PCIe 8-pin vs EPS-12V 8-pin power connections

Document Scope

This article details the use and pin configuration of PCIE 8-pin and EPS-12v power connections.

Cable Differences

EPS power connection on the motherboard is for CPU power while the PCIe connection is for powering GPUs and some other PCI-e devices. Although the cables themselves look nearly identical, EPS-12V and PCIe are not the same connections, and will not fit if you try to put one into the wrong one.

EPS-12V 8-pin connection utilizes an additional 12V connection, which will allow a single 8-pin to provide 300W. For newer graphics card, such as the A6000, this will be enough to supplement their maximum TGP(total graphics power) of 300W.

You can see that the PCIe 8-pin has one square shaped pin for pins 5-8, whereas EPS-12V has two square shaped pins in the same row. This will prevent inserting the cable into the incorrect slot, most times.

Credit to https://superuser.com/ for this image

EPS-12V Y Adapter

Some GPUs that require EPS-12V may come with a Y-adapter that allows two PCIe 8-pin cables to output to a single EPS-12V 8-pin connection that plugs into the graphics card.

Credit to https://www.igorslab.de/ for this image

• PCIe+8-pin+vs+EPS-12V+8-pin+power+connections.doc100 KB
• Picture1.png80 KB
• Picture2.jpg40 KB