My motherboard, an ASUS ROG Maximus XIII Apex, comes with a 6-pin PCIe power header, labelled PCIE_PWR.
The spec sheet shows the following in relation to this header:
Power related
1 x 24-pin Main Power connector
2 x 8-pin +12V Power connectors
1 x 6-pin PCIe Graphics Card connector
So I assume that this is the relevant header. My GPU, which I have installed in the PCIe x16 slot, has its own PCIe power headers and works fine with those attached.
My question now is, why does this header exist? What purpose does it serve?
1 Answer
It looks like redundancy. Some graphics cards are REALLY power hungry, and a PCIE graphics card will get some power from the motherboard, and some from the external power connectors. This will let you provide more power if required.
That being said, it is unlikely that you will need to use this extra power connector, and if your graphics card is working OK, then I wouldn't worry about it.
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