There is a whole power supply industry that is booming more and more precisely because of another evolving market, that of PC cases. Power manufacturers compete hard in all strata, but very few who, despite competing for the price, offer longer cables each time. Therefore, having increased the average chassis size by a few centimeters compared to a few years ago, cables can fall short.
PC and PSU extension cables, a partial solution to the problem
We must focus on this from the root before getting to the heart of the matter, because many might think of buying a PC, a power supply and therefore its assembly and especially its cabling also called cable management.
This is another of the key factors if our chassis is full tower, since the extensors are essential. And it is that the height and the channeling of the cables make that the sources remain short in their cables and their length. Manufacturers refuse to increase the price by adding more length to serial cables because, in addition to cost, this has implications related to their impedance and resistance to current flow.
This is definitely a problem, but they generally don’t provide solutions, such as including serial extenders for cables, or including them directly. sleeve to be able to isolate them and reach a greater length. It’s a separate market where they make a lot of money, so it won’t change course.
With that understood, we can now see what are the factors that determine the choice of an extension cable for our source and how not to fail in the attempt.
AWG, the main factor to consider
AWG stands for American wire gauge and as such it is nothing more than a way to measure the quality of cables, it is a way to classify the thickness of them in terms of wires and sheets.
Therefore, AWG will be accompanied by a number from 0 to 1000, where oddly the scale does not start at zero, but goes from 1000 to zero and from there it goes up to 40. Normally, power supplies include this data from their cables as little as it gets, but as a rule of thumb we are talking about the fact that the industry is operating from AWG 20 to AWG 16, at least for now and in order to see if there are any changes through the NVIDIA 12 pin connector.
In all cases, a lower number in the cables indicates a greater thickness and therefore a greater surface area available, less resistance to copper and greater resistance to the total current, therefore better quality.
Connectors
Another important factor is plastic connectors. It must be taken into account that in certain more or less extreme scenarios, the cables are subjected to a lot of temperature, especially if their AWG is high and a lot of energy is required of them.
There are cables that are literally temperature limit, where they are very hot to the touch, the connectors and their material are therefore something to take into account more, because after long hours of use small deformations can occur, where the most critical point is precisely the where the two cables meet.
A bad connector will eventually break the anchor of the climb and it may leave some cables loose, especially if the posture of the cable or cables is not good and they are stretched. You don’t have to think that you have to do extreme overclocking or much less to get there, currently high-end processors and GPUs manage to consume over 200 watts and 350 watts without too much of a problem, so it is a really serious problem and worrying problem, pretty much everything with low and midrange sources.
Climb
It sounds like a lie, but there are users who force cables at their ends to insane levels. PSU cables are normally attached with very high precision and must be subjected to extreme posture and strain to exit, unless the manufacturer and model are of questionable quality.
This is why extension cords must be very effective in this area, as a bare or non-contacting wire, or just partial contact, is a hazard to the components. Anyone who has assembled hundreds of PCs will have seen this problem, which with the passage of time in these PCs is becoming more and more common.
Length
Do not skimp on the choice of length (if possible) unless it is a box with compact dimensions, where any common extension will be useful in this section. As we said, as a rule, the boxes get bigger and bigger due to the AIO systems.
This extra height or width, which are normally between 3 and 5 cm make sure that the cables barely reach to connect for example the EPS cables, which are the most sacrificed to be the standard on motherboards.
Like everything, extension cords have a maximum length to maintain the intensity of the current and not create more electrical resistance, so obviously this is a limiting factor.
Mix different AWG on extension cables
It is true that there are models of power supplies that do not specify the AWG of their models and cables, but as soon as we search the internet we will surely find such information. This is important because there is a very common mistake with most users: mixing cables and extension cords with different AWGs.
Although we hardly speak 30 cm of extensions In most cases, opting for a different AWG produces voltage drops, minimal yes, it is true, but these drops due to the different resistances have an influence on the power supply when we talk about nanoseconds of variation such as those produced. by GPUs or current processors, where the entire consumption range is dynamic and faster and faster to adapt more and more to energy efficiency needs.
We’ve already seen the issues with the RTX 3000 and sporadic reboots, where they didn’t even require a high graphics load. The ideal is therefore to use extension cords of the same AWG as the cables of our power supply to avoid surprises.
Table of Contents
