MSI has unveiled its upcoming X870 and X870E motherboard vary at Gamescom 2024. Cowcotland visited MSI’s sales space and observed an attention-grabbing addition to those boards. It appears all of them featured an 8-pin PCIe energy connector positioned on the backside of the boards. However why, you would possibly ask?
Cowcotland experiences these connectors are included to deal with the calls for of subsequent technology Nvidia and AMD graphics playing cards. That signifies a few of these playing cards are prone to eat severe quantities of energy. Assuming such playing cards are a matter of months away from seeing the sunshine of day, MSI is probably going already conscious of not less than the fundamental necessities of such playing cards.
Secondary energy connectors will not be a brand new function. They are usually discovered on high-end or overclocking-focused motherboards. Their objective is to supply further juice to high-power graphics playing cards, however seeing them included on extra mainstream choices is attention-grabbing certainly.
A typical PCIe x16 slot can present as much as 75W of energy. For those who add one other 150W from an 8-pin connector, you are taking a look at 225W from the motherboard alone. Now in case you add as much as 600W from a 12V-2×6 or 12VHPWR connector, the mathematics suggests 800W or extra is feasible.
In fact, that may solely apply to flagship tier playing cards like an RTX 5090, however then its additionally attainable to put in a pair of much less demanding playing cards for issues like productiveness or AI workloads, and that is a situation the place the 8-pin connector can be helpful. Having a pair of playing cards pulling 150W from two PCIe slots alone would put plenty of pressure on the motherboard, so a little bit of backup energy is smart.
Nonetheless, it looks like the facility consumption and TDPs of flagship graphics card are nonetheless rising. A card just like the RTX 4090 pulls as much as 450W, or increased for overclocked fashions. I might put a guess on the truth that Nvidia’s subsequent gen monster is not going to are available in decrease than that. A 500W+ TDP for the standard RTX 5090 is a particular risk if historical past is any indicator.
Different producers will not be together with 8-pin connectors throughout their ranges, although fanatic boards just like the Asus Crosshair X870E Hero does embrace one. Is MSI simply being cautious, or will subsequent gen GPUs really want such headroom? It’s going to be attention-grabbing to see if extra boards will embrace the extra connector, significantly when Intel’s Z890 boards formally break cowl within the weeks forward.
