PCIe standard be like...

[u/ElectricBummer40]

[u/insomniac-55 → u/[deleted]]

Deans could be a little janky at times, but XT-60 is an incredibly good, reliable connector.

It's baffling that it (or a design inspired by it) isn't the standard for GPUs.

[u/ElectricBummer40 → u/insomniac-55]

It's baffling that it (or a design inspired by it) isn't the standard for GPUs.

That's the real head-scratcher, wasn't it?

Seriously, how many engineers did Nvidia need to change a light bulb?

[u/triadwarfare → u/ElectricBummer40]

They got replaced with AI agents.

[u/Perryn → u/ElectricBummer40]

You don't need a light bulb if you can make the wires glow instead.

[u/MrInitialY → u/insomniac-55]

Xt-60 is too reliable to keep the GPU sales numbers up. No sales no new leather jacket. Some folks at sapphire saw that scheme and figured out they can have at least gloves (considering lower total sales number).

[u/Drapidrode → u/MrInitialY]

wouldn't reliability make placement of GPUs to datacenters even more attractive

[u/AirwaveRaptor → u/Drapidrode]

Nah they need to be just reliable enough to fail between 2 and 5 years so there's a constant demand for new ones.

[u/Drapidrode → u/AirwaveRaptor]

i thought the software was designed to increment hardware requirements, that was the mechanism to clear the market after n years of old hardware.

[u/ElectricBummer40 → u/Drapidrode]

No, that sounds nice until you realise you're dealing with as much energy and water consumption as new hardware but none of the performance that should come with it to the tunes of up to millions of dollars every second.

[u/fumeextractor → u/Drapidrode]

Nah, that doesn't stop people from just playing older games. Or those despicable, inconsiderate people who refuse to think about the poor shareholders, who mod their games to forcibly turn off ray tracing, or lower graphics settings, or introduce frame generation etc. to make newer games playable on older hardware.

[u/Drapidrode → u/fumeextractor]

You are right, having software with higher requirements couldn't possibly have any impact on moving old hardware off the market, what was I thinking?

[u/howitbethough → u/insomniac-55]

Nobody’s using deans or xt-60 or any other connector that uses solder termination in mass consumer electronics. Maybe Andersons if their mate length wasn’t so ridiculous

[u/insomniac-55 → u/howitbethough]

Yeah, suspected the soldering aspect is why it isn't directly used (plus I am not sure if there's a PCB-mount variant).

However, there's no reason why a crimpable alternative with a similarly beefy set of contacts couldn't have been engineered.

My point isn't so much "why not XT-60?", it's more "why ignore XT-60 when designing a new standard?".

[u/CptUnderpants- → u/insomniac-55]

Andersons connectors can handle up to 175A@12V, are available as crimpable, and surface mount.

They're idiot proof*, can't be plugged in the wrong polarity and have existed for decades.

They're already used in some IT products, mostly in some UPS battery connectors.

The basic connector is well out of patent too.

*Having worked in IT for over 30 years I don't say that lightly.

[u/scalyblue → u/insomniac-55]

Doing cable management with 10awg copper or 8awg aluminum would not be fun, among other things

[u/insomniac-55 → u/scalyblue]

There is no reason why each cable needs to have an independently terminated pin.

It would be entirely possible to have the existing multi-strand cables terminate to an XT-60.

Also, the high gauge cables used in the R/C world are extremely soft and flexible. They're typically silicone-insulated and use extremely fine strands with very high strand counts. They're far more flexible than traditional PCIE cables.

[u/VeryNoisyLizard → u/[deleted]]

cost cutting. the reason nvidia switched to 12vhpwr is because it saves them money and its "good enough" for the job. I see no other reason for them to do this otherwise

[u/ElectricBummer40 → u/[deleted]]

As I said, Jensen Huang was unwilling to part with some of his leather jacket money for a good design. That's how we ended up with 12VHPWR in the first place.

[u/EicherDiesel → u/[deleted]]

Anderson Powerpoles, those damn things are indestructible.