Intel Haswell introduces new power requirement for 1150

While the launch of nVidia's Fermi architecture and AMD's Bulldozer might have had investors running to buy stocks in electricity production companies, overall, the trend for power consumption has been downward. KitGuru listens to rumours coming out of the east about possible changes to mainboard requirements for Intel's Haswell in 2013.

A couple of years ago at IDF, Intel CEO Paul Otellini was banging on about Haswell, power consumption and Ultrabooks that could be used for 10 hours straight without needing a recharge – and about a week on ‘active standby'. He mapped this improvement for mobile users in the 2013 time space. Unfortunately, he didn't seem to spend much time talking about desktop requirements.

To get enough juice for a full set of modern components, Socket 1155 mainboards offer both a 24-pin EATX Power connector and an 8-pin ATX 12V port.

So what about the new ‘ultra lower power requirements' for next generation systems that use Intel Haswell? That is, the LGA 1150 socket mainboards.

Wikipedia is ‘lite' on info about boards based on this new socket, but KitGuru is hearing that an 8-pin connector may no longer be needed. It could be that the new boards will use a 6-pin or even less. This kind of change, if the information is accurate, will pose no problem to quality PSU brands like Seasonic, Cooler Master, Antec and Be Quiet – because of the modular nature of their designs – but anyone with a cheap-n-nasty supply might have issues. That said, there may be cost implications for PSU manufacturers if they have to supply additional cables. It's not much, but any increase in cost will be viewed with dissatisfaction by an industry that's seen its biggest profit days gone by.

Right now, power is still not that sexy, but it is likely to be a hot topic over the next 2-3 years as we all demand more and more performance from less and less current.

KitGuru says: With the way that power has been increasing over the years, it would be good to see everything slide back to ‘sensible'. Sure, extreme/professional/enthusiast users will always have different requirements, but for many people the idea of Gold and Platinum rated power supplies with little/no fan noise is appealing.

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