MSI wants to feed more power to next-gen GPUs

Flagship X870 and Z890 motherboards with extra 8-pin power connector.

During a visit to MSI’s Gamescom booth, French outlet Cowcotland found a new feature in MSI’s upcoming AMD 800-series motherboards. These boards include a special 8-pin power connector positioned at the bottom, which can deliver up to 150W of power directly to the GPU. This setup supplements the existing PCIe connector, which provides a standard 75W, allowing for a total power delivery of up to 225W without additional cables.

Perhaps it’s worth noting that this feature is not exclusive to MSI, as ASUS’ new ROG Crosshair X870E Hero also has 8-pin power connector near the 24-pin connector, which is an upgrade from last-gen 6-pin connector.

8-pin power connector on MSI X870E MPG Carbon, Source: MSI

The important detail is that MSI has unofficially confirmed to Cowcotland that this connector is designed specifically for next-gen graphics cards. Previously, the 6-pin connectors on last-gen X670E boards were used for USB 40W Power Delivery. The concern was that this new connector might serve a similar purpose for USB power, but MSI representatives clarified that it is indeed intended for GPUs.

In fact, this detail was also covered during the MSI Insider livestream, who did not mention next-gen GPUs, but did say this is intended for multi-GPU clusters typically seen in AI systems which use multiple GPUs.

We reached out to Cowcotland for more information and according to them, MSI confirmed that unofficially this is intended for GeForce RTX 50 series, but the company would not confirm this on record. Perhaps there will be graphics cards that can benefit from extra power, or this is simply a way of providing more power to the increasing number of PCIe slots on modern motherboards. Too early to tell, but GPU enthusiasts should keep an eye on this feature.

MSI X870E and Z890 motherboards, Source: MSI

Source: Cowcotland