Items tagged with Power
If you're reading this site, you probably are well familiar with the controversy over the 12VHPWR connector used on NVIDIA's recent graphics cards. This connector is a smaller-scale twelve-pin plug that can provide up to 600 watts of power over a single, smaller bundle of wires compared to the old-school 8- and 6-pin...
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When AMD was first announcing the RDNA 3 architecture around the release of its Radeon RX 7900 XT and XTX graphics cards, the watchword for the new design was "power efficiency". AMD endlessly emphasized that efficiency was the end goal for its new architecture, and promised huge efficiency gains out of RDNA...
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Building PCs is pretty easy, but it's not without its challenges. Many enthusiasts will tell you that the most tedious part of putting a PC together is one of the last: hooking up the power supply cables. By necessity, power connectors are kind of large and unwieldy, and they can not only be a pain to route, but also...
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One criticism that some folks have had about AMD's RDNA 3-based Radeon RX 7000-series graphics cards is one of relatively-high idle power usage, on the order of 100 watts. We didn't observe this in our testing, but some users have continued to complain of high idle power draw from their fancy new RX 7900 XTX cards...
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Whether you think that the spate of melted 12VHPWR connectors was the fault of users (for not plugging it in all the way) or the fault of the connector's design, it's clear that it was a fairly unique situation to that connector. In that case, the connector probably needs revision, as having people fry components due...
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In late 2008, your author built a killer SFF PC using a Shuttle XPC case. Inside was a Core 2 Extreme QX9650, 16 GB of DDR3 memory, an Intel X25-M SSD, and a GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 graphics card. Unfortunately, he had to spend a couple of hours modifying the case to fit the big fat GeForce card—not because of the...
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Intel’s T-series Raptor Lake processors have finally made it to retail, in Germany at least. German PC-centric retailer CaseKing has listed stocks of the full range of (relatively) power-thrifty desktop RPL CPUs. To tune the processors down to 35W, Intel has typically drastically cut both base and boost clocks, but...
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Some of the first images of an actual NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti graphics card have been shared online. Video card-centric tech site VideoCardz has today shared purported images of what appears to be a Gigabyte Aero GeForce RTX 4070 Ti. In addition to images of the white triple fan cooling shroud from the front and...
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One of the noteworthy takeaways from AMD's announcement of the Navi 31-based Radeon RX 7900 XTX was its lower power spec (355W) relative to NVIDIA's power-thirsty GeForce RTX 4090. Of course, it's not expected to be as fast as NVIDIA's card either, and in any case, we didn't see the RTX 4090 hit its rated power under...
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ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) has launched its all-new Strix Gold Aura Edition series PSUs. These fully modular PC power supplies are the most premium that ASUS offers, sporting specs such as; a native 16-pin PCI Express power connector, ATX 3.0 compatibility, improved cooling, weighty heatsinks, 0dB modes, and...
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In case you haven't heard, NVIDIA's recent high-end GPUs are using a new connector, known as "12VHPWR". That's "twelve-volt high power" in ATX-spec-speak, and it's a small plug with twelve pins that can supply up to 600 watts of power for thirsty graphics cards. The GeForce RTX 4090 includes an adapter that converts...
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Back when we were hearing rumors about the GeForce RTX 4090's monstrous power draw, there were fears that the humongous current demands of the massive graphics processor could trip breakers or even start fires. These fears were amplified when Zotac warned of the concerning fragility of the 12VHPWR connector. Now...
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There wasn't a lot of chatter about this when the reviews went up, but Intel's Arc graphics cards suffer from relatively high power draw for their performance. That's true not only under load, but also when idle. While even the monstrous GeForce RTX 4090 will drop down to less than 25 watts at idle, the Arc A770 can...
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Zotac shared the full tech specs of its recently launched GeForce RTX 4090 AMP Extreme AIRO graphics card in the wake of NVIDIA’s barnstorming GeForce Beyond announcements. Not all of NVIDIA’s Ada Lovelace GPU partners have been so revealing, but an eyebrow raising nugget of information about the bundled power cable...
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Have you heard the rumors about how hot and power-thirsty next-generation GPUs are going to be? Of course you have, because we've been covering all of those rumors and leaks for months. This story isn't about that. Instead, we're going to talk about the latest rumor, which claims that the reference design for NVIDIA's...
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Way back at the beginning of last month, Intel finalized the 3.0 version of the ATX12V specification. This revision, as you'd expect from a full-number version, brings significant changes to standard PC power supplies going forward, and the most critical sections have to do with the "12VHPWR" connector that we've...
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Lockheed Martin Claims Breakthrough In Fusion Reactor But Scant Details Imply More Sizzle Than Steak
Yesterday, Lockheed Martin made major headlines across the Internet with claims that it was developing a new compact fusion reactor that could be deployed within the next decade. This is a bold claim -- researchers have been able to create fusion in a lab for decades, but the problem isn't creating fusion -- it's...
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Battery life has long been the bane of the mobile market, hamstringing laptops, tablets, and smartphones even as processors, graphics, and storage have increased in both performance and efficiency. Apple is reportedly tackling this problem head-on as it looks to other forms of power for its impending smartwatch...
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Rosewill is showing off a number of new products at CES this year including cases, keyboards, portable power banks, headphones, and kitchen appliances. In all, Rosewill is showing off over 50 new products during CES 2014. The new LEGACY Case Series was among the new products we saw. This new line of cases is built with aluminum alloy and steel...
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Despite having risen to popularity only a few years ago, it's become increasingly clear that electric vehicles are the future. Versus gas-powered vehicles, electric ones are safer on the environment (this is oft-debated, however), are generally cleaner, and are also less-expensive to refuel. Who wouldn't...
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As expected, IDF13’s day two keynote was mostly about Bay Trail and Intel’s continued push into thinner, lighter, and smaller, mobile devices. The keynote was handled by a trio of execs, Douglas Fisher, Vice President and General Manager of Intel’s Software and Services Group. Herman Eul...
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I think it's safe to say that a generally agreed-upon thing in tech is that cords suck. You might have way too many of them to deal with, or you might be tired of plugging one in the wrong way all the time (I'm looking at you, USB). It's for these reasons that wireless power is an interesting topic, and while there...
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