BeQuiet! 12VHPWR
Current ATX (2.x standard) power supplies are quite unprepared, at least for the RTX 4090 graphics card. Connecting it to them is only possible via an adapter, and a rather awkward one – with a big tangle of wires. As an alternative, BeQuiet! has released its solution, the 12VHPWR adapter. In its essence, it is a fork (with two 12-pins) that will work with the upcoming ATX 3.0 power supply standard.
We’re already familiar with the new 12-pin PCIe connector for powering Ampere graphics cards from the last generation, but now that the GeForce RTX 4090 has been released, it’s even hotter, literally. Higher power draw means higher demands on the connector itself. The number of pins through which high current flows is still the same, but it’s no longer a 12-pin connector, but actually a 16-pin one (four signal pins have been added).
In this form, the connector will also be standardized within ATX 3.0. But the question of the day is how to most elegantly power these graphics cards with ATX 2.x power supplies, which have only traditional 6+2-pin PCI Express connectors. With the RTX 4090, and in fact with all GeForce graphics cards (the RTX 4080 will be the closest), comes an adapter where there is a 12+4-pin on one side (the graphics card side) and a quartet of “traditional” 6+2-pin connectors on the other side. However, this adapter may not only branch to 8-pins, but also to two 12-pins, which will be especially useful for ATX 3.0 standard power supplies.
BeQuiet! already offers such a fork. But why is the 12-pin branched into two 12-pins? For a fairly simple reason. The 12+4-pin on the graphics card is built for 600 W, but the current load of conventional, 12-pin cables is lower. This is mainly due to the smaller cross-section of the wires, which is also evident from the illustration photo.
The wires on the side of the connector that connects to the graphics card are significantly thicker than those crimped to the connectors to the power supply. The smaller cross-section does not only mean higher temperature (this is relatively unimportant), but mainly a greater voltage drop that occurs on the cable. The larger the overall cross-section, the smaller the voltage drop for the same length of conductors.
The design of BeQuiet! with single 12-pin branching is advantageous in that you can just connect smaller cross-section cables from the power supply to it. With the cross-section that is commonly used. This avoids instability that would occur due to undersized cross-section of wires (with too high voltage drop). This would manifest itself in system crashes into a black screen. However, the BeQuiet! Y-adaper – 12VHPWR – does not have this bottleneck, the cross-section is enough to handle 600 W. But we don’t know the cross-sections of the wires used according to AWG.
In connection with the RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 graphics cards, BeQuiet! also disclosed which of the current power supplies are supported. From the Dark Power Pro 12 range, it’s both (the weaker variant there has 1200 W, the more powerful 1500 W), and for models from the other ranges(Dark Power 12, Straight Power 11 and Pure Power 11) the minimum recommended capacity is according to the specific graphics card.
For the RTX 4080, BeQuiet! recommends a power supply with at least 750 W, for RTX 4090 the minimum should be no less than 850 W. Although the power draw of graphics cards is lower, naturally the power for the processor is also taken into account, and some consideration is obviously given to achieving higher power supply efficiency.
BeQuiet! also announced that the first ATX 3.0 power supplies (Dark Power Pro 13) will be released early next year. And we still owe you the recommended retail price for the adapter 12VHPWR, which is 20 EUR.
English translation and edit by Jozef Dudáš
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- BeQuiet! 12VHPWR
