4pin 12v + 8pin 12v ???? when do you use witch

[thefishdude]

have a built a few pcs in my time but none for about 3 years lol and i am about to do a new monster rig. anyway i noticed that power supplys now come with 4pin12v and 8pin12v conectors for the mother board. when i first read about this i thought i read trhat the 8pin was for multi core cpus. but then i saw core 2duo mothe boards that only looked like thaty had a 4pin connector

soooooo

when is the 8 pin used ?? do i need to look out for this on the motherboard i buy ?

any info would be great guys cheers

 

[DeathwingX]

i have yet to hear of a cpu demanding a 8 pin power, i would sit with a 4 pin, and im not aware of kentsfield or amds 4x4 needing a 8 pin, so a 4 will be fine, gl with your build

 

[bumblebee13]

8pins as far as i'm aware are not used for consumer CPUs atm, they're really just a future-proofing idea in PSUs on the basis that they assume one day 8-pin ones are going to be needed.

 

[yquo]

There are currently some motherboards with the 8 pin plug (server boards too) but I believe that some of them let you plug the 4 pin in the plug, same as some 24 pin mobos let you plug 20 pin psu.

 

[thefishdude]

ok guys cheers for the info

 

[rwpritchett]

My Asus P5B-Deluxe has an 8-pin connector. Four of the pins are covered by a cap and the user manual says to plug in a 4-pin connector if that's all you have or remove the cap and plug in an 8-pin if you have it. So, there's one board that has an 8-pin onboard.