Amps on the 12v rails.

[Skormm]

Ok I was under the impression that each rail was assigned a certain amount of amperes. Recently someone told me they can "sort of" share amps. Is this true? If so, could someone please explain it a little better for me?

 

[Hefemeister]

here is some good info for you to read.

Single vs. Multiple +12V rails: The splitting of the +12V rail - Hardware Canucks

Power supply rail - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Skormm]

here is some good info for you to read.

Single vs. Multiple +12V rails: The splitting of the +12V rail - Hardware Canucks

Power supply rail - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thanks! Was trying to find something like this hehe.

EDIT: Not really related, but whenever I get an email from this site, it blocks out the content and such until I click a few buttons. I've marked the address as safe, but it insists on warning me. Any way to make it shut up?

 

[Yami]

I believe there's some sort of 20A limit for each 12v rail (to prevent them exploding, in the more dramatic cases), so for cards like a GTX260 (which requires about 22.5A I think) which needs two PCI-E connectors, each PCI-E connector will be on a different rail. And then things like CPU and hard drives can take up the rest.
So, I don't think they can "share" amps, but you see what I mean.

I'm not entirely sure that's the case, I may be wrong, I ain't an electrical engineer

Edit: I shouldn't have watched an episode of Family Guy while writing this, hefe beat me with much more accurate sources

 

[Skormm]

I believe there's some sort of 20A limit for each 12v rail (to prevent them exploding, in the more dramatic cases), so for cards like a GTX260 (which requires about 22.5A I think) which needs two PCI-E connectors, each PCI-E connector will be on a different rail. And then things like CPU and hard drives can take up the rest.
So, I don't think they can "share" amps, but you see what I mean.

I'm not entirely sure that's the case, I may be wrong, I ain't an electrical engineer

Edit: I shouldn't have watched an episode of Family Guy while writing this, hefe beat me with much more accurate sources

Haha, yea, I'm still reading some things on that link he posted, pretty good info, very informative to someone who has no clue what's going on when it comes to PSU's (read as me).

 

[patonb]

See, this is why I said "sorta"... The main Amps/Volts are split out to the rails... The recommended Volts and Amps on a GPU are total system values not for the GPU alone..