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Intel is changing the future of power supplies with its ATX12VO spec

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Re: Intel is changing the future of power supplies with its ATX12VO spec

#61

Post by jacob019 »

DiabloD3 wrote: post #27

Four important things to consider: First, this already happened to some extent. Outside of drives and fans, the virtually all of the power used in your system is exclusively 12v; either from the 12v pins on your ATX24 or P4 or EPS12 connectors, or via the PCI-E connectors; very little non-drive or non-fan power is supplied via 3.3 or 5v rails. Second, almost all PSUs today use 12v DC to 3.3/5v DC converters to increa…

Based on my experience selling USB 3.0 PCIe cards, the ones that supply 5.0V directly off the PSU are more likely to maintain voltage at higher currents than ones with an on-board buck circuit. And it's one less part that can fail. I have not seen much in the way of stability issues either. The 5V from the PSU is clean enough and voltage drop is minimal at these currents over the standard 18 AWG PSU wires.

Re: Intel is changing the future of power supplies with its ATX12VO spec

#62

Post by tedunangst »

sp332 wrote: post #56
DiabloD3 wrote: post #27

Four important things to consider: First, this already happened to some extent. Outside of drives and fans, the virtually all of the power used in your system is exclusively 12v; either from the 12v pins on your ATX24 or P4 or EPS12 connectors, or via the PCI-E connectors; very little non-drive or non-fan power is supplied via 3.3 or 5v rails. Second, almost all PSUs today use 12v DC to 3.3/5v DC converters to increa…

Yeah, this is just rearranging some things to avoid California's new efficiency regulations. If you move the inefficent stuff to the motherboard, the PSU magically gets more efficient!

Huh? Is California regulating PSU efficiency or power draw from the wall?

Re: Intel is changing the future of power supplies with its ATX12VO spec

#63

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

I love computers with 12VDC native power jacks. Why? My solar-powered van (interior only, the engine is still diesel) is 12VDC everywhere, and that's good clean battery DC, not some noisy-ass AC/DC conversion.

I love it so much that 2 of the last 3 computers I built (on an ATX form factor) were 12VDC native. I have external AC/DC power supplies for them, but when travelling/living in a solar-powered environment, I get to just plug them straight into the clean juice.

Sadly, monitors used to be this way too - they came with external power bricks and were 12VDC native. But sometime in the mid-2000's, something changed. My guess is that someone figured out how to shrink the necessary converters to a size that made it more "sensible" to put them inside the monitor. Result: almost impossible now to find a monitor you connect to a 12VDC supply. The one I have in the van took me months to find on ebay back in 2015. The only exception are "TV" monitors specifically made for RVs, which is great and all, except that most of them are crap compared to a modern monitor.

One small problem with plugging 12VDC native computers into a solar system: it's not atypical for the solar charge controller to drive the charge voltage over 14V, at which point most internal "PSUs" designed for 12V will shutdown. You need a voltage regulator between you and the battery-terminal voltage.

Re: Intel is changing the future of power supplies with its ATX12VO spec

#64

Post by jacob019 »

vifya wrote: post #53

It was bound to happen eventually, there has been a long trend towards point-of-use regulation displacing multiple output supplies. I'm just surprised they went with 12V, and not 19V which has lower rectification losses, less power loss to wire/trace resistance, and a large existing design ecosystem from laptops where 19V has been the norm for years.

Or 24V or 36V, but alas 12V is the existing standard for legacy reasons so it's the path of least resistance for an overhaul of the PSU spec.

Re: Intel is changing the future of power supplies with its ATX12VO spec

#65

Post by Gibbon1 »

hinkley wrote: post #46
loeg wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10-gauge is rated for 30A, though that's 3.6mm.

And it looks like 2mm and rated for 15A, and 1mm for 10A. (I thought DC current used the volume of the wire and AC the surface area, so I'm a bit surprised that wire ratings don't distinguish AC and DC. Though I suppose heat dissipation is determined by the surface area so perhaps that makes sense.)

Skin effect becomes an issue for high frequencies. But is nil at low frequencies.

I used an calculator and got 8416.7115um for 60hz. Which is 8.4mm. So not an issue for power wiring under 0000.

Re: Intel is changing the future of power supplies with its ATX12VO spec

#66

Post by thehobgoblin »

vifya wrote: post #53

It was bound to happen eventually, there has been a long trend towards point-of-use regulation displacing multiple output supplies. I'm just surprised they went with 12V, and not 19V which has lower rectification losses, less power loss to wire/trace resistance, and a large existing design ecosystem from laptops where 19V has been the norm for years.

To me it seems like the ATX12VO specification is more of an endorsement of the direction PC power supplies seem to be moving in rather than a from-scratch redesign. It would be nice to have higher voltage (19V, 24V or perhaps higher) for a single voltage supply, but it would be a far bigger change to the overall PC ecosystem.

Re: Intel is changing the future of power supplies with its ATX12VO spec

#67

Post by roblabla »

chrisseaton wrote: post #60
DiabloD3 wrote: post #27

Four important things to consider: First, this already happened to some extent. Outside of drives and fans, the virtually all of the power used in your system is exclusively 12v; either from the 12v pins on your ATX24 or P4 or EPS12 connectors, or via the PCI-E connectors; very little non-drive or non-fan power is supplied via 3.3 or 5v rails. Second, almost all PSUs today use 12v DC to 3.3/5v DC converters to increa…

> Fourth, Intel is also not the dominant player in the field now, AMD is. This is delusional - AMD’s market share is like 15%.

I agree it's delusional, but to give some hard data, Mercury Research published its quarterly findings on x86 market share as of Q4 2019[0]. Specifically:

- On the server side, AMD market share is only 4.5% (up by 1.4 percentage point from last year)

- For desktop, market share is 18.3%, up by 2.4 pp from last year.

- For laptop, market share is 16.2%, up by 4.0 pp from last year.

- For overall x86 chips, market share is 15.5%, up by 3.2 pp from last year.

So it's pretty clear that AMD isn't quite leading the market, although there is an overall upward trend in market share, and the rate at which AMD is gaining market share seems to be on the rise. Maybe in 4-5 years, AMD will be the dominant player. But it's still too early to call them this.

[0]: https://www.techpowerup.com/263612/amd-desktop-processor-mar...

Re: Intel is changing the future of power supplies with its ATX12VO spec

#68

Post by jabl »

Animats wrote: post #48

Makes sense. Should have happened long ago. All those old voltages date from when +5 from the power supply was used directly by the logic. Facebook's Open Compute rack delivers only +12 to the boards and drives, and that's from 2011. There's a power supply in the base of the rack that takes in three-phase AC or 48 VDC or whatever and puts out +12VDC. All other conversion is on the board. This is just catching up desk…

I recall Google mentioned something similar in some old explanation about their server designs.

Re: Intel is changing the future of power supplies with its ATX12VO spec

#69

Post by NoSorryCannot »

dannyw wrote: post #37
michaelt wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most desktop users would probably prefer a UPS that also ensured their monitor stayed on.

If your goal is to game or work during a power outage, sure. If your goal is just to protect your data from sudden termination, then having a PSU with a built in UPS is quite nice.

Being able to power any external device (like a hard drive) or to be able to cleanly exit from whatever you're working on if you happen to be present (with a monitor) are both pursuant to these goals.

The average PC or workstation isn't configured for a clean exit just because the UPS said it's time.

Bridging momentary outages is also useful where that's common, disregarding data loss.

Re: Intel is changing the future of power supplies with its ATX12VO spec

#70

Post by maallooc »

roblabla wrote: post #67
chrisseaton wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fourth, Intel is also not the dominant player in the field now, AMD is. This is delusional - AMD’s market share is like 15%.

I agree it's delusional, but to give some hard data, Mercury Research published its quarterly findings on x86 market share as of Q4 2019[0]. Specifically: - On the server side, AMD market share is only 4.5% (up by 1.4 percentage point from last year) - For desktop, market share is 18.3%, up by 2.4 pp from last year. - For laptop, market share is 16.2%, up by 4.0 pp from last year. - For overall x86 chips, market shar…

> Maybe in 4-5 years, AMD will be the dominant player. But it's still too early to call them this.

Highly unlikely. This is AMD's prime time because Intel screwed up, and they've peaked at 15%. I predict Intel to gain the pace in a few years and dominate the market once again.

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