Pure 12V PSU Standard, Named ATX12VO, Debuts Later This Year

[$ReaPeR$]

i really hope intel manages to make this the standard. looks much more logical on all aspects, be it size, cost or efficiency.

 

[Valantar]

i really hope intel manages to make this the standard. looks much more logical on all aspects, be it size, cost or efficiency.

Considering Intel has made every comparable standard (AT, ATX, etc.) it should only really be a question of applying enough pressure. Of course they also made the abject failure that was the BTX standard, but that didn't really have the kind of advantages something like this does, and it had far wider reaching (and more expensive) implications in that it required redesigning both cases and motherboards.

There's far less standing in the way of this than BTX thankfully, so this becoming the dominant standard in 5+ years wouldn't surprise me.

 

[$ReaPeR$]

Considering Intel has made every comparable standard (AT, ATX, etc.) it should only really be a question of applying enough pressure. Of course they also made the abject failure that was the BTX standard, but that didn't really have the kind of advantages something like this does, and it had far wider reaching (and more expensive) implications in that it required redesigning both cases and motherboards.

There's far less standing in the way of this than BTX thankfully, so this becoming the dominant standard in 5+ years wouldn't surprise me.

tbh, with the benefits that a platform like this one provides, i wonder why intel, or anyone else, didnt make this push earlier.

 

[londiste]

tbh, with the benefits that a platform like this one provides, i wonder why intel, or anyone else, didnt make this push earlier.

OEMs have been creating custom PSUs/motherboards with the same idea for a while. On one hand, trying to standardize that could be useful. On the other hand SFFs are getting smaller and smaller and at the same time, the "mainstream PC" (as much as there is such a thing) is also getting smaller and simpler in terms of what in comprises of which makes the effects of this new standard both more powerful and easier to do at the same time. CPU and GPU power is 12V and sourced directly from PSU. There is not much of power sourced through motherboard and there are less and less external devices. Motherboards contain all the extra stuff an average user needs and has for a while now, even in mITX form factor. M.2 drives are common enough and remove the need for SATA drives for a lot of people.

12V only PSU is actually going to be cheaper. Manufacturers cannot really charge the same prices or premium for it as this setup for PSU is much simpler and it should be easier to compete at every level.

 

[$ReaPeR$]

OEMs have been creating custom PSUs/motherboards with the same idea for a while. On one hand, trying to standardize that could be useful. On the other hand SFFs are getting smaller and smaller and at the same time, the "mainstream PC" (as much as there is such a thing) is also getting smaller and simpler in terms of what in comprises of which makes the effects of this new standard both more powerful and easier to do at the same time. CPU and GPU power is 12V and sourced directly from PSU. There is not much of power sourced through motherboard and there are less and less external devices. Motherboards contain all the extra stuff an average user needs and has for a while now, even in mITX form factor. M.2 drives are common enough and remove the need for SATA drives for a lot of people.

12V only PSU is actually going to be cheaper. Manufacturers cannot really charge the same prices or premium for it as this setup for PSU is much simpler and it should be easier to compete at every level.

yes, thats why i find strange the fact that psus, for diy pcs at least, are so "behind" technologically.

 

[candle_86]

Because it's a working standard that has no real reason to change. This is honestly a horrible idea, my powered USB 3.1 pcie card needs a says connection, my hard drives need sata, my bd-rw needs sata. There are other cards and devices that also use external power on the 5v line. I'm not willing to trust motherboard makers to be able to adaquitly provide the power to 6 sata devices all the time. The boards that can will be in the 5-600 dollar range while psu prices won't fall enough to offset the difference in motherboard price because right now a 70-100 dollar board is what most need and what I tend to use, unless psu prices are going to fall from 60-70 to paying me it's not worth it.

 

[Valantar]

Because it's a working standard that has no real reason to change. This is honestly a horrible idea, my powered USB 3.1 pcie card needs a says connection, my hard drives need sata, my bd-rw needs sata. There are other cards and devices that also use external power on the 5v line. I'm not willing to trust motherboard makers to be able to adaquitly provide the power to 6 sata devices all the time. The boards that can will be in the 5-600 dollar range while psu prices won't fall enough to offset the difference in motherboard price because right now a 70-100 dollar board is what most need and what I tend to use, unless psu prices are going to fall from 60-70 to paying me it's not worth it.

All of those would be powered without issue from the on-board SATA power connectors on a motherboard made for this standard. With less cable losses and less mess to boot, and likely cleaner power.

Also, do you know how cheap and easily available small, efficient DC-DC transformer circuits are? Powering six SATA devices off a decent entry-level motherboard would be easy - though what we'll likely see is power conversion circuitry tailored to match the number of ports on board. In other words any AIC controller would either need to convert its own power or you would need a small converter box - which would also become available cheaply, as they would be extremely easy to make.

As for the standard having "no real reason to change" - half the pins on the 24-pin are unnecessary legacy pins at this point. Isn't that enough reason to change? Ten or fifteen years ago PCs used the 3.3V and 5V rails for a lot of components. These days it's pretty much all 12V. For what few components need these low power rails, there is such easy access to cheap and efficient DC-DC conversion that most AICs these days use bespoke power conversion anyhow. Of course the power delivery standard should evolve to match this. Or did you also oppose the change when PSUs started including PCIe power connectors, and would you have preferred to keep adapting them from 4-pin Molex? Or when they stopped including heaps of Molex connectors? Or when SATA power replaced Molex? All of those were "working standards" after all.

 

[candle_86]

All of those would be powered without issue from the on-board SATA power connectors on a motherboard made for this standard. With less cable losses and less mess to boot, and likely cleaner power.

Also, do you know how cheap and easily available small, efficient DC-DC transformer circuits are? Powering six SATA devices off a decent entry-level motherboard would be easy - though what we'll likely see is power conversion circuitry tailored to match the number of ports on board. In other words any AIC controller would either need to convert its own power or you would need a small converter box - which would also become available cheaply, as they would be extremely easy to make.

As for the standard having "no real reason to change" - half the pins on the 24-pin are unnecessary legacy pins at this point. Isn't that enough reason to change? Ten or fifteen years ago PCs used the 3.3V and 5V rails for a lot of components. These days it's pretty much all 12V. For what few components need these low power rails, there is such easy access to cheap and efficient DC-DC conversion that most AICs these days use bespoke power conversion anyhow. Of course the power delivery standard should evolve to match this. Or did you also oppose the change when PSUs started including PCIe power connectors, and would you have preferred to keep adapting them from 4-pin Molex? Or when they stopped including heaps of Molex connectors? Or when SATA power replaced Molex? All of those were "working standards" after all.

I see no reason to change the standard no, i also require molex and the 4 pin floppy on any PSU i purchase because they still have a purpose. Breaking backwards compatibility for the sake of breaking it is pointless. It would create more cable mess actually as well, running 6 sata cables off a motherboard to connect drives creates a bigger mess

 

[Valantar]

I see no reason to change the standard no, i also require molex and the 4 pin floppy on any PSU i purchase because they still have a purpose. Breaking backwards compatibility for the sake of breaking it is pointless. It would create more cable mess actually as well, running 6 sata cables off a motherboard to connect drives creates a bigger mess

Most PCs in the coming years will not need either SATA or Molex power plugs. For the minority needing them, using an adapter or running off on-board outputs is fine. It seems like you're using a lot of legacy hardware, which explains your reluctance for the standard to be modernized, but you are in a very tiny minority, and forcing features for the .001% onto the other 99.999% of users is silly, even if it "breaks" backwards compatibility. It's entirely reasonable for that minority to adapt, not the other way around. And the adaptation would be simple: run power off the motherboard, or get a box converting 12V to SATA and/or Molex power. You wouldn't have to throw out anything. Heck, your current PSU would even work with a simple adapter cable, it would just disconnect a bunch of pins and bump the 5VSB signal to 12V instead. I wouldn't even call that breaking compatibility, given that the standard already includes on-board SATA power (which can be adapted to both Molex and floppy).

 

[candle_86]

Most PCs in the coming years will not need either SATA or Molex power plugs. For the minority needing them, using an adapter or running off on-board outputs is fine. It seems like you're using a lot of legacy hardware, which explains your reluctance for the standard to be modernized, but you are in a very tiny minority, and forcing features for the .001% onto the other 99.999% of users is silly, even if it "breaks" backwards compatibility. It's entirely reasonable for that minority to adapt, not the other way around. And the adaptation would be simple: run power off the motherboard, or get a box converting 12V to SATA and/or Molex power. You wouldn't have to throw out anything. Heck, your current PSU would even work with a simple adapter cable, it would just disconnect a bunch of pins and bump the 5VSB signal to 12V instead. I wouldn't even call that breaking compatibility, given that the standard already includes on-board SATA power (which can be adapted to both Molex and floppy).

No motherboard makers are quite incompetent with new features and they then exclude them to only higher tier boards, that's why esata failed. The fact is m.2 is to expensive for mass market by itself, a quality 1tb hdd is $50 vs $150-200 for a quality m.2 drive and disparity only increases. 512 and 256 are to small to be the sole storage option, my games alone require 2.7 tb of space just for the steam folder, ignoring gog and origin folders.

Intel is doing this only so they can license the standard somehow. The move from at to ATX made sense because we had standby power enabling sleep modes and a better connector that didn't fry boards because it's impossible to put it on wrong. The psu manufactures are not going to lower prices either, we are used to paying the current prices, they will just pocket the rest.

As for adaptors don't get me started, me you and everyone else knows they will be built cheaply and poorly in China causing their own slew of problems. This standard is pointless.

 

[Valantar]

No motherboard makers are quite incompetent with new features and they then exclude them to only higher tier boards, that's why esata failed. The fact is m.2 is to expensive for mass market by itself, a quality 1tb hdd is $50 vs $150-200 for a quality m.2 drive and disparity only increases. 512 and 256 are to small to be the sole storage option, my games alone require 2.7 tb of space just for the steam folder, ignoring gog and origin folders.

Intel is doing this only so they can license the standard somehow. The move from at to ATX made sense because we had standby power enabling sleep modes and a better connector that didn't fry boards because it's impossible to put it on wrong. The psu manufactures are not going to lower prices either, we are used to paying the current prices, they will just pocket the rest.

As for adaptors don't get me started, me you and everyone else knows they will be built cheaply and poorly in China causing their own slew of problems. This standard is pointless.

Ah, yes, the "everything made in China is garbage" argument rears its head once again. Remind me if you will, where is your PSU manufactured? Chances are these adapters will be made by the same companies in the same factories. Sure, there might be cheaper garbage options too, but if you buy that for a mission critical use case, that's on you.

AFAIK Intel doesn't charge for licensing the ATX spec, so why would they charge for this? Specifications like this are required to guarantee interoperability, so making adherence to the spec something you have to pay for too is extremely counterintuitive. They made this spec because, again, the current 24-pin cable is full of obsolete connectors that are no longer needed. Servers use 8-pin 12V connectors, most OEM PCs have moved to smaller non-standard connectors. This standard serves to unify these non-standard solutions under one standard - solely a good thing.

eSATA failed due to USB 3.0 being a far superior port, btw. The first standard didn't have power delivery, requiring either a separate USB cable for power or a wall plug, which made a mess of attempts to implement powered eSATA afterwards - no devices showed up, as they could not guarantee compatibility even with all eSATA-equipped devices. This was doomed from the start, and then USB 3.0 came in and made it entirely obsolete. (I still have a couple of eSATA devices, but run them off small and cheap USB-to-eSATA adapters).

As for your games requiring 2.7TB - again, welcome to a tiny minority. Most PC users use laptops with a single drive, and the majority of those in current models are SSDs around 256-512GB. Most desktop PC users use prebuilts, whether they be office PCs or for gaming etc. Office PCs have moved to SSDs (and largely m.2) outside of the very cheapest ones, while gaming PCs usually come with an m.2 SSD and a 3.5" HDD and are never added to - a setup easily accommodated by a single, short power wire running off the motherboard. Heck, you could even route it alongside the SATA cable for some actually sensible cable management.

I kind of get where you are coming from - this standard would be a poor fit for my DIY NAS, which currently has 4 3.5" HDDs and a 2.5" SSD, and will expand over time to at least six HDDs. For something like this I'd likely need a breakout box of some sort. I really don't see this as a problem.

The point: a standard made for constrained use like in a PC should provide the basics automatically and have provisions for expansion into more advanced or esoteric uses - bundling all the advanced and esoteric uses in for everyone is a silly idea, causing overproduction of unnecessary components, driving up prices, lowering efficiency, and making things more complicated than they need to be for the vast majority. A simple standard for everyone with provisions for expansion built in is an obvious development as computer technology matures.

 

[Awesomegamer919]

Higher efficiency? xD you know that you just moved the problem on the motherboard right? you gain efficiency on the psu and you lose on the motherboard there is 0 changes to efficiency xD

False, this new design lowers to distance the power has to go as the lower voltage, lower voltage = more amps = more resistance = lower efficiency.

 

[TheLostSwede]

No motherboard makers are quite incompetent with new features and they then exclude them to only higher tier boards, that's why esata failed. The fact is m.2 is to expensive for mass market by itself, a quality 1tb hdd is $50 vs $150-200 for a quality m.2 drive and disparity only increases. 512 and 256 are to small to be the sole storage option, my games alone require 2.7 tb of space just for the steam folder, ignoring gog and origin folders.

Intel is doing this only so they can license the standard somehow. The move from at to ATX made sense because we had standby power enabling sleep modes and a better connector that didn't fry boards because it's impossible to put it on wrong. The psu manufactures are not going to lower prices either, we are used to paying the current prices, they will just pocket the rest.

As for adaptors don't get me started, me you and everyone else knows they will be built cheaply and poorly in China causing their own slew of problems. This standard is pointless.

Dude, please stop spreading FUD.
eSATA could easily be added with a passive adapter to any motherboard, such as this. If anything, eSATAp failed, which as the much better standard that had power as well. That said, by the time that came around, USB 3.0 had already won and if you want to blame anyone here, blame the SATA-IO for not pushing/promoting their standards better.

M.2 is NOT expensive. The drives cost the SAME as SATA SSDs now, unless you're comparing apples and oranges and compare the price of SATA vs NVMe drives. Of course NVMe drives are going to cost more, as they have more pricey controllers and higher-end flash to be able to operate at higher speeds. However, they're not all that much expensive now.
Hard drives are simply not suitable for modern computers as they've become a major bottle neck. I don't want to spend a minute or more waiting for my PC to boot from a mechanical drive when it can boot in 15 seconds from an SSD.
I have 4TB of SSD storage in my PC and I have another 16TB of spinning rust in my NAS, where it belongs.

This has NOTHING to do with licensing. There's no fee to use any of the motherboard or PSU standards in use today and there likely never will be. Intel is in general smart enough to make sure their standards have a wide adoption rate to become standards, rather than some niche products.
By the way, a current ATX PSU is not going to be compatible with some of your antiques, as guess what, the ATX standard has evolved!
The -5V pin was dropped, which means some older boards won't work with new PSUs. We went from 20 to 24-pins and this requires either a split connector or an adapter for current PSUs to work with old boards.
And FYI, this isn't a new thing, 12V only PSUs started in 2011, it's just that Intel is trying to make it a proper standard.

Power supply unit (computer) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

As for pricing, that's obviously an unknown factor, but if the cost is significantly lower, it's likely we'll pay less, as that's normally how the market works. Initially these new PSUs might not be cheaper, due to lower volumes, but over time they would become the norm and prices will go down.

Yeah, not everything is made in China and not everything made in China is shit. I mean, Apple makes their products in China too... It's all about who your manufacturing partner is and there are plenty of Taiwanese companies that have some of their manufacturing in China. Afaik, most Asus boards are made in China after their split with ASRock (as that was their motherboard production arm). Also, plenty of stuff is still made in Taiwan, so if you're so concerned, support Taiwanese companies instead.

You clearly don't know much about the industry or how these things work, so making silly comments like this, serves ZERO purpose, expect maybe justifying your claims to yourself so you can feel good about them.

I kind of get where you are coming from - this standard would be a poor fit for my DIY NAS, which currently has 4 3.5" HDDs and a 2.5" SSD, and will expand over time to at least six HDDs. For something like this I'd likely need a breakout box of some sort. I really don't see this as a problem.

You don't have a backplane in your NAS? I have four hot-swapable caddies and a backplane that takes one power connector. Still requires four SATA cables though...

 

[Valantar]

You don't have a backplane in your NAS? I have four hot-swapable caddies and a backplane that takes one power connector. Still requires four SATA cables though...

Sadly, no. It was built on a very tight budget and needed to fit in a small-ish space in the living room, so it currently lives in a Fractal Node 202. It serves for now, but is a major pain when drives need to be added or swapped. I'll likely keep the case for a while longer, but I'd love to either move to a Silverstone CS381 or make a custom case with a bunch of 5.25" hot swap modules. We'll see what time and money allows when the time comes for an upgrade I guess.

 

[candle_86]

Dude, please stop spreading FUD.
eSATA could easily be added with a passive adapter to any motherboard, such as this. If anything, eSATAp failed, which as the much better standard that had power as well. That said, by the time that came around, USB 3.0 had already won and if you want to blame anyone here, blame the SATA-IO for not pushing/promoting their standards better.

M.2 is NOT expensive. The drives cost the SAME as SATA SSDs now, unless you're comparing apples and oranges and compare the price of SATA vs NVMe drives. Of course NVMe drives are going to cost more, as they have more pricey controllers and higher-end flash to be able to operate at higher speeds. However, they're not all that much expensive now.
Hard drives are simply not suitable for modern computers as they've become a major bottle neck. I don't want to spend a minute or more waiting for my PC to boot from a mechanical drive when it can boot in 15 seconds from an SSD.
I have 4TB of SSD storage in my PC and I have another 16TB of spinning rust in my NAS, where it belongs.

This has NOTHING to do with licensing. There's no fee to use any of the motherboard or PSU standards in use today and there likely never will be. Intel is in general smart enough to make sure their standards have a wide adoption rate to become standards, rather than some niche products.
By the way, a current ATX PSU is not going to be compatible with some of your antiques, as guess what, the ATX standard has evolved!
The -5V pin was dropped, which means some older boards won't work with new PSUs. We went from 20 to 24-pins and this requires either a split connector or an adapter for current PSUs to work with old boards.
And FYI, this isn't a new thing, 12V only PSUs started in 2011, it's just that Intel is trying to make it a proper standard.

Power supply unit (computer) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

As for pricing, that's obviously an unknown factor, but if the cost is significantly lower, it's likely we'll pay less, as that's normally how the market works. Initially these new PSUs might not be cheaper, due to lower volumes, but over time they would become the norm and prices will go down.

Yeah, not everything is made in China and not everything made in China is shit. I mean, Apple makes their products in China too... It's all about who your manufacturing partner is and there are plenty of Taiwanese companies that have some of their manufacturing in China. Afaik, most Asus boards are made in China after their split with ASRock (as that was their motherboard production arm). Also, plenty of stuff is still made in Taiwan, so if you're so concerned, support Taiwanese companies instead.

You clearly don't know much about the industry or how these things work, so making silly comments like this, serves ZERO purpose, expect maybe justifying your claims to yourself so you can feel good about them.


You don't have a backplane in your NAS? I have four hot-swapable caddies and a backplane that takes one power connector. Still requires four SATA cables though...

Ssd is a boot drive, it's unneccesary for mass storage and too expensive. Fact is 2tb of SSD buys me 6-8tb of storage, that's why I use a 256gb nvme for boot but everything else is on hard drives, and with flash prices set to rise this year the cost difference will only increase. And I'm well aware that plenty of stuff made in China can be quality, but most adapters on the market are cheap and I don't expect that to change anytime soon. As for 24pin psus, I guess my psu in my ryzen that uses 20+4 design bought brand-new in March of last year is an odd ball, but wait every psu I've touched besides OEM units is 20+4. As for -5v ATX stopped supplying it around 1999 because only a handful of Isa soundcards used it and Isa as a standard isn't a thing. I'm well aware how this all works, and I'm also aware right now is not the time.

As for eSata no boards with an eSata port where like boards with WiFi, they where only on high end boards, and USB 3 is garbage compared to eSata period, USB even 3.1 can't sustain the transfer speeds.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Ssd is a boot drive, it's unneccesary for mass storage and too expensive. Fact is 2tb of SSD buys me 6-8tb of storage, that's why I use a 256gb nvme for boot but everything else is on hard drives, and with flash prices set to rise this year the cost difference will only increase. And I'm well aware that plenty of stuff made in China can be quality, but most adapters on the market are cheap and I don't expect that to change anytime soon. As for 24pin psus, I guess my psu in my ryzen that uses 20+4 design bought brand-new in March of last year is an odd ball, but wait every psu I've touched besides OEM units is 20+4. As for -5v ATX stopped supplying it around 1999 because only a handful of Isa soundcards used it and Isa as a standard isn't a thing. I'm well aware how this all works, and I'm also aware right now is not the time.

As for eSata no boards with an eSata port where like boards with WiFi, they where only on high end boards, and USB 3 is garbage compared to eSata period, USB even 3.1 can't sustain the transfer speeds.

For YOU.
Your opinions don't apply to everyone else.
Who makes you the only person with the sole right to decide what is necessary or not?
I have 16TB in my NAS, that's for "cold" storage and my SSDs in my PC are for software and games that I use on a "daily" basis.
Spinning rust is not the future, sorry dude, it's not my fault you're stuck in the past.

Ever heard the saying "you get what you pay for"? Stop buying cheap crap.

Why do you have the right to decide when the time to transition to a new standard is? Are you working in senior management for a large hardware OEM? I doubt it, based on your comments here.

As for eSATA, did you not see the picture I posted? Those brackets came with plenty of boards. Again, go talk to the SATA-IO, they're the ones in charge of promoting the SATA standards. They clearly failed compared to the USB Promoter Group, for better or worse. The eSATA cable was poop, there was no power, so you needed some kind of wonky adapter or an external housing, regardless, hence the standard failed to take off as it wasn't consumer friendly. You need to start thinking like a person that doesn't understand computers and this is in general how standards win, they get a majority of users due to ease of use/affordability, not because they're technically the best. Just look at VHS vs. Betamax as a great example. Firewire was technically superior to USB as well, it also failed due to higher costs, even though it was much faster, offered better reliability and delivered more power.
USB 4 might be the solution that solves all of this, but the USB-C port has become too splintered in terms of what it's being designed for vs. what is being implemented. I just got a new phone, USB-C, but only 2.0 for data and beyond charging, it supports no other standards, which imho is crap. You might not agree though, which you have the right to. Maybe you'd rather we go back to serial interfaces and custom charger ports on phones? That's the way your reasoning here is going anyhow. Or maybe we should go back to AT PSU?

 

[candle_86]

For YOU.
Your opinions don't apply to everyone else.
Who makes you the only person with the sole right to decide what is necessary or not?
I have 16TB in my NAS, that's for "cold" storage and my SSDs in my PC are for software and games that I use on a "daily" basis.
Spinning rust is not the future, sorry dude, it's not my fault you're stuck in the past.

Ever heard the saying "you get what you pay for"? Stop buying cheap crap.

Why do you have the right to decide when the time to transition to a new standard is? Are you working in senior management for a large hardware OEM? I doubt it, based on your comments here.

As for eSATA, did you not see the picture I posted? Those brackets came with plenty of boards. Again, go talk to the SATA-IO, they're the ones in charge of promoting the SATA standards. They clearly failed compared to the USB Promoter Group, for better or worse. The eSATA cable was poop, there was no power, so you needed some kind of wonky adapter or an external housing, regardless, hence the standard failed to take off as it wasn't consumer friendly. You need to start thinking like a person that doesn't understand computers and this is in general how standards win, they get a majority of users due to ease of use/affordability, not because they're technically the best. Just look at VHS vs. Betamax as a great example. Firewire was technically superior to USB as well, it also failed due to higher costs, even though it was much faster, offered better reliability and delivered more power.
USB 4 might be the solution that solves all of this, but the USB-C port has become too splintered in terms of what it's being designed for vs. what is being implemented. I just got a new phone, USB-C, but only 2.0 for data and beyond charging, it supports no other standards, which imho is crap. You might not agree though, which you have the right to. Maybe you'd rather we go back to serial interfaces and custom charger ports on phones? That's the way your reasoning here is going anyhow. Or maybe we should go back to AT PSU?

Considering I run my own pc building business on the weekends and I get plenty of people that have a need for a terrabyte or more of storage and they are not willing to pay the cost tb+ ssd's. There are also plenty of users here that feel the exact same way. Movies, music, games, pictures do not benefit from an ssd that's been tested for years and only some open world games benefit and then by 1-2 fps at most.
As for a nas this is something I would never recommend for an average home user, the average person doesn't want a second box taking up space. This standard is bad for the average user. Your willingness to drop over a grand on ssd's does not represent the average user. They are quite content with a small SSD and a large hard drive and are not willing to spend the money for a large SSD or a nas. Your attitude and opinions do not reflect the average user or their needs, they reflect the worst part of the computer enthusiast the elitism that you must spend this much or your buying junk.

An average new build I just put together for a guy is a great example, it replaces his 2nd gen i3 system.

Ryzen 3 2200g
Asrocks a320 board
8gb stick of ddr4
256gb says SSD
2tb hdd (his tax documents, family pictures, home movies, and music library) transfer from old system
450w psu
$30 matx case

Their is an average non gamer system.

 

[Valantar]

Considering I run my own pc building business on the weekends and I get plenty of people that have a need for a terrabyte or more of storage and they are not willing to pay the cost tb+ ssd's. There are also plenty of users here that feel the exact same way. Movies, music, games, pictures do not benefit from an ssd that's been tested for years and only some open world games benefit and then by 1-2 fps at most.
As for a nas this is something I would never recommend for an average home user, the average person doesn't want a second box taking up space. This standard is bad for the average user. Your willingness to drop over a grand on ssd's does not represent the average user. They are quite content with a small SSD and a large hard drive and are not willing to spend the money for a large SSD or a nas. Your attitude and opinions do not reflect the average user or their needs, they reflect the worst part of the computer enthusiast the elitism that you must spend this much or your buying junk.

An average new build I just put together for a guy is a great example, it replaces his 2nd gen i3 system.

Ryzen 3 2200g
Asrocks a320 board
8gb stick of ddr4
256gb says SSD
2tb hdd (his tax documents, family pictures, home movies, and music library) transfer from old system
450w psu
$30 matx case

Their is an average non gamer system.

You're right about all of this (well, not really about NAS systems not being good for the average user, with digital photography and videography only increasing and thus the need for connected storage only increasing, but the barrier to entry is still too high), but the issue is that the build you sketched out there is a perfect example of where the new standard would simplify things. That system will in all likelihood never have another drive added to it, so running a simple SATA power chain off the motherboard with 1-2 ports on it (depending if the SSD is m.2 or not) would make for a far cleaner layout. You would also avoid running a >=50W 3.3V and 5V conversion system in a PC that would barely scratch 1/10 of that power on those voltage rails.

With a simple 12V only standard it would become easier to build higher efficiency low output PSUs (there are a lot of affordable 92-96% efficiency 12V AC-DC PSUs used by the SFF crowd from companies like MeanWell) meaning you'd be able to build that PC with a more suitable (450W for that is massive overkill even when factoring in aging and the possibility of adding a GPU - that system will likely max out around 100W from the wall), more efficient and likely cheaper PSU than you currently do. There would be no need for any additional power delivery components as even the most basic motherboard would be able to handle two drives. Cabling would be simpler, it would run cooler, likely last longer, be easier to build (no more 24-pin to wrangle!), and at zero added cost. How is that not a win-win?

 

[candle_86]

You're right about all of this (well, not really about NAS systems not being good for the average user, with digital photography and videography only increasing and thus the need for connected storage only increasing, but the barrier to entry is still too high), but the issue is that the build you sketched out there is a perfect example of where the new standard would simplify things. That system will in all likelihood never have another drive added to it, so running a simple SATA power chain off the motherboard with 1-2 ports on it (depending if the SSD is m.2 or not) would make for a far cleaner layout. You would also avoid running a >=50W 3.3V and 5V conversion system in a PC that would barely scratch 1/10 of that power on those voltage rails.

With a simple 12V only standard it would become easier to build higher efficiency low output PSUs (there are a lot of affordable 92-96% efficiency 12V AC-DC PSUs used by the SFF crowd from companies like MeanWell) meaning you'd be able to build that PC with a more suitable (450W for that is massive overkill even when factoring in aging and the possibility of adding a GPU - that system will likely max out around 100W from the wall), more efficient and likely cheaper PSU than you currently do. There would be no need for any additional power delivery components as even the most basic motherboard would be able to handle two drives. Cabling would be simpler, it would run cooler, likely last longer, be easier to build (no more 24-pin to wrangle!), and at zero added cost. How is that not a win-win?

Because the option to expand is missing, if my user later wants to add say a USB 4 card but that needs sata power suddenly 1-2 cables isn't enough. M.2 even sata is still on average 10% more so I still build comps with readular data ssd's because there isn't really a reason to say spend 10 dollars more for the same drive.

Then my user goes on Amazon and buys splitters or a DC to DC converter but not the quality ones, nope they buy the 2nd cheapest. Then now suddenly his drives are dead and ive got to support this mess.

 

[Valantar]

Because the option to expand is missing, if my user later wants to add say a USB 4 card but that needs sata power suddenly 1-2 cables isn't enough. M.2 even sata is still on average 10% more so I still build comps with readular data ssd's because there isn't really a reason to say spend 10 dollars more for the same drive.

Then my user goes on Amazon and buys splitters or a DC to DC converter but not the quality ones, nope they buy the 2nd cheapest. Then now suddenly his drives are dead and ive got to support this mess.

It's highly likely the motherboard would have at least two SATA power outputs (w/included cables) unless it's very small (most boards have six SATA ports, and it would need to be able to provide power to all of those) and/or the power cable included with the board would have at least three connectors (that's the standard on current PSUs at least), so it's unlikely they would need to buy anything at all. Adding a splitter would be no problem whatsoever unless what they are adding draws a lot of current (IIRC SATA maxes out at 4A per voltage). Chances of a simple voltage converter box killing the drives is also very low given how simple such a circuit is and how it's entirely separated from AC or any high voltage.

Btw, if 10% of your 256GB SATA SSD's price is $10, you should really be buying different drives. Looking at an affordable but good drive like the MX500 on Newegg the price difference between 2.5" and m.2 is $0.75. There are more low end options in the 2.5" form factor, sure, but there are still good cheap m.2 ones like the MyDigitalSSD SB2 within a few dollars of the cheapest name brand 2.5" ones.

 

[candle_86]

It's highly likely the motherboard would have at least two SATA power outputs (w/included cables) unless it's very small (most boards have six SATA ports, and it would need to be able to provide power to all of those) and/or the power cable included with the board would have at least three connectors (that's the standard on current PSUs at least), so it's unlikely they would need to buy anything at all. Adding a splitter would be no problem whatsoever unless what they are adding draws a lot of current (IIRC SATA maxes out at 4A per voltage). Chances of a simple voltage converter box killing the drives is also very low given how simple such a circuit is and how it's entirely separated from AC or any high voltage.

Btw, if 10% of your 256GB SATA SSD's price is $10, you should really be buying different drives. Looking at an affordable but good drive like the MX500 on Newegg the price difference between 2.5" and m.2 is $0.75. There are more low end options in the 2.5" form factor, sure, but there are still good cheap m.2 ones like the MyDigitalSSD SB2 within a few dollars of the cheapest name brand 2.5" ones.

I only sell people the Samsung drives due to better warranty and better controllers.

 

[Valantar]

I only sell people the Samsung drives due to better warranty and better controllers.

Better warranties might be (can't say I have any idea, plus that they tend to vary across regions) but Samsung has been caught up to - and largely surpassed - in the controller game for quite a while now. Not that that matters much in SATA anyhow, but even there drives from competitors like SanDisk are just as good, and often much cheaper.

Then again, this also shows that you're not all about value in these builds. Might be time to consider moving to m.2 for the sake of convenience?

 

[candle_86]

Better warranties might be (can't say I have any idea, plus that they tend to vary across regions) but Samsung has been caught up to - and largely surpassed - in the controller game for quite a while now. Not that that matters much in SATA anyhow, but even there drives from competitors like SanDisk are just as good, and often much cheaper.

Then again, this also shows that you're not all about value in these builds. Might be time to consider moving to m.2 for the sake of convenience?

No it's value but with the goal of longevity, the people I support tend to keep desktops for quite awhile, another guy just moved on from a core2, and I've got another customer finally giving up his Athlon XP won't run Win 10. Knowing some of them will keep these a decade or more warranty length matters as well as reputation. Samsung and Intel hold the crown in durability and warranty but Intel drives cost more than evo drives.

It's also that long time table is why I don't support the 12v psu. Take athlon XP guy, back in 2010 we added a sata raid controller on his pci slots as his ide drive died and new ide drives where already hard to find and expensive. I also added a USB 3 card to the core 2 system for their external drive. I add cards to these systems to give them functionality, but like the USB 3 card sometimes add-on cards need more power than the slot provides, and I don't want to be in a situation where I'm forced to go well time to build a new rig we're out of power leads.

 

[Valantar]

No it's value but with the goal of longevity, the people I support tend to keep desktops for quite awhile, another guy just moved on from a core2, and I've got another customer finally giving up his Athlon XP won't run Win 10. Knowing some of them will keep these a decade or more warranty length matters as well as reputation. Samsung and Intel hold the crown in durability and warranty but Intel drives cost more than evo drives.

It's also that long time table is why I don't support the 12v psu. Take athlon XP guy, back in 2010 we added a sata raid controller on his pci slots as his ide drive died and new ide drives where already hard to find and expensive. I also added a USB 3 card to the core 2 system for their external drive. I add cards to these systems to give them functionality, but like the USB 3 card sometimes add-on cards need more power than the slot provides, and I don't want to be in a situation where I'm forced to go well time to build a new rig we're out of power leads.

Reminds me of the Core2Quad system I had before I built my current Ryzen system; it had two USB 3.0/3.1 controller cards in it. One needed a molex, the other a sata power plug.

Thing is, the chances of this happening again are... pretty much nonexistent. Modern systems integrate a massive amount of I/O - a huge change from a decade ago - and the chances of a basic/non-advanced user like you describe needing/wanting, say, USB4 when it arrives is pretty much zero. There will be zero appreciable difference for such users as most of them don't have any devices that will even saturate USB 3.0 so there will be no incentive to upgrade (and if they want/need USB-C, well, it's your job as the builder of the system to be forward thinking enough to make sure to buy a motherboard with USB-C). They're also highly unlikely to need more SATA or m.2 ports than a modern entry level board provides, and there are no new storage or I/O standards incoming. Thus this entire point is moot.

Besides that, there's still nothing saying you'd ever need to scrap a build due to running out of power cables. Splitters are fine as long as you don't need heaps of power - even cheap ones. As I said, motherboards are likely to provide at least two SATA power plugs and the cables needed, which following modern psu standards would likely have 3 plugs each. And if you need more power than that is able to provide, chances are the device in question will run off a 12V plug like PCIe anyhow.

 

[londiste]

Talking about splitters-backplanes, while it is a good bit different Seasonic's SCMD/Connect suddenly makes a lot more sense. The idea of 12V only PSU has apparently been making rounds for a while:

Seasonic Connect a Godsend for Cable Management Novices?

Seasonic showed us a unique new innovation that could change the way you manage your cable clutter, particularly python-wrestling with your 24-pin cable behind the motherboard tray. Called simply the Seasonic Connect, the accessory is a PSU connection hub, or a disintegration of a conventional...

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