Is 4-pin 12V ATX enough to power i5 4690?

Bharath Ulaganathan

Distinguished
Aug 11, 2015
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Planning to build a Gaming rig (1st attempt) and came to a point to select between MSI H97M-G43 AND ASUS H97M-E...
Comparatively ASUS's Mobo is a bit costlier that MSI's (in India) but ASUS has a 8-pin 12V EATX while MSI gives 4-pin 12V ATX to power the CPU...
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Will 4-pin have any performance decay when powering i5 4690 compared to 8-pin (not planning for any upgrade for more than 5 yrs and no OC)...???
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And will normal ATX power supply work without any issue in ASUS's Mobo which states to have EATX power supply plugs...???
 

ZENprime

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Jul 2, 2015
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EATX is a motherboard size not a connnector

You mean EPS 12 V which is 8-pin connector same as ATX 12 V ; however you can not put EPS 12 V cable into ATX 12 V connector

both motherboard have the ATX12V as a CPU power connector
4-pin ATX12V is unofficially rated for 192 watts so it will be more than enough for the i5
8-pin ATX12V is unofficially rated for 332 watts so it will be also more than enough

I do not like MSI power stuff as they really cheap on it ; however you can buy it

Get a PSU with ATX12V CPU 4+4 pin connector (= 8 pin) so you can plug 4pin ands leave the other 4 pin hanging . or use all 8 pins in case of 8 pin motherboard