Friday, May 31st 2024
ASRock Innovates First AMD Radeon RX 7000 Graphics Card with 12V-2x6 Power Connector
ASRock is ready with the first Radeon RX gaming graphics card to feature a modern 12V-2x6 power connector, replacing the up to three 8-pin PCIe power connectors it took, to power a Radeon RX 7900 series graphics card. The ASRock RX 7900 series WS graphics cards are also the first 2-slot RX 7900 series graphics cards. They target workstations and GPU rendering farms that stack multiple graphics cards into 4U or 5U rackmount cases, with no spacing between 2-slot graphics cards. ASRock is designing cards based on both the RX 7900 XT, and the flagship RX 7900 XTX.
The ASRock RX 7900 series WS graphics cards appear long and no more than 2 slots thick. To achieve these dimensions, a lateral-flow cooling solution is used, which combines a dense aluminium or copper channel heatsink with a lateral blower. Remember we said these cards are meant for workstations or rendering farms? So the noise output will be deafening, at least up to datacenter standards. The most striking aspect of these cards of course is their 12+4 pin ATX 12V-2x6 power input, which is capable of drawing 600 W of continuous power from a single cable. It's located at the card's tail-end, where it would have been an engineering challenge to put three 8-pin connectors.
The ASRock RX 7900 series WS graphics cards appear long and no more than 2 slots thick. To achieve these dimensions, a lateral-flow cooling solution is used, which combines a dense aluminium or copper channel heatsink with a lateral blower. Remember we said these cards are meant for workstations or rendering farms? So the noise output will be deafening, at least up to datacenter standards. The most striking aspect of these cards of course is their 12+4 pin ATX 12V-2x6 power input, which is capable of drawing 600 W of continuous power from a single cable. It's located at the card's tail-end, where it would have been an engineering challenge to put three 8-pin connectors.
94 Comments on ASRock Innovates First AMD Radeon RX 7000 Graphics Card with 12V-2x6 Power Connector
If these cards don't suffer from burns, it will be absolutely clear that the problem is with Nvidia's design.
I said it before...can we not better just update the now ancient power delivery of the pci-e slot? its been 75 watts since its inception....change that to...oh idk 300 watts?
Imagine though if we can do 300 watt pci-e slots with 300 watt high end gpu's that then dont need a power connector at all, that would be beautiful.
The 12V-2xx6 is the next industry standard, if we want it or not. The moment all PSU makers included it in their products, it was set in stone.It is pretty much the same (they are compatible) with a few tweaks and smaller tolerances.
Frankly i think they dodged a bullet by pulling out when they did.Standard for who exactly?. Regular 6pin, 6+2pin and 8pin connectors for PCIe are still present on those PSU's and are not going anywhere anytime soon.
And considering that decent PSU's have 10-12 year warranties then i dont see a big rush of people running to upgrade their PSU.Easier? You call this easier? Having to watch cable bends, unplugging periodically to check for damage and stupid "dongles".
There's nothing "easier" about the new standard. Easier would have been to adopt 8pin EPS already used on workstation cards.And most people are not. They're not gonna buy a new PSU.
So far, the one of very few manufacturers, that really avoided the mess, is Corsair, and after all this seems have been a smart move (I'm nowhere near to be fond of this company).
The only reason, why this conncetor is viable among the professional server/workstation area, is because these cards being assembled once, with great attention, and only once in a while, and are not being touch any soon after. Also, the position of the connector is proper.What? You mean the thick stack of cables, sticking to the middle of nowhere, that still requires about the same 200mm clearance (as 12VHPWR itself) in front of it? At least old Mini-Fit 8/6pin PCIE cable could be wiggled in any desirable way, with zero damage and issue.
This connector, however is not the case. And it is unwelcome, outside this very special case, of blower workstation/server card, where it is done by professionals, and only with such end-face location, and direction. For the consumers, this is just no no.
And there are other things beside GPUs that might use the 6 or 8-Pins.Maybe they never had any reason to switch. They supply 300W with 8-Pins and can make a native!! adapter with 2x8-Pin to the 12+4-Pin connector. I use such a cable for my GPU.
In the end it reduces some cost for them.
This was indeed enough to include just the cable itself. But loads of PSU manufacturers went through and added the "uncertain" connector, for consumer grade PSUs. There would be a non-issue, if this 12V-2x6 (and it's predecessor 12VHPWR) would remain workstation/enterprise-only connector. As there would be least of a risk to blame their users of "unprofessional" or "dumb" behaviour. Stick it with the certified folks, and all be fine.