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GPU PCI-E plugs: Why so many wires needed ??
- Thread starter chaparral
- Start date
Wires have a limitation in the amperage they can support. It's this principle that fuses work on, if the amperage goes above what the piece of wire can handle, it breaks. If you tried to run 25 amps over a single cable, it'd melt.
Associate
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Exactly this, what would you prefer; 6 or 12 small cables or two cables 10mm diameter.. try routing those in your cases!
Soldato
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Not really, look at how many wires a car has to carry around small amounts of power, they run from 12v too....
Molex connector usually take around 10-15A per connection (safely), so many connections are needed with high current applications...
If a GFX card ran from mains voltage, then you'd only need 2 or 3 wires connected to your GFX card, but then your GFX card would need it's own SMPS making it far more expensive.
Catch 22 I guess your could say.
Yes, but that ground wire would need to be pretty fat.
They may be 0v (with respect to themselves), but they do carry the same current that is being passed through the 12v wires.
Look at the thickness of a 0v cable on a car battery. In some cases it may be thicker that the 12v leads, assuming there is more than 1 12 v cable. There may be a cable dedicated to the start motor, then anoth cable to feed auxialliary equipment (I doubt it on a modern vehicle, but the principle is the same).
Caporegime
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- 18 Oct 2002
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The more wires you have, with power being utilised equally as the load will spread out, the less load on a wire the less resistance(IIRC) and the less voltage drop.
The 8 pin cable is for nothing more than an industry standard and safety.
IE when they wanted to push over 160W or so for a GPU they created 8pin pci-e cables and at least reputable PSU makers only put 8pin cables on PSU's that are capable of running a GPU up to 300W or so safely. So the gpu has two extra grounds it can sense are connected and therefore assume the PSU maker has put them on a PSU capable of providing the required power.
Considering PSU efficiency, regulations which are only 5% for atx on the rails but the top manufacturers shoot for 3% and many achieve 1%, this would be more difficult to achieve with higher resistance on less cables.
Its not just the cables though, I would very much imagine it makes life easier for PCB design, more options for routing the power, less ampage on any one trace meaning you get away with thinner traces and less layers, which all add to the cost of a graphics card.
The 8 pin cable is for nothing more than an industry standard and safety.
IE when they wanted to push over 160W or so for a GPU they created 8pin pci-e cables and at least reputable PSU makers only put 8pin cables on PSU's that are capable of running a GPU up to 300W or so safely. So the gpu has two extra grounds it can sense are connected and therefore assume the PSU maker has put them on a PSU capable of providing the required power.
Considering PSU efficiency, regulations which are only 5% for atx on the rails but the top manufacturers shoot for 3% and many achieve 1%, this would be more difficult to achieve with higher resistance on less cables.
Its not just the cables though, I would very much imagine it makes life easier for PCB design, more options for routing the power, less ampage on any one trace meaning you get away with thinner traces and less layers, which all add to the cost of a graphics card.
Soldato
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- 4 Jan 2004
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They're not 0A.