Note: This article was first published on 5 July 2022.
Gigabyte is a company not onlyrenowned for its extensive range of motherboards and graphics cards but also in the power and cooling business. While their PSU releases were far and few between, their latest UD1000GM PG5, is a powerful 80Plus Gold certified PSU that comes with the new 12+4pin (12VHPWR connector), which is required by the newATX 3.0 standard.
The bundle is virtually spartan, with no items alongside the UD1000GM PG5 out of the box – apart from thefour mounting screws, AC power cable and the assortment of connecting cables. Even the PSU itself looks nothing out of the ordinary, sporting a black chassis with an air intake. It certainly looks functional, but otherwise boring for PC modders who are looking for RGB or even an LCD display on it.
If you haven't noticed by now, the UD1000GM PG5 has a maximum rated power output of up to 1000W. With next-gen flagship GPUs rumoured to require at least 450W of power, it looks like 1000W-rate PSUs will soon be the norm rather than the exception for high-performance PCs.
The PSU is a fully modular design, allowing for the removal of every DC power cable, including the24-pin ATX connector. It's worth noting that the new 12+4 pin connector also replaces at least two standard 8-pin PCIe connectors found in most of today's PSUs.The UD1000GM PG5 is clearly geared for power-hungry cards like the RTX 3090 Ti and next-gen flagship GPUs.
A closer look at the standard 12 pins and four sensing pins: Out of the four sensing pins, two are mandatory and two are optional. The mandatory pins signal to the PCIe card the maximum power that the connector can handle, allowing the card to regulate its power draw. That makes the use of adapters on older PSUsalmost impossible (and dangerous), as there is no way for the PSU to signal the card and their cables cannot handle a high current draw, so the preset output cannot be anywhere near 600W.
The new 12VHPWR connectors can deliver up to 600W each. Depending on the PSU’s capability, the maximum wattage that it can provide is printed on the connector itself. The connector of the UD1000GM PG5 states that it can handle 600W continuously, which is the maximum dictated by the new ATX 3.0 standard.