ATX12VO
ATX12VO is a power supply standard set by Intel in July 2019 which differs from regular ATX power supplies in two key ways: a) The ATX motherboard connector is 10-pin and b) The PSU does not have any 3.3V or 5V rails, only +12 V and 12 VSB rails are present.
Intel will likely have partners ship motherboards with 10-pin motherboard power connectors for ATX12VO power supplies sometime in 2020.
The Standard[edit]
ATX12VO stands for ATX 12V Only. The standard specifies a computer PSU with a single 12V rail.
Connectors[edit]
- 10-pin motherboard connector. 18 AWG wires are recommended.
- 6-pin "extra" motherboard connector.
- +12V 4-pin CPU power connector
- +12V 8-pin CPU power connector
- PCI-Express 6 and/or 8 pin connector
- Peripheral Connector, old-school Molex connector with only pin 1 and 2 populated
ATX12VO power supplies will not have SATA power connectors.
The standard documentation states that devices that require 12V and 5V such as storage devices should get power from the motherboard and not the PSU. Power cables and motherboard connectors for power should, according to the standard, be black "to easily identify that power is coming out of the power". Page 36 in the standards document[1] details how SATA power output connectors should be on motherboards designed to use ATX12VO power supplies. Motherboards are also responsible to create 5V current for USB devices.
Features[edit]
The ATX12VO standard[1] recommends, but does not mandate, that power supplies have some kind of Catastrophic Failure Protection.
Form Factors[edit]
The standard mentions 6 different sizes for ATX12VO power supplies:
- ATX 12V
- CFX 12V
- LFX 12V
- SFX 12V
- TFX 12V
- Flex ATX
None of these standards are new so existing computer cases should fit these power supplies just fine.
Practical Differences[edit]
A motherboard made for the ATX12VO standard with 4 SATA connectors would have 4 SATA power connectors and nothing more. Adding a RAID card or a common SATA controller card would not be an option.
Using a 10-pin connector instead of a 24-pin connector would have a practical advantage on some mATX and ITX motherboards since the connector takes up less space. Some, or all, of that space will be taken by the extra circuitry required to do 12V to 5V/3.3V conversion on the motherboard. The PSU boards doing that are quite large so it is fair to assume that a large chunk of compliant motherboards would have to be dedicated to such circuitry.
Availability / Popularity[edit]
A few ATX12VO powersupplies were shown as CES 2020. There are no consumer motherboards with the new 10-pin connector available as of March 2021.
ATX12VO could become a common standard. It could also become nothing - like the Intel BTX standard.
Footnotes[edit]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 intel.com: Single Rail Power Supply Desktop Platform Form Factors ATX12VO (12 V Only) (pdf)
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