4-pin peripheral connector????

[Cro55ed]

I need help understanding the point of the 4-pin peripheral connector on a PSU.
Here are some questions I need answers to:

What's the point of it?

Is it optional to connect it, (because I don't feel like connecting it, wherever it needs to be and I could run my PC with no issues)??

and...

Is it obsolete???

 

[alexoiu]

It's not quite obsolete. It provides 12V and 5 V and you can use it to power a fan controller, a DVD drive, or, with adapters, SATA drives, fans, a.s.o.

 

[Ne0Wolf7]

When you say 4 pin peripheral conector, are you referring to this, molex?

It is becoming obsolete. It used to used mainly for things like CD/ROM readers, which are becoming outdated as well, or older hard drives. This is becomng replaced by the SATA power cable. My GPU has the option to use one instead of the more comon PCIe conecter, but that is a maxwell card, last gen and two years old now. You may still find an option to use a molex to PCIe power adapter, but I'd rather just use the PSUs PCIe power cable.
You may also see it on fans. This is an undieal solution because it will have the fan run on 100% power always, quite noisey. If you use the motherboards 3 pin header you can control fan speeds in BIOS.

 

[Cro55ed]

So I do not need it, if I want to build a custom PC

 

[Ne0Wolf7]

You dont need to buy that anyway, it would be a cable on your power supply