News Power wire-less motherboards pump 1,500W over 50-pin connector — BTF3.0 standard envisions zero cables between the motherboard, GPU, and power supply

[Admin]

DIY-APE has reached an important milestone in its development of a back-plug ecosystem for PC DIYers.

Power wire-less motherboards pump 1,500W over 50-pin connector — BTF3.0 standard envisions zero cables between the motherboard, GPU, and power supply : Read more

 

[das_stig]

So what do we need to go cable free?

1. Dual CPU fan header and chassis fans that provide wireless power/data.
2. Universal short range but hi-speed wireless to replace USB.
3. Universal GPUs socket or MXM designs dual fan headers that provide wireless power/data.

Any other ideas?

 

[80251]

A wireless chassis fan is a nice idea but the EMF strength required to power it wouldn't be.

 

[DS426]

Now, the question is: what would this take to get adopted in the next ATX standard?

 

[thestryker]

You'd have thought Intel murdered peoples loved ones when they rolled out ATX 12VO so this is unlikely to ever happen. Also if people think motherboards are expensive now just wait as this would probably murder budget boards. I don't necessarily mind a shift like this, but it absolutely has to be industry wide or it's a waste.

 

[ekio]

WOW, I love it 😍
This is plain and simple totally superior to the quite dated JEDEC standards...

PS: why don't you make the GPU power connector even larger with wider connectors, just in case, to prevent any potential risk. They still look small compared to what a 4090/5090 will eat for dinner. 12VHPWR connectors made the mistake, trying to be small to power 30cm long gpus... we saw the result... Connectors do not need to be small at all, they only need to be reliable.

I would go even further, by replacing all the fan/pumps classic pins from the last century by USB type-C ports, so you can have power/monitoring/firmware update all-in one universal cable!
And I would remove the SATA support, because it's too dated, you could make a SATA power/data interface outside the motherboard that plugs through USB-C instead, since these drives will only be used for storage anyway. That would clean/simplify the design of the motherboard even further.

I hope this is not just a trend and that it becomes a new standard.

 

[P.Amini]

The footprint of this case is much bigger/wider without much benefit to justify that big footprint. No, thanks.

 

[Sippincider]

So when we have the next round of high-end graphics cards burning out power connectors, it'll take your motherboard along with it?

 

[80251]

I would go even further, by replacing all the fan/pumps classic pins from the last century by USB type-C ports, so you can have power/monitoring/firmware update all-in one universal cable!
And I would remove the SATA support, because it's too dated, you could make a SATA power/data interface outside the motherboard that plugs through USB-C instead, since these drives will only be used for storage anyway. That would clean/simplify the design of the motherboard even further.

I hope this is not just a trend and that it becomes a new standard.

How many amps of +12V power can a USB port provide? You have to remember that larger fans, when they spin up, draw much more power than when they're already spinning.
While SATA3 might not have the bandwidth over the latest iterations of USB, I believe the latency is superior.

 

[JTWrenn]

I really hope the connector on the back of the case is not fully hard wired. What I mean is if that thing doesn't have flex, it's gonna suck to get everything in the system. Really the idea of wireless for a case should actually just be placement of cables in the case, and really short cable plugs that are all sideways not sticking up. Fully hard lining it...ie there is a port on the back of the case on the inside you have to connect your mobo to, then screw it in to all the right mounts, sounds tedious as hell, and a cable you plug in before mount sounds better to me.

All in all good ideas that should be adopted in some form to future systems. Especially the PCI e power increases. Running extra power direct to the card the way it was done was always just a work around. Hope that makes it in very fast.

 

[JTWrenn]

How many amps of +12V power can a USB port provide? You have to remember that larger fans, when they spin up, draw much more power than when they're already spinning.
While SATA3 might not have the bandwidth over the latest iterations of USB, I believe the latency is superior.

5 amps at 20v. If a single case fan is pulling 100w that is just not right. Noctua 140mm's pull about .12A at 5v. That is definitely not an issue. Not sure USB c really is the best option because of over complexity but I can't see how it would ever get run over on power usage these fans are pretty mild power wise. You would need a ceiling fan level to outdo max usb c power especially on a very short cable.

 

[8086]

It looks a lot like Glorious Leader Kim Jong UN had a hand in this design.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GgSTl73bgAEc7qI?format=jpg&name=small

 

[ekio]

How many amps of +12V power can a USB port provide? You have to remember that larger fans, when they spin up, draw much more power than when they're already spinning.
While SATA3 might not have the bandwidth over the latest iterations of USB, I believe the latency is superior.

You can power laptops and 28 inch screens with usb-c, I think you can power a fan.

 

[USAFRet]

So what do we need to go cable free?

Any other ideas?

Change the laws of physics?

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

A wireless chassis fan is a nice idea but the EMF strength required to power it wouldn't be.

True, but if the case were pre-wired to have electrical contact pins to be paired with fans that have contact points, much like some smart watches and rings, then we could go cable-less essentially. It's also make swapping dead fans simple as they'd just slide in and out of mounts.

 

[80251]

5 amps at 20v. If a single case fan is pulling 100w that is just not right. Noctua 140mm's pull about .12A at 5v. That is definitely not an issue. Not sure USB c really is the best option because of over complexity but I can't see how it would ever get run over on power usage these fans are pretty mild power wise. You would need a ceiling fan level to outdo max usb c power especially on a very short cable.

I have a Delta PFC1212DE-F00 120x38mm fan that can draw 4.8A (@12V) on start, but it's a finger-chopping screamer.

 

[jlake3]

How many amps of +12V power can a USB port provide? You have to remember that larger fans, when they spin up, draw much more power than when they're already spinning.
While SATA3 might not have the bandwidth over the latest iterations of USB, I believe the latency is superior.

USB-PD rev1.0 has profiles for 1.5A, 3A, and 5A at 12 volts, but 12 volt output is deprecated for rev2.0 onwards. USB-PD rev2.0 changes the defined voltages to 5, 9, 15, or 20 volts (plus some higher ones in the extended power range).

You could probably step down from 15V to 12V without too much drama, but then comes the issue of signaling. Fans aren't natively USB devices, and USB can't do PWM speed control and RPM reporting. You'd need a fan controller of some sort built into every fan in this world. The motherboard firmware may be unable to check for fan connections and send the fan speed to 100% in the event of a crisis if they're USB devices, and even inside Windows you will likely need drivers to control your fan speed.

And I suppose you could bolt a "Fan controller alt mode" onto the USB-C spec, but it really feels like USB-C fans create more problems than they solve. Fan connectors aren't that large, and there's already fans that daisy-chain together with pogo pins

 

[helper800]

Change the laws of physics?

Nikola Tesla just rolled over in his grave. Its not impossible, per se, just infinitely impractical.

 

[VizzieTheViz]

Why are cables even considered a problem? They are affordable and flexible and do the job they’re meant for well.

Mainboards are already extremely complex and expensive (the top end ones cost more than some pc’s nowadays, and not cheap pc’s either) and this would make both those issues infinitely worse.

it would also force cases to be much more similar to fit everything exactly which seems required for this ‘solution’.

Maybe I’m not seeing the benefits but I really feel this is a fairly stupid idea. But then I have my pc in a case without any windows or rgb so I’m probably not the target audience.

 

[Notton]

Things I don't like:
The contact pads on the PSU side are exposed.
The PSU only slots into one spot, and now you need a cable again to place it elsewhere.

 

[thekingofALLmonkz]

I think this might get adopted as an OEM form factor to prevent modularity

Even worse than HP/Dell proprietary connectors

 

[snemarch]

I'm with VizzieTheViz – this "no cables!" movement is... stupid.

Sure, the cables might not be aesthetically pleasing, but trying to feed the ever-more-hungry GPUs through lanes in the motherboard PCB? That'll lead to even higher motherboard costs, and probably blown boards when manufacturers try to skimp on production costs.

Cable-free connection from the PSU is going to be extremely inflexible, both with regards to possible case layouts and future power supply standard revisions.

I would go even further, by replacing all the fan/pumps classic pins from the last century by USB type-C ports, so you can have power/monitoring/firmware update all-in one universal cable!

PLEASE NO. USB is a way too complicated protocol for handling somehing as critical as cooling. The 4-wire PWM design strikes a pretty decent balance between implementation simplicity and fulfulling control/monitoring needs.

And I would remove the SATA support, because it's too dated, you could make a SATA power/data interface outside the motherboard that plugs through USB-C instead, since these drives will only be used for storage anyway. That would clean/simplify the design of the motherboard even further.

Yeah, no.

It might make sense to replace SATA with something newer, but that should probably be something like OCuLink (or other PCIe breakout) – USB is utterly unsuited for storage. Sure, it's handy to attach an external drive now and then, but the protocol and software stack is just too flaky to be the main storage solution.

 

[-Fran-]

This a dangerous idea to implement.

PCB-based connectors have no place with high current connectors. This is not even something that hasn't been studied already. There's a reason why most high powered devices use highly shielded connectors with high tolerances.

I don't know why the PC industry is going with this stupid trend of "form over function". It needs to be taken down a notch.

Regards.

 

[BillyBuerger]

This a dangerous idea to implement.

PCB-based connectors have no place with high current connectors. This is not even something that hasn't been studied already. There's a reason why most high powered devices use highly shielded connectors with high tolerances.

Hot swap server PSUs running at 1kW or more use similar connectors. This isn't a new idea and it works just fine in those cases. They are essentially using the same idea here. Assuming they are using similar quality connectors. The one picture there looks a lot like an ISA slot.

But server chassis are very proprietary as is something like this. I like the general idea of making the cabling more simple and easier to work with. But I do think this PSU idea is going to far into the proprietary and non-customizable PC configurations. If, like this, a motherboard put all of the power connectors on the edge of the front of the motherboard at 90 degrees, then cable management would be much easier already without having to require the PSU to be up front like they have it.

 

[wr3zzz]

This is going to drive the already skyrocketing MB prices through the roof. Cable clutter is not that bad now with NVMe displacing SATA HDD. People with large storage needs where SSD is not cost effective are likely already migrating SATA HDD to NAS or USB-C external casing. There are always notebooks for true clutter free computing. Desktop needs to be cost effective.

PS: The only reason cable clutter is unmanageable now is becaue these massive GPU cards taking out so much space. At this rate we might need to install dedicated AC and using ear plugs running Nvidia's next flagship "consumer" GPU like the olden days.