As early as the beginning of the year, Intel released news about the ATX 3.0 power supply, but because the graphics card market was still difficult to find at that time, and the RTX 3090 Ti was not released, everyone did not pay too much attention to this new power standard.
Since the introduction of the ATX 2.X version of the power specification in 2003, the power supply of the computer has been running well for 19 years, many installed party power supplies have been used for many years, even if the computer is replaced, the power supply can still be used, until March this year, Intel launched the ATX 3.0 power specification, the new 12VHPWR 16-pin interface, of which 12Pin is responsible for power supply, and 4Pin is responsible for signal transmission, according to Intel, this power supply can be up to PCIe 5.0 graphics card, expansion card single way to provide 600W power supply, but here is the value of the power rating, in interviews with other media, Intel said that at the original design of ATX 3.0 is to make the power supply withstand 3 times the instantaneous power, that is, 1800W.
This time the change is very large, the future ATX 3.0 power supply and even the motherboard, CPU, graphics card design are inevitably affected, NVIDIA's RTX 3090 Ti power supply is the first graphics card to support the new specifications, but there is no actual ATX 3.0 power supply on the market, so the graphics card also comes with 3 8pin interfaces.
This time the new specification was developed by Intel and PCI-SIG organizations, so why do the two sides want to strengthen the power supply of graphics cards so much? The PCWorl website interviewed Intel's Stephen Eastman, who wrote a power supply design guide that describes improvements in power supply design for ATX 3.0.
The specific content is as follows: the new 12VHPPWR graphics card power supply interface, power supply power 150W, 300W, 450W, 600W, and the maximum power supply of the interface, must be marked on the power line connector; the maximum power of more than 450W, must be equipped with a 12VHPWR interface; the power supply through the sideband signal to the graphics card to report the power supply capacity, so that the latter can set the power consumption limit The power supply must be able to withstand 175,200 switches per year without damage; low load efficiency upgrade, 10W or 2% of the maximum nominal power, the efficiency should not be less than 60%, recommended not less than 70%; increase the instantaneous power supply peak, 10% of the working cycle, 100 microseconds time, withstand 200% of the nominal power; increase the voltage conversion rate of the instantaneous load, +12V circuit to reach 2-5 times; 12V circuit up to 12.2V, allowing lower drop voltage; relax + 12V circuit load regulation limits, PCIe interface is -8% to +5%, other interfaces are -7% to +5%; adjust powerOn power-up signal speed, speed up response and system wake-up; new replacement low-power mode; power label must include T1, T3 timing; 80PLUS new Cybenetics certification.
To sum up, the ATX 3.0 power supply can provide rated 600W for the PCIe 5.0 graphics card, instantaneous 1800W power supply, very powerful, which is the current ATX power supply can not do, in addition, this is also one of the core reasons for the ATX 3.0 power supply to power supply standards and wire overhaul.
From the RTX 3090 TI and the breaking news about the AMD RX 7000 and NVIDIA RTX 40 series graphics cards, the future of the newly released graphics card power consumption is likely to be higher and higher, 5, 6 kilowatts will be the norm, the existing power supply is afraid that it is difficult to be competent, and the new ATX 3.0 power supply should be listed this year, if you plan to update the RX 7000 and RTX 40 series graphics card in the future, then you must be prepared to replace the new power supply.