With the boom of RTX 40-Series GPUs so came the drama of melted cables, fires and some rather expensive GPU replacements. While NVIDIA has managed to recoup the damage done by its horrible 12VHPWR connector, those of you looking for a modern PC build with a 40-series GPU in it right out of the gate can now consider buying a power supply with the 16-pin connector built into it. That way, you don’t need to use any converter and you can save space and avoid damaging your GPU.
For those who don’t know what I am talking about, previous power supplies up to now didn’t compensate for these new 40-series graphics cards and their new port ports. So if you were upgrading your GPU, you would need to use your standard PCI-E cable from the power supply unit and split its various connectors so they all channel into one 16-pin adapter.
Watch the Gigabyte UD1000GM PG5 below
To put that into perspective, the RTX 4090 uses four 8-pin cables. The RTX 4080 uses three 8-pin cables and the RTX 4070 uses two 8-pin cables. But besides the clunky cable connectors hanging around in your case, the converter also used thick wires which often caused issues when closing your PC case. All I am saying is that it wasn’t ideal for cable management, power flow and versatility. It worked but it’s more of a temporary solution.
That is where the Gigabyte UD1000GM PG5 PSU comes in. It is one of the first power supplies to include this GPU cable in it right on the box itself. So goodbye adapters and hello one-cable management. Gigabyte sent one over for me to use on my PC build. This was a godsend given my current setup. Firstly, I had a 2000W Cooler Master power supply in my PC which is just insane. I didn’t need this power and it was overkill for my build.
The Gigabyte UD1000GM PG5 I got was a 1000W model which is half the spec. Sure, I wasn’t technically using all 2000W on that Cooler Master model but I won’t pretend and say I wasn’t concerned about its output. Secondly, I was so keen to embrace the new cable. It just makes the world of difference no longer using that damn adapter.
The Gigabyte UD1000GM PG5 isn’t the flashiest power supply by any means. It is just a large black box with a fan hole, connector ports, a power switch and a kettle plug port. In the box you get 1 ATX 24-pin connector, 2 EPS 4+4 pin connectors, 1 PCIE-5 connector, 4 PCI-E pin connectors, 8 SATA connectors, 3 Molex and 1 floppy connector.
Of course, the PCIe 5.0 cable is the highlight here. It is the cable required by the new ATX 3.0 standard for any PC power supply. It has an output greater than 450W. While this looks like a boring port, it is actually quite a complex connector. It has twelve pins and four sensing pins. Two of those sensing pins signal the PCIE card the max power that the connector can handle. This allows the card to regulate the power draw.
That is also why this PSU has an advantage over the regular adapters because those adapters don’t have a way to signal the card. It is also why the current adapters and GPUs can’t be anywhere near 600W. We’ll likely see this increase in the future but a PCIE 5 power supply will be mandatory when using them. Keep in mind that this connector can only output 600W but we’ll likely see GPUs nudging closer to that power now that these regulator pins are included in these power supplies.
I won’t bore you with the installation process on this PSU but it is pretty standard. It complies with ATX standard dimensions so you won’t need any special case for it. The ports are all situated on the back side and I simply plugged all the cables I needed into them. I was also happy to finally use one CPU cable instead of two which I had to use in the previous 2000W model I had. In fact, the entire cable management was so much neater now thanks to the new 16-pin connector too. So in theory, I only plugged in three cables and powered my entire PC.
Of course, the elephant in the room here is this power supply’s lack of ATX 3.0 certification. Gigabyte didn’t lay down the groundwork for ATX 3.0 compliance in this model. Instead, the company took a power supply and simply added the 16-pin connector to it.
This connector can support up to 600W of power but the other requirements such as the 3x GPU Power Excursion and 12.2V rail aren’t a thing. So this power supply is almost there. It has the most important feature for these so-called next-gen units but isn’t as feature-packed as ATX 3.0 compliant unit yet.
Regardless, if you’re in the market for a new 40-series GPU, definitely consider this power supply if you’re worried about the adapters required on other units. Not only is it cleaner but the GPU connector makes such a huge difference when it comes to positioning your GPU, the cable provides a great lean way for installation and is a lot more accessible than the adapter. You can pick up the Gigabyte UD1000GM PSU for R2999 now.
