‘Problemmatic 12Vhpwr connector gets successor in PCIe 6.0 standard’

Shortly after its introduction, the 12Vhpwr connector for video cards received a successor. That would happen as part of the PCI Express 6.0 standard, claims Igor Wallossek of the German website Igor’s Lab. The new connector will be backwards compatible with 12Vhpwr.

The most important change to the modified connector, which currently has the working name 12V-2×6, is that the four data pins have been placed further inwards. Two of those pins are responsible for detecting the video card, which means that the video card will not turn on at all as long as those two data pins do not make contact. Because they are now deeper in the connector, 1.7 mm instead of 0.4 mm, contact is only made much later and the video card will therefore not function if you have not plugged in the cable (almost) completely.

Although the standards organization PCI-SIG insists in the cited documents that the cables may not be bent directly after the connector, strict requirements will be introduced for the extent to which the cables and connectors must be able to withstand such a load. Lateral pressure on the connector or cable can cause not all pins to make equal contact and therefore the current to be unevenly distributed. All components used must be prepared for this; in fact, they must be oversized to handle higher currents than prescribed by the standard.

The PCI Express 6.0 standard was already presented last year, but the first devices and processors that support it are not expected before 2024. The now leaked documents are said to be part of a concept for an addition to the already established PCIe 6.0 standard and also for the ATX 3.1 specification.