PCIe 4.0 may increase the power delivery specification to 300W

[WYP]

PCIe 4.0 may increase the power delivery specification from 75W to at least 300W, potentially eliminating the need for future GPUs to require external power.



Read more on the PCIe 4.0 specification.

 

[Kushiro]

Wow, gotta say I am curious to see how they will manage this if true.

 

[Norlig]

Wont backwards compatibility with PCI-E 1.0 force them to make GPU's that can only draw 75 watts from the PCI-E ?

 

[Greenback]

Wont backwards compatibility with PCI-E 1.0 force them to make GPU's that can only draw 75 watts from the PCI-E ?

I'd expect the first thing you would see would be GPU's with a switch to pick which method it is to draw power or it will auto detect where the power is coming from, it will be a long time before PCIe 4 becomes the norm once it is released

 

[ImprovizoR]

The less cables I need on the inside the better.

 

[NeverBackDown]

Yeah I'd rather this not happen. Boards are going to increase in costs like crazy. Going to need more than a 24 pin. Don't forget with all that power running through, if the system doesn't safelyshut down, POP it's gone. I'd also expect boards to die quickly and more often

 

[dwatterworth]

That amount of power potential with constantly varying demand could cause a huge amount of interference as well correct?
PCB real estate will suffer to accommodate all those traces or fewer thicker traces.

What exactly would the benefit of more onboard power delivery be?
Low end board pricing could suffer enormously to build up to that level.
Seems like a solution to a problem few deal with in the scope of things?
Makes sense in a commercial/server environment in terms of quick install/removal and less cabling maybe?
Are there that many unused contacts in the PCIe connector itself or will PCIe 4 finally be a new form factor perhaps with the internal capability of installing <PCIe 4 devices for 'legacy' devices?

 

[Kaapstad]

Wont backwards compatibility with PCI-E 1.0 force them to make GPU's that can only draw 75 watts from the PCI-E ?

There is nothing to stop manufacturers producing cards the same as they do now.

If they want power leads on the card it won't make any difference to the board. It just means the card will draw less through the PCI-E slot.

There are plenty of motherboards on the market that can supply a lot more than 75 watts through the PCI-E slot, that does not mean they will unless the card asks for more.

 

[shambles1980]

the pci-e standard voltage variables are quite outdated really, in terms of what can be supplied and what the standards claim is the max.
Still 300w is quite a bump, and im not convinced gpu mfrs would utilize it... however modded bioses and liquid cooled cards would probably benifit a BIT. but id still imagine you would hit a thermal ceiling well before you reached the maximum power output of 300w.
I also dont imagine boards would become Exessivly expensive. in my mind its not much of a change few extra mosfets some extra caps, few resisters and diodes. possibly bulk up a few traces and increase isolation at a few key points. Initial design may be a bit of a head ache, but seems they have already covered that part, so the constituent parts after that really don't add up to much. perhaps 5% extra cost when you also factor in development costs.. But even then a couple of generations in dev costs will have been covered any way, and a few components extra really dont add up to anything when you have boxes full of them..

just seems a rather strange thing to target, as i cant see how it benifits hardware manufacturers, the only immediate benifit i can see is media center builds or things akin to a steam box. where you could have a card with 0 power connections attached and just draw it directly from the board.

On the user side.. I guess you could chose to have 0 pci-e connectors and just use the slot for power to make a nicer looking case. or as i mentioned go all out with all the power you can throw at it and over clock

 

[NeverBackDown]

I think 150 watts would have been a good target. It would cover many cards out there and probably barely change any existing designs. I just think anymore wattage through anything on boards means we are gonna need possibly more than a 24PIN

 

[shambles1980]

That amount of power potential with constantly varying demand could cause a huge amount of interference as well correct?
PCB real estate will suffer to accommodate all those traces or fewer thicker traces.

What exactly would the benefit of more onboard power delivery be?
Low end board pricing could suffer enormously to build up to that level.
Seems like a solution to a problem few deal with in the scope of things?
Makes sense in a commercial/server environment in terms of quick install/removal and less cabling maybe?
Are there that many unused contacts in the PCIe connector itself or will PCIe 4 finally be a new form factor perhaps with the internal capability of installing <PCIe 4 devices for 'legacy' devices?

the way to increase the wattage is to increase the amps voltages stay the same..
lets do it roughly "feel free to correct me im not doing the maths"
so lets assume that right now we are at 12v 6amp that would be 75W.. to get to ~300 we are looking at 24 amps. This would just not be safe over a single pin. so id imagine it would have to be over at-least 4 pins. Im pretty sure the connectors have atleast 5 12v power pins. they also have 3v ones which also add up to the total.. which would lead me to believe that they would probably aim for some Where like a 4-5amp per pin limit. i would also imagine that they would beef up the ground pins. but as far as i know they are all already separated from each other at least initially, Personally id probably do that and have each ground separate in to a smoothing cap Which shouldn't take up much room or add much cost.

now are there power supplies that can provide an excess of 24amps over the motherboard connector? Well they actually do.. 20pin didn't. but the 24pin can do that. and they even have extra power specific for the cpu. so i dont think we would even need an additional power plug on the board. Still. power supplies may start to be reccomended at higer wattages. but the whole system will still be drawing the same power any way so im not convinced anything in that respect will need to be changed.

 

[AlienALX]

Rumour has it they are going to put 8 pin sockets on the board near the memory sockets.

 

[shambles1980]

Rumour has it they are going to put 8 pin sockets on the board near the memory sockets.

i dont see the need for it.. but i guess its a way to sell psu's And its a redundancy for those that buy cheap.

 

[Warchild]

300W through those lanes seems a bit much when you consider the guage of the pci e cables themselves.

As shambles explained, you need to crank up the ampage and that has me skeptical. Toms Hardware did a report of this and there was a discussion claiming they (TH) had misunderstood, thus giving slightly incorrect info in their article.

 

[Dicehunter]

300W through those lanes seems a bit much when you consider the guage of the pci e cables themselves.

As shambles explained, you need to crank up the ampage and that has me skeptical. Toms Hardware did a report of this and there was a discussion claiming they (TH) had misunderstood, thus giving slightly incorrect info in their article.

To be on the safe side I'd much rather use PCI-E power cables, Plus they look good ^_^

 

[dwatterworth]

Yeah, increase the amps...no matter what side of the equation you pick, it's the same amount of work that is needed. You can't just increase amps magically with traces meant for much less. Sure, have a 32, 36 or 40 pin Mobo connector. The power supply will be the same and the draw is the same. Efficiency, as always, will decrease with smaller gauge leads; Unless we migrate to solid gold traces. Sure I'm from the US, but no way in hell am I pushing for some board partner putting out a Trump edition gaming+ 5 board. I'd rather have 6/8 fatties than 2cm wide worth of fine grain traces to supply my juice. It benefits no one other than those that haven't heard of passthrough grommets or cable combs (outside of the vastly more profitable enterprise sector where time cabling is wasted monies).

 

[Warchild]

so yeah, looks like the 300W over PCI E was not true. Maximum slot power will remain 75Watts. The PCI E group reached out to Toms Hardware and corrected their misunderstood information.

its will be 75W from Slot and XXX Watt from supplementary power connectors. The actual value is still underwraps of to be determined.