Dec 27, 2023 21:00:00

What are the benefits of the PC power supply standard 'ATX12VO' developed by Intel?

A revolution is coming to the 'power supply' that you always see when assembling a desktop PC. We will explain the merits of 'ATX12VO', which Intel brought to the table as an alternative to the 'ATX' standard, which was formulated by Intel in 1995 and has hardly changed in the past 30 years.

The 12VO power standard appears to be gaining steam — new standard will reduce PC cabling and costs | Tom's Hardware

https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/power-supplies/the-12vo-power-standard-appears-to-be-gaining-steam-new-standard-will-reduce-pc-cabling-and- costs

What Is ATX12VO? Next-Gen PSUs Explained
https://www.makeuseof.com/what-is-atx12vo-next-gen-psu/

A PC's power supply is responsible for converting the AC power supplied from a household outlet into DC power that can be used by the PC. Basically, all home appliances use this conversion adapter to receive power, but since there are many parts in a PC, power supplies for PCs have to undergo more complicated processing than power supplies for other products. yeah.

For example, CPUs and GPUs generally require 12V power, HDDs and USB ports require 5V, and smaller components such as RAM and m.2 SSDs require 3.3V. You cannot supply 12V to a component that requires 5V, or vice versa, supplying 5V to 12V. The PC power supply serves to provide additional power to these components.

A lot of energy is wasted by performing the above conversion process, so Intel developed the ATX12VO standard to improve this. 12VO stands for '12V Only', and as the name suggests, it only supplies 12V. Components that require 5V or 3.3V power receive power through the motherboard instead. Of course, to achieve this, the motherboard must have appropriate power conversion circuitry.

The prototype of the power supply compatible with ATX12VO looks like this. The 24-pin motherboard connector is gone, replaced by 10-pin and 6-pin connectors. Things like regular CPU connectors and PCIe connectors will remain, and HDDs and other things that don't require 12V power will be powered through the motherboard, which receives power from the power supply.

The ATX12VO looks almost identical to a standard power supply, except for a different connector, and will fit into existing ATX-compatible cases. This standard was first introduced in 2020, but mass-produced machines that support ATX12VO have not yet appeared because in addition to the power supply, the motherboard needs to be compatible with ATX12VO.

However, three years after its first release, MSI has been preparing an ATX12VO compatible motherboard '

PRO H610M 12VO ' that covers both Intel and AMD platforms, and a power supply 'MSI 12VO PSU' that is also ATX12VO compatible as 'soon to be released'. It is clear that there are. According to technology media Tom's Hardware, this product may be announced at the technology trade show ``CES 2024,'' which will be held from January 10, 2024.

One of the notable changes that you will notice when comparing the above products with the ATX power supply is the replacement of the 24-pin connector with a 10-pin connector and the inclusion of a 12VO compliant FSP power supply for the graphics card. is.

Replacing PC components from ATX to ATX12VO reduces manufacturing costs and benefits users with easier cable management.