12 pin CPU header?

[Trippsy]

I was looking for some boards since I want to upgrade my CPU and I noticed that some of them have 8 then a 4 pin power connectors. Like the one I want here https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813144262.
My PSU only has two 4 pin connectors.
Do I need a cord with 12 pins or is the other 4 pins just for extra overclocking power or something?

[alatron978]

You just need two 4+4 connectors, though its probably not necessary for most use cases.

[mariushm]

The extra 4 pin is completely optional, it would only help those who do ridiculous overclocking, with ice or liquid nitrogen

[HanZie82]

5 minutes ago, Trippsy said:

I was looking for some boards since I want to upgrade my CPU and I noticed that some of them have 8 then a 4 pin power connectors. Like the one I want here https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813144262.
My PSU only has two 4 pin connectors.
Do I need a cord with 12 pins or is the other 4 pins just for extra overclocking power or something?

The 4 pin is an older backwards compatible plug. the 8pin should be able to plugin to the 4pin socket.

[mariushm]

No, his 4+4 connector goes into the 8 pin connector on the motherboard and the 4 remains unused.

The power supply is designed to split the 8 pin EPS connector into 2 x 4 pin, so that user can insert one on the 4 pin connectors into a motherboard that has only a 4 pin connector for the CPU power.

 

[goto10]

on some new motherboards meant for heavy overclocking that extra power conector might be used when overclocking a 8 or more cores cpu

 

if your cpu only has 4 or 6 cores is likely you will not need that extra cpu power cable

 

if your psu is decent enough you can do some light overcloking on 6 cores, 500mhz without problem on such motherboard, consider that i made a 700mhz overclock on 4 cores athlon that ate around 140 watts, with a cx500 psu, psu never let me hear psu fan and that is not a good psu, is on the cheap side, using only 4 of the 8 pins

[mariushm]

The 8 pin EPS connector is good for 380 watts.

The 3rd gen Ryzen processors don't consume even 200w when overclocked (the way a normal user would overclock). See picture below.

 

You can see the Ryzen 5 3600 reaches 90w when overclocked (only 79.2w without overclocking) and the 3900x (12 core) reached 170w when overclocked.

As an idea, a single 4 pin power connector is good for around 9-10A per pair of wires, so 2 pairs x 10A x 12v = 240w... It would be safe to power a non-overclocked Ryzen R9 3900, with its 150w peak power consumption, using just a 4 pin connector.... not recommended, but would be possible.

 

Someone that uses extreme overclocking may get 12core or 16core (when released) Ryzen processors near the 300-350w mark, in which case using the extra 4 pin connector would help reduce the current going through each wire between the power supply and motherboard and also reduce the "strain" on the 8 pin connector. Basically, more wires and more connectors means the connectors and the wires will heat a bit less - they heat up a bit due to wire resistance and the resistance at the contact between the connectors.