Power Cables and Their Functions

Power supplies are equipped with various cables and interfaces to power system components. Below is a brief overview of each cable type:

• Motherboard 24-Pin Cable
  Used to power the motherboard and all connected peripherals (RAM, fans, USB, PCIe slots, etc.). Depending on the model, these may be sleeved circular cables or flat ribbon cables.

• CPU Cable
  Powers the processor. Depending on the motherboard, this may be a 4-pin, 8-pin, or a combination of both. Please consult your motherboard manual for specifics.

• PCIe Cable
  Used to power graphics cards (GPU). Some cards require only a 6-pin or 6+2 pin interface, while high-performance cards may require multiple PCIe connectors. For more details, see our article: "Notes on Installing High-Power Graphics Cards."

• SATA Cable
  Primarily used for HDDs, SSDs, optical drives, and certain fan hubs or liquid cooling systems. Note: This cable is not intended for powering adapter card 

• Molex Cable
  One of the oldest legacy connectors still in use, typically for older HDDs, optical drives, simple fans, and hubs that do not support SATA power.

• 12VHPWR / 12V-2x6
  The latest cable standard introduced with the ATX 3.0/3.1 specifications. It is currently used exclusively for next-gen graphics cards (NVIDIA RTX 4000 series and subsequent series).