PC World - USA (2020-04)

APRIL 2020 PCWorld 103

but supply and demand are stuck in what one
vendor called “playing chicken.” PSU vendors
don’t want to release ATX12VO products for
DIY builders until there are motherboards that
support ATX12VO. Motherboard vendors
don’t want to create products until power
supply makers support them.

WHAT MIGHT A FUTURE
BUILD LOOK LIKE WITH
AT X12VO?
We still don’t know what an ATX12VO
motherboard will look like or what it will cost.
The board itself is likely to be a little beefier, as
the 3.3-volt and 5-volt power conversion will be
handled by modules on it. From reading the
spec and talking to vendors, however, a future
DIY build with ATX12VO would likely be similar
to today’s builds.

Your ATX12VO Main Power

Connector would be far smaller,

and the cable would be more

flexible. If the board has enough

power from the single connector,

the board maker may not even

require you to plug in the

auxiliary 8-pin power connector.

The spec does allow for auxiliary

12-volt power through the

EPS12V connector.

One tricky part could be

hooking up any SATA-powered

drives, such as hard drives or

2.5-inch SSDs. Today, you’d plug

those directly into the PSU. On an ATX12VO

build, you’d first plug a power cable into the

motherboard and then into the drive. The

spec allows for up to six power connectors,

but it’s up to the motherboard vendor to

determine how many power connectors there

are. These same SATA power connectors

would be used to power up your drives as

well as your AIO/CLC cooler or RGB LEDs.

If you want to plug in an old-school Molex

connector, the new spec allows PSU vendors

to offer that directly from the PSU, but only

with 12 volts, of course. If you’re hooking a

really old 5-volt Molex device, you’ll need to

get that from the motherboard power using a

SATA-to-Molex connector.

For a DIYer, it really won’t be that different.

The real question is how it’ll work with

motherboards and PSUs.

Apple’s Mac Pro tower routed power for the GPUs through the
motherboard. A similar system will exist in ATX12VO—but only
for SATA power connectors.