRM, feature set & in some ways was priced to upsell the x570 which is to say it wasn't priced well to make it sell.

Intel NUC 13 Extreme is already using this 12VO setup since last year.

BrainCruserYou are underestimating how much 12VO simplifies the PSU design and the number of things that can go wrong on a system. 12VO turns the PSU into glorified laptop power brick, and all the complexity of dealing with lower voltages goes to the motherboard. You won't need a seasonic PSU for stability if all it gives you is a single 12V line.

The reason you need "a quality power supply" is because loading the 12V power line, destabilizes the 3.3V and 5V and causes system problems.

If all you use throughout the system is 12V and all of it is behind a switching VRMs, you can brownout down to 8V and the system will still be standing and working normally. Any laptop power brick can handle that. In fact, there is a reason laptops never have problems with PSU stabilities. Its exactly because they are using a single voltage, and every power plane on the motherboard is behind a VRM. In fact, when laptops are switching between a power brick and the battery, the main voltage plane loses 2-3V, and the laptop is still ok.

With this change, the PSU quality discussion will go out the window. You will literally get 1200W platinum PSUs for 50-80$ instead of 250$.

You aren't getting rid of those other rails though, you are moving them to the motherboard. A motherboard of which will be more expensive and requires more frequent upgrades than a PSU. I only replace my PSU once every 10 or so years while I change my motherboard every 3. In essence you are increasing cost over time. In addition, you are pinning the quality of voltage regulation of the minor rails to the quality of the motherboard you buy, which is silly. Motherboard vendors have a financial incentive to get you to buy a more expensive motherboard, which could mean their "good" power designs are only on high end motherboards. This new ATX standard being new with few implementations also means that mistakes are far more likely as well.

The 12VO standard is straight up against the spirit of the PC platform as it removes a portion of the modularity of the ecosystem. No longer does swapping your PSU upgrade your system's power delivery and no longer is it relatively easy to diagnose potentially power related issues. It gurantees that anywith with system crashs during an intensive game cannot elimiate the PSU as a source of the issue by swapping it out and necessitates that you break out the multi-meter and then spend time looking at the board to find and measure it's voltage regulation circitry (which let's be honest the overwhelming majority of PC gamers cannot do). In essence you are making the PC platform significantly less user friendly.

Comparing laptop power issues to desktop power issues is sort of apples to oranges given you are talking about a world's difference in power consumption. Mind you I've seen more than my fair share of failed laptop power circuits. I've got one that failed for that very reason right on the desk next to me. The one thing they have in common is that they require an expert to repair them and they render the whole system inoperable. Compare that to a desktop where if something goes wrong with the PSU, the end user can take very simply concrete steps to figure out the issue themselves. Can you imagine how much ewaste would be eliminated if laptops have dedicated PSUs? A lot but that would cut into profits. Seems some people forget just how much harder it would make PCs to repair and just how much more ewaste it would create as a result.

Battler624And then you'd get like what? 1500$ motherboards? We already do.
MBs will always get more expensive, no doubt about that unfortunately.

The only motherboards we have in that price range are limited run extreme OC boards.

Everything will get more expensive due to inflation that naturally occurs over time, that goes without saying. That said, you missed his point if that's all you though he was saying. Aside from normal economic pressures, adding more parts to motherboards will increase the average price end users will pay for their motherboards, particularly on the low end where boards are already stripped to the bare minimum. Take any increase in price you had though was normal and push it significantly further.

ymdhisI don't think this would increase motherboard prices so much that their cost would be the same as current mobo + PSU. If ATX12VO components are more expensive right now, it's not due to the added components but because they are produced in so low numbers.

Even if you assume it doesn't, you are still buying 2-3 motherboards in the lifespan of a single PSU. At the end of the day you are almost certainly paying more as you are buying those components moved to the motherboard 2-3 times instead of once. IMO that is not the biggest issue though, it's the reduction in repairability and modularity.

BrainCruserThat is a trivial warranty replacement. We already have a system for it. Also, both motherboards and GPUs have 12V to 1.1V VRMs on them. That is what the VCORE, VSOC, and VDDR voltage planes are doing, taking 12V and turning them to local voltages. Now all that will happen is you will get VUSB and VSATA planes. That is it. And SATA is already on the way out. It will either go away completely, or turn to 12VO SATA.

As I said, laptops have been doing this for decades, and we have never had problems with voltages popping. The only thing that gets damaged in laptops is the power plug, but that is just from repeated removal and insertion, not electrical damage.

You say trivial but replacing a motherboard is significantly more hassle for an end user than replacing a PSU. With a motherboard you are taking the entire system apart and then putting it back together. A PSU just requires you to take out the PSU. It's also cheaper to buy a temp PSU if you don't have on already.

Yes, GPUs have their own power regulation for local votlages. That makes sense, each device should be containerized as much as possible to ensure repairabily and modularity.

Now sure why you keep bringing up laptops are a great example of why power regulation shouldn't be integrated on the motherboard as explained above. There's a reason laptops don't last as long as desktops.

R0H1TSays who? B350>450>550 had limited price inflation(?) if any at all.

I think he was implying that as a result of inflation, technically everything gets more expensive over time. That said I cannot really understand why one would say that because it misses the point. The person he was replying to clearly meant that motherboards will get more expensive as an additional cost besides any other market forces. That's would be what most normal people would assume in the context of adding parts to something.

Great move from MSI. This will be my upcoming build, with reduced idle power and complexity. I like that there are two DIMMs only for better stabililty and mATX/ITX is ideal for my case.

BrainCruserYou are underestimating how much 12VO simplifies the PSU design and the number of things that can go wrong on a system. 12VO turns the PSU into glorified laptop power brick, and all the complexity of dealing with lower voltages goes to the motherboard. You won't need a seasonic PSU for stability if all it gives you is a single 12V line.

Any decent PSU made in the last 15 years is basically a 12V PSU with a small DC to DC card added for the +3.3V and +5V.

It's best to understand computer PSUs and the 12VO spec before making such statements. The new spec only removes that DC to DC card, moving it to the motherboard. This part is correct. But the +12V performance is still as important. Also, there is still standby power, which the spec has changed to +12VSB instead of +5VSB. Furthermore, the ATX12VO spec has added I_PSU%. This feature actually reports the load of the PSU back to the motherboard so it can understand if a simultaneous load on the CPU and GPU will cause the PSU to operate at the precipice of its capabilities and throttle the CPU or GPU accordingly to avoid shut down. This is a cost adder, but on the flip side it will mean people don't' have to buy 1000W PSUs for 750W systems to "brute force" the assurance that their PC won't shut down mid game, or whatever else they're doing with their PC that is CPU and GPU intensive.

Circuit diagram for I_PSU%:

BrainCruserThe reason you need "a quality power supply" is because loading the 12V power line, destabilizes the 3.3V and 5V and causes system problems.

That is only true with mag-amp regulated, or "group regulated" PSUs, which was the norm maybe 20 years ago and not something any enthusiast user would use today or over the last 15 years. As stated before, quality PSUs today are already +12V PSUs. They just have a small DC to DC card that regulates the minor rails. Honestly, no offense, but I wonder when the last time you read a PSU review was.

BrainCruserIf all you use throughout the system is 12V and all of it is behind a switching VRMs, you can brownout down to 8V and the system will still be standing and working normally. Any laptop power brick can handle that. In fact, there is a reason laptops never have problems with PSU stabilities. Its exactly because they are using a single voltage, and every power plane on the motherboard is behind a VRM. In fact, when laptops are switching between a power brick and the battery, the main voltage plane loses 2-3V, and the laptop is still ok.

Yeah.... so.... a laptop has a battery that acts as sort of a "bulk cap", so bad analogy there. The PSU cannot "brownout" to 8V with expectations for the PC to continue running. Again, not much changes on the board with ATX12VO versus today.


As you can see, +12V regulation is still required for CPU VR, which is where it's most critical today and still will be in the future in most boards without super robust VRs, and the PCIe slots, including any CEM power connections. What changes is chipset VRM, USB, Audio, LAN, etc. will need to regulate from 12V instead of 5V and 3.3V. This includes M.2 which uses 3.3V. And any additional SATA's will require an additional VRM to regulate 12V down to 5V. This is actually the only cost adder to the motherboard since it's a new VRM. All of the other VRMs are just being "replaced" by one that regulates from either +5V or +3.3V to whatever voltage the end components actually needs (1.06V, 1.1V, 1.8V, etc.)

InterventionSeasonic makes ASUS branded PSU's.

Seasonic makes "a couple" Asus PSUs. The Thor Platinum and the lower wattage Strix Gold.

Loki SFX is Great Wall, higher wattage Strix Gold are CWT. The TUF Gaming Bronze and Gold are also Great Wall. The Thor Titanium is Wentai.

Despite what Reddit tells you, Seasonic makes very few non-Seasonic-branded PSUs.