Nvidia confirms the arrival of a 12-pin connector for powering video cards
In a video about video card designs and possible improvements, Nvidia has confirmed the arrival of a 12-pin connector for powering video cards. The arrival of such a connector was already expected after Seasonic, among others, showed a 12-pin power cable.
The video shows, among other things, a design drawing of a 12-pin power connector. The connector is mounted in a separate way, upright, on the pcb and according to Nvidia engineer Gabriele Gorla, this solution is a lot more compact than the regular solution of two 8-pin connectors. The 12-pin connector is compatible with 8-pin PCI-E cables through an adapter. This solution with smaller connectors for the power supply leads to more space on the pcb for signal wiring, according to Nvidia. According to Nvidia, this could lead to a design in which less crosstalk is. This phenomenon can occur with wires that run close together and thus affect each other, causing part of the signal from one wire to be visible in the other.
The arrival of this new connector has already been expected. There have been rumors of a possible 12-pin power plug for Nvidia’s upcoming GeForce graphics cards, which will be based on the Ampere architecture. Recently, manufacturer Seasonic already showed a photo of a 12-pin power cable, which is believed to be intended for the upcoming Nvidia GeForce RTX 3000 series. Seasonic indicated that it would only be used for testing and Nvidia has not yet announced whether the new connector will be used and if so, with which video cards.
In the video, the company also discusses, among other things, redesigning cooling solutions for the airflow and remove some cooling limitations of current video cards. At the end of the video, a short shot appears to be visible of what may be the RTX 3090. The limited visible details resemble the photos that came out earlier from the alleged Geforce RTX 3090 video card.
Probably more will become clear on Tuesday. Then Nvidia will hold a GeForce live stream presumably announcing its upcoming RTX 30 graphics cards. They must follow the current cards of the RTX 2000 series, which Nvidia announced two years ago. The video cards from the likely RTX 3000 series will use the Ampere architecture, which is already used for data center GPUs.