PSU cables

Wojciech S · December 6, 2020

Dear Community,

so I have a weird problem in my mind. One side of the PSU cables have their names written down e.g. "CPU" or "PCIE", etc. How should I connect them to the components? "CPU" side of the cable to the PSU where the CPU socket is or "CPU" side of the cable to the motherboard where the connectors for the CPU are. My PSU is Bitfenix Whisper M 850W.

Regards,

WS

OrionFOTL · December 6, 2020

The ends labelled "CPU" or "PCI-E" go into the motherboard or into the graphics card.

Look at a PCI-E cable. The end labelled "PCI-E" is a 6pin connector with a dangling 2pin, allowing you to use it with cards with 6pin sockets or 8pin sockets. It wouldn't make sense to plug this split 6+2pin connector into a PSU.

Same thing with the CPU cable. The end labelled "CPU" splits into a 4pin+4pin connector, and the other end is a solid 8pin. It wouldn't make sense for the "CPU" labelled 4pin+4pin end to be split, if it was intended to be plugged into the PSU.

Also, two PCI-E cables have one solid 8pin connector on one end, and two split 6+2pin connectors on the other end, labelled with "PCI-E". Imagine trying to plug the two 6+2pin connectors into the PSU and being left with one solid 8pin connector on the other end to plug into a graphics card.