“Why is there a 8pin power connector at the bottom of the board? Is it for the video card or to power the lower PCIe ports/M.2 slots? Thanks”
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Hello bwhip - the 8pin connector at the bottom of the board is there to provide extra power to the PCIe devices to support system stability when using multiple or power hungry PCIe devices.
Sorry, there was a problem. Please try again later.It's to provide extra power to the PCIe slots themselves. Any PCIe expansion card (such at network cards, or more often graphics cards) can pull up to 75W directly from the motherboard. This is easily provided by the existing 24-pin ATX connector if there's only a single expansion card, but if two (or more) cards want that full 75W, then the 24-pin isn't enough. The extra connector is to plug in a PCIe power connector, so that all three slots can provide the full 75W if needed. So it's only "required" if you have more than one GPU really, which is unlikely.
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