So you know what a pain it is to try and get that thick, bulky 24-pin ATX motherboard connector
up through the cable management grommets into your case and then shove it into the motherboard
itself trying to keep all the little pins lined up and not snap the board in half. Well this is
just one issue the new ATX12VO standard is aiming to solve. Instead of that annoying 24-pin connector
the aim is to replace it with a much more manageable 10-pin cable. I mean 10 pins is good
enough for bowling so why not for motherboards? Hey! Oh! All right strike that from the record.
You like the bowling joke so I got spares. Anyway let's dive in a little deeper into what this
all might mean for your next PC build. On modern platforms nearly everything on a motherboard
uses power off of the 12 volt rail of the power supply. That is the incoming power is 12 volts
which is then further stepped down to be suitable for whichever component needs the juice. CPUs
typically use fewer than 1.5 volts for example. However traditional ATX power supplies not only
have a 12 volt rail but they also have 5 and 3.3 volt rails. This is the reason why the ATX
connector has so many pins but there aren't many components on the board that still use the 5 and
3.3 volt rails so why keep them around? Hence the mere 10 pins you'll find on the 12 volt only
ATX 12 VO standard. If only having a 12-foot output is good enough for most components why bother
having a larger connector? Additionally not having full on 5 and 3.5 volt rails coming off the power
supply should make it more energy efficient especially at idle and ultimately be a little
easier on both your power bill and the environment especially as government regulators around the
world have been demanding more and more power efficient electronics. And because the PSUs won't
need as many electronics inside them since they're only outputting a single rail they might even be
less bulky. So great let's start sticking ATX 12 VO equipment inside all of our rigs. Well hold on
a second there are some drawbacks on doing things this way. For starters one very important standard
still uses 5 volts SATA. If you're using a typical ATX power supply you can just connect a SATA cable
from the PSU directly to your drive and the power supply will provide the appropriate voltage. However
an ATX 12 VO power supply is incapable of doing this so instead SATA power connectors will need to
be moved to the motherboard itself which will take care of the voltage conversion potentially
making things a little more complicated and messy when it comes time to build your system. Additionally
that little 10 pin connector may not be able to provide enough power if you're using in a higher end
rig. One early ATX 12 VO motherboard we've seen actually has an additional 6 pin connector
which can double the juice but now you're having to plug in 16 pins instead of just 10. It still beats
dealing with a single bulky 24 pin brick but it does negate the space savings somewhat. And you'll
still need the typical PCI Express and 8 pin CPU connectors too so while it should make tinkering
with your PC a little easier don't expect the ATX 12 VO standard to be something that totally
revolutionizes the DIY computer scene. But if the 24 pin connector is the absolute bane of your
existence when will you actually be able to get your hands on an ATX 12 VO power supply and motherboard?
Well right now they're mostly being provided to larger OEMs that sell pre-built PCs and it's
unclear if the new standard will even take off at all in the enthusiast space. The power supply
manufacturers are reportedly reluctant to switch over to ATX 12 VO though there are also reports
indicating that Intel might make the specification mandatory on motherboards for its upcoming
Alder Lake processors so we'll just have to wait and see if it has staying power.
I'm just waiting for the day where we can power everything with a single cable
kind of like I try to do that year with my Christmas lights. So thanks for watching guys if
you liked this video hit like hit subscribe and hit us up down in the comments section
with your ideas for topics that we should cover in the future.