The good point is to separate the 12V it make the board more stable this way (it's also a mod that some do for extreme OC... So it work)... The so/so point is: ahmmm do we really need that on mainstream segment? i would said No, but future will tell us

Cool, i bought a brand new Seasonic Prime PX 850 last year... Guess i'll have to buy 10th or 11th Gen after all.

rl66:

The good point is to separate the 12V it make the board more stable this way

Theres absolutely no point to it, psu's in the last 10 years are already doing DC-DC conversion for super efficiency, this is just putting it in a location where it can be used to justify doubling mainboard costs.

TheDeeGee:

Cool, i bought a brand new Seasonic Prime PX 850 last year... Guess i'll have to buy 10th or 11th Gen after all.

You think that's bad i just bought a MSI 850W PSU less than a month a go because my last one Cooler master silent 850w which was like 13 years old tb was not longer delivering enough current to the GPU and had major stability issues when playing anything that put heavy load on the GPU.

Astyanax:

Theres absolutely no point to it, psu's in the last 10 years are already doing DC-DC conversion for super efficiency, this is just putting it in a location where it can be used to justify doubling mainboard costs.

This is what I'm scared of and I guarantee PSU prices will not drop to compensate.

So we go from 1 connector to 4? I don't like this at all, I prefer all the power conversion to be done at the PSU and have the motherboard have a simple layout. But this is Intel, if they want to push this forward, we will have to eat it as is.

In industrial this kind of board and PSU are already standard since years (12V and 24V are standard since many decade... it help) On other hand most Intel "better" innovation fail: BTX and mBTX layout, the small size 24 pins PSU socket on board...

Astyanax:

Theres absolutely no point to it, psu's in the last 10 years are already doing DC-DC conversion for super efficiency, this is just putting it in a location where it can be used to justify doubling mainboard costs.

A PSU with single type of voltage output IS more reliable than those we have right now and we change motherboard more often than PSU, so it might be cool thing for main market. (if you want to test on "normal" motherboard, there is kit to use conventional ATX board with a single v industrial PSU, you will get almost the same result, but it look awfull and don't have PCIe 6 or 8 pins).

So we are going to need a new PSU if we want Alder Lake CPUs?... If that´s the case i hope AMD doesn´t copy Intel on this one...

12VO isn't a bad standard. You all might be praising PSU manufacturers for already having super high efficiency and already doing DC to DC conversion. But 12VO blows idle power use out of the water compared to 24 pin ATX. A fully on system and running while idle (not in hibernate or standby, but ready at desktop) with a 10900k only takes about 10-15 watts at the wall. A standard PSU may do this at 30-50 or more watts. Linus already did a video on this. As far as the guy saying "well its more wires going to the board now, this is bad". No. You have a smaller, more easily routable wire going to the motherboard, easier to connect. And you have SATA power connectors for connecting SATA power coming OUT of the motherboard into SATA (or SATA powered) devices. If you don't use SATA powered (or molex powered if you use an adapter) device, you just dont plug in those wires. Yes it sucks that modern PSU's with 8-15 year warranties will be out-moded by 12VO. It's extremely likely that PSU manufacturers of those long warranty PSU's will provide adapter kits at a small cost, like nvidia's new microfit connector which is also a good connector, which will turn their ATX 24-pin plus whatever modular connectors into something that is ATX12VO compliant. It won't be as efficient as true ATX12VO but you will be able to continue using your ATX12V in 12VO hardware. The current connectors and electrical specifications are coming from a 30+ year old standard. It's time to move on to something better.

what about all sata/molex powered devices which require 5V to run ?!?

Silva:

So we go from 1 connector to 4?

2 cables are inputs and the 2 others are sata outputs, because the sata power is now made by the motherboard. Just like my old Asrock AM1 board, 12volt laptop power brick input and 5v sata power out. The 5 volt power supply on the board died though, so i am glad it also had normal 24pin ATX power input. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This change will not be a all or nothing thing, unless Intel pays off a lot of motherboard makers to force this. Performance ITX boards are probably not going to get this in first generation because of space requirements. This will take more then a year to implement and a setup like a 12 or 13 series Intel should last a couple of years anyway, so a new PSU bought today, would still be usable for the next 4 years at least. By that time you need a new motherboard anyway. Well AMD is still an option for a "obsolete" ATX PSU.

While I'm generally for the design I don't like the added e-waste since motherboards (and thus the additional power components) are replaced more often than PSUs. My biggest concern would, however, be that it's no longer good enough to get a good quality PSU to guarantee good power delivery. It's now another differentiator for the motherboards as well and I'd expect the cheaper ones, or even the reasonably cheap ones, to skimp out and mess this up as badly as cheap/trash PSUs do.

Raider0001:

what about all sata/molex powered devices which require 5V to run ?!?

and argb controllers im not fond of this,you can upgrade your platform twice and still be fine for 10+ years with a quality psu and boards cost an arm and a leg already

rl66:

A PSU with single type of voltage output IS more reliable than those we have right now and we change motherboard more often than PSU, so it might be cool thing for main market.

Wrong on both accounts.

Raider0001:

what about all sata/molex powered devices which require 5V to run ?!?

It's provided by motherboard... At least if they follow the industrial equivalent.

Astyanax:

Wrong on both accounts.

When you see that some were made in the early 80' and are enough stable to be used (my ex job)... i don't know what you need.

The power rating of PSU will be much clearer with single output value. so no more 500 watt PSUs that are only able to output 29 Amps on 12 Volts. plus those vacant space left by DDR5 integrated VR should be enough to be used to place VR to output the reduced voltage of 5v and 3.3v.

It seems Alder Lake will also have a lower overall height and different hole layout for coolers. Shouldn't be an issue for the premium brands, but cheaper cooler brands may never see a new mounting kit. Glad i'm using Noctua. Due to the way they designed their coolers a new mounting kit is all they have to make. And i believe all high end Noctua coolers have a 45x45mm coldplate as well, so that's not a concern either.