News A wild ATX12VO motherboard appears

ASRock Z490 Phantom Gaming 4SR First ATX12VO Motherboard in the DIY-channel

The winds of change are beginning. The ATX12VO PC power-supply standard, earlier thought to be an OEM-mainstay with later introduction in the DIY retail channel, has already reached it. The ASRock Z490 Phantom Gaming 4SR is the first board. Gone is the 24-pin ATX power connector, a smaller 5-pin...

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VIVA LA REVOLUCIÓN !
(of the 10-pin replacing 24-pin)

Though it compensates by having an additional 6-pin PCIe power header... The smaller 4-pin headers read SATA_PWR_CON1 and 2.
Now, bring it to SFF please ! Thanks ASRock again for being the first with SFF-friendly features in the mainstream market !

 

[smitty2k1]

As Choidebu wrote, the 8-pin EPS is for CPUs. ATX12VO is a motherboard/PSU specification and doesn't deal with CPUs. If we want lower CPU draw, that's an Intel/AMD issue. Most motherboards stay with the 8-pin and will continue to because today the mainstream CPU sockets must 10C/20T CPUs (a net win, IMO).

Interestingly, while 3.3V and 5V are still required, mITX will be the biggest beneficiary because of only one PCIe slot: by the PCIe specification, each PCIe slot must supply 3A of 3.3V (9.9 W). So, an average ATX motherboard with ~5 slots will still need to supply 49.5 watts of 3.3V under the new ATX12VO. mITX gets away with just 9.9 W!

Likewise, Anandtech is quoting the upper bound of the 10-pin connector; it actually ranges 216 W (6A) to 288 W (8A). So, where does all the power go? The motherboard's internal consumption is relatively very low (i.e,. the Z490 chipset die has a tiny 6 W TDP); it's the external device power requirements that make a ~200 W "quota" disappear pretty quickly.

• all PCIe slots (66 W from 12V & 9.5 W from 3.3V)
• all the rear IO logic & power output (e.g., each USB 3.0 port requires a minimum 4.5 W)
• all the fans (e.g., each fan header is 12 W to 24 W)
• nominally one to two SATA devices (e.g., I estimate 5 to 10 W is reserved per SATA port)

A typical mITX motherboard with two SATA ports (7.5 W avg), six USB 3.0 ports internally and externally (4.5 W), one PCIe slot (75 W), and two fan headers (15 W avg) = a standard 10-pin ATX12VO mini-ITX needs to reserve 147 watts minimum just for external devices you might connect. CPUs will need much more.

Add in M.2 slots (5 to 10 W), AIO-pump fan headers (18 to 24 W), any Thunderbolt 3 ports (15 W minimum), an RGB LED header (15 W to 36 W), etc. = the 10-pin is as small as they can go. FWIW, any good motherboard manual will spell out its power output reservations, i.e., see this ASRock Z390 motherboard.

Overall, ATX12VO is a major positive change, relative to the snail's pace of ATX development over the past 25 years (ATX was introduced in 1995).

Thanks - this is the breakdown I was looking for. I'm really surprised by the power draw of fans and USB ports. I suppose most won't use them all at full draw simultaneously, but a specification must account for it. After all, my 65W CPU (2400g), 75W GPU (GTX 1650), SSD, a couple fans, and a few USB devices happily hum along pulling power from a 160W plug in unit (PicoPSU).

Can't wait for the first mITX board to pop up and to see what folks like PicoPSU, HDPlex, and J-Hack can do to compensate for fewer pins for plug in units

 

[ermac318]

Can't wait for the first mITX board to pop up and to see what folks like PicoPSU, HDPlex, and J-Hack can do to compensate for fewer pins for plug in units

In theory, I think one should be able to basically plug something like a Meanwell unit directly in, maybe with a tiny little board to handle certain things like the 12vsb.

 

[Vlad502]

Looks like AsrockRack Mini ITX board X570D4I-2T also use ATX12VO power supply

Power Connector​

- 8pin(DC-IN)+4pin(ATX)+4pin(HDD PWR)

 

[ermac318]

Looks like AsrockRack Mini ITX board X570D4I-2T also use ATX12VO power supply

Negative - what AsRockRack supports is an EPS connector with an optional 4-pin to 24-pin adapter. If you use a PSU like a Meanwell RPS or a Dell DA-2 that outputs 12V, you can adapt it to an EPS connector and plug straight into the mobo. This is distinct from the ATX12VO, used in a lot of SFF server boards (Supermicro has done the same thing for 5+ years). You can see a build that fabio did in the Pure case thread. This is very similar to what you could do in the future with ATX12VO, but this is not the same standard.