5 ms·

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

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 increase efficiency given how little 3.3v and 5v is required. The PSU itself is often designed internally as a high efficiency multi-module single rail 12v-only design. Third, Intel is not in a position to dictate anything. Intel has tried to float many changes in the standards (such as the WTX board standard (with matching incompatible mobo plug), and the BTX board standard (using ATX plugs)), and all failed. The only thing that stuck was using 4 and 8 pin PC Minifit Jr plugs (the same ones ATX, PCI-E and countless other plugs come from); and, annoyingly, somehow not compatible with PCI-E's pinout. Fourth, Intel is also not the dominant player in the field now, AMD is. They failed to get major changes through as the dominant player, what makes them think anyone cares to hear what they have to say today? It is unlikely AMD will ever ship machines that don't ship with normal ATX unless they just jettison the ATX24 altogether. Side note: 12v capacity: ATX24 144w, P4 192w, EPS12 336w, PCI-E 6 75w, PCI-E 8 150w, and the PCI-E slot itself 75w. A modern desktop could theoretically be ran off a dual EPS12 and a PCI-E 8+8 for the GPU; modern mobo designs run the CPU and RAM VRMs off the EPS12 entirely, modern GPU designs run the GPU VRMs off of PCI-E plugs and the VRAM VRMs off the PCI-E slot power, very little power of any voltage is supplied to the system via ATX24. Another side note: Any board that has a legitimately clean 5v rail for USB is not feeding it off the PSU directly. Any board that has absolutely garbage USB power probably committed this sin.

tedunangst 7y ago
Not sure I would classify AMD as the dominant player in the field just yet.
sp332 7y ago
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!
- tedunangst 7y ago
  Huh? Is California regulating PSU efficiency or power draw from the wall?
  - wtallis 7y ago
    I don't see how regulating power draw from the wall could work for anything other than idle, because PCs very widely in power requirements and performance. Regulating efficiency makes more sense because it doesn't automatically give low-end machines a pass or ban high-end machines.
    - tedunangst 7y ago
      If this is the regulation I think we're talking about (would help to specify) it is precisely about idle power draw.
chrisseaton 7y ago
> Fourth, Intel is also not the dominant player in the field now, AMD is. This is delusional - AMD’s market share is like 15%.
- roblabla 7y ago
  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-market-share-now-at-18-3-mercury-research https://www.techpowerup.com/263612/amd-desktop-processor-mar...
  - maallooc 7y ago
    > 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.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - milsorgen 7y ago
      Perhaps but I'm not so sure we may see things play out in AMD's favor since they are fabless but Intel remains shackled to ever more costly and difficult fabrication. Either way they did hire Jim Keller and I am excited to see what he can do with their resources and technology.
jacob019 7y ago
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.
- DiabloD3 7y ago
  Generally the ripple is audible on USB-powered audio devices that don't use isolated 5v rails. The ones that don't have audible issues either have their own VRMs on the boards or they have a sufficiently isolated 5v rail but still use PSU power. A good board should not have issues even under extreme cases. Neither solution is particularly more expensive than the other. If I need to maintain voltage without droop under high load, I probably should be looking at legitimate chargers, not something powered off the computer.
jdietrich 7y ago
>First, this already happened to some extent. Fujitsu have been building PCs for a number of years with proprietary 12v-only PSUs, with SATA power being provided from an auxiliary connector on the motherboard.
- DiabloD3 7y ago
  Modularized redundant server PSUs are usually built this way: the modules are 12v only, and dumb as bricks, with the 3.3v and 5v supplied by the PSU's backplane; unfortunately, this leads to server failure because of backplane failure. Some SAS backplanes for cases that fit a bunch of drives sometimes have their own 5v VRMs and take only a standard 12v connector of some sort. Helps when PSUs typically don't supply enough 5v to feed a few dozen drives, but supply more than enough 12v.
- close04 7y ago
  Basically every OEM small PC (everything below SFF from Lenovo, HP, Dell, Fujitsu, etc. which do not accept PCIe extension cards and are pretty much built from laptop parts) is now powered from laptop brick PSUs. Which means everything inside the desktop is derived off of a single 19-20V DC line. SFFs still use internal PSU but they're all custom and while I haven't opened up one recently I'm sure they dropped as many of the rails as possible since they have full control of the MoBo/PSU design. The only PCs that use ATX PSUs are full towers in general.
eyegor 7y ago
> Intel is also not the dominant player in the field now, AMD is. Only dominant in enthusiast land. ~20% of desktop but their server marketshare is still in the 5-10% range, with many analysts estimating below 5%. (Numbers from rumors of Mercury's next report, to be released soon). Likely to blow past Intel after the next hardware cycle. I'd guess 2021-22, since epyc zen2 launched in the end of 2019. Big players plan hardware on a multi year schedule (oem, vps/hosting).
gothroach 7y ago
>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. I'm curious which fans don't use 12v - all the fans I know of in a typical computer operate on 12v except perhaps GPU fans. Occasionally I'll run a fan on 5v if I need it to be quieter and I don't have any PWM headers available, but that's about it.
- DiabloD3 7y ago
  Not quite the answer you're looking for, but: Some systems control fans via voltage (the old way of doing it), instead of modern PWM (which has been the standard for about a decade); and even with PWM, it should be viewed as an average of the voltage instead of merely as the peak voltage during pulses. No matter how you end up controlling your fans, you're not giving them straight unfettered 12v, either you're controlling them via voltage (and they spend most of their time at around 5-7v), or you're controlling them via PWM (with a significantly reduced load cycle). Some ultralight laptops have switched to 5v for their fans, but that does not seem to be any sort of standard. I have not seen a GPU that uses 5v for fans, and by the time GPUs needed big enough fans to have to control the speed on, they were exclusively PWM, and I am not aware of a GPU that used voltage control on it's fan.
russdill 7y ago
As someone who reads a lot of PC specifications in detail, I can assure you, Intel is in an excellent position to dictate PC specifications as it routinely does so both independently and as a very active member of boards that do so.

tedunangst 7y ago

Not sure I would classify AMD as the dominant player in the field just yet.

sp332 7y ago

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!

tedunangst 7y ago
Huh? Is California regulating PSU efficiency or power draw from the wall?
- wtallis 7y ago
  I don't see how regulating power draw from the wall could work for anything other than idle, because PCs very widely in power requirements and performance. Regulating efficiency makes more sense because it doesn't automatically give low-end machines a pass or ban high-end machines.
  - tedunangst 7y ago
    If this is the regulation I think we're talking about (would help to specify) it is precisely about idle power draw.

chrisseaton 7y ago

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

roblabla 7y ago
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-market-share-now-at-18-3-mercury-research https://www.techpowerup.com/263612/amd-desktop-processor-mar...
- maallooc 7y ago
  > 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.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - milsorgen 7y ago
    Perhaps but I'm not so sure we may see things play out in AMD's favor since they are fabless but Intel remains shackled to ever more costly and difficult fabrication. Either way they did hire Jim Keller and I am excited to see what he can do with their resources and technology.

jacob019 7y ago

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.

DiabloD3 7y ago
Generally the ripple is audible on USB-powered audio devices that don't use isolated 5v rails. The ones that don't have audible issues either have their own VRMs on the boards or they have a sufficiently isolated 5v rail but still use PSU power. A good board should not have issues even under extreme cases. Neither solution is particularly more expensive than the other. If I need to maintain voltage without droop under high load, I probably should be looking at legitimate chargers, not something powered off the computer.

jdietrich 7y ago

>First, this already happened to some extent. Fujitsu have been building PCs for a number of years with proprietary 12v-only PSUs, with SATA power being provided from an auxiliary connector on the motherboard.

DiabloD3 7y ago
Modularized redundant server PSUs are usually built this way: the modules are 12v only, and dumb as bricks, with the 3.3v and 5v supplied by the PSU's backplane; unfortunately, this leads to server failure because of backplane failure. Some SAS backplanes for cases that fit a bunch of drives sometimes have their own 5v VRMs and take only a standard 12v connector of some sort. Helps when PSUs typically don't supply enough 5v to feed a few dozen drives, but supply more than enough 12v.
close04 7y ago
Basically every OEM small PC (everything below SFF from Lenovo, HP, Dell, Fujitsu, etc. which do not accept PCIe extension cards and are pretty much built from laptop parts) is now powered from laptop brick PSUs. Which means everything inside the desktop is derived off of a single 19-20V DC line. SFFs still use internal PSU but they're all custom and while I haven't opened up one recently I'm sure they dropped as many of the rails as possible since they have full control of the MoBo/PSU design. The only PCs that use ATX PSUs are full towers in general.

eyegor 7y ago

> Intel is also not the dominant player in the field now, AMD is. Only dominant in enthusiast land. ~20% of desktop but their server marketshare is still in the 5-10% range, with many analysts estimating below 5%. (Numbers from rumors of Mercury's next report, to be released soon). Likely to blow past Intel after the next hardware cycle. I'd guess 2021-22, since epyc zen2 launched in the end of 2019. Big players plan hardware on a multi year schedule (oem, vps/hosting).

gothroach 7y ago

>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. I'm curious which fans don't use 12v - all the fans I know of in a typical computer operate on 12v except perhaps GPU fans. Occasionally I'll run a fan on 5v if I need it to be quieter and I don't have any PWM headers available, but that's about it.

DiabloD3 7y ago
Not quite the answer you're looking for, but: Some systems control fans via voltage (the old way of doing it), instead of modern PWM (which has been the standard for about a decade); and even with PWM, it should be viewed as an average of the voltage instead of merely as the peak voltage during pulses. No matter how you end up controlling your fans, you're not giving them straight unfettered 12v, either you're controlling them via voltage (and they spend most of their time at around 5-7v), or you're controlling them via PWM (with a significantly reduced load cycle). Some ultralight laptops have switched to 5v for their fans, but that does not seem to be any sort of standard. I have not seen a GPU that uses 5v for fans, and by the time GPUs needed big enough fans to have to control the speed on, they were exclusively PWM, and I am not aware of a GPU that used voltage control on it's fan.

russdill 7y ago

As someone who reads a lot of PC specifications in detail, I can assure you, Intel is in an excellent position to dictate PC specifications as it routinely does so both independently and as a very active member of boards that do so.