ASUS' first ROG Thor II PSU: PCIe 5.0 cable down to 450W from 600W

We thought that the new ASUS ROG Thor II PSUs would be pumping out 600W over their new 16-pin PCIe 5.0 power connector, but it looks like that 600W is now 450W.

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In what seems to be some clarification on the PCIe Gen5 12-pin power connector and the 12+4-pin version, is the full spec cable with 12 pins and 4 data signal paths. These additional pins are actually required if you want to be included with the stamp of approval from PCI-SIG for the "12VHPWR High Power Connector (H+)" standard.

You'll need that big beefy PCIe 5.0 power connector for a next-gen GPU, or NVIDIA's maybe-maybe-not GeForce RTX 3090 Ti graphics card if it ever sees the light of day. It was previously thought you'd be able to drive up to 600W of power through the PCIe 5.0 power connector, but ASUS confirmed the 12-pin PCIe 5.0 power cable "can pipe up to 600W of power to PCIe Gen 5.0 graphics cards. Get ready for the future of power delivery".

But now that's all changed...

• Read more: ASUS ROG Loki SFX-L: up to 1200W, 16-pin PCIe 5.0 power for up to 600W
• Read more: This is what the next-gen 12-pin PCIe 5.0 power connector looks like
• Read more: ASUS intros ROG Thor 1600W PSU: has PCIe 5.0 ready power connectors

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With some ninja edits on their website, the ASUS ROG Thor II PSU now lists that the bundled 12-pin PCIe cable "can pipe up to 450W of power to PCIe Gen 5.0 graphics cards. Get ready for the future of power delivery", with the only change there being "600W" down to "450W". Back in November 2021, ASUS said that 600W was being driven through the 12-pin PCIe 5.0 power connector -- but now in February 2022 we're looking at up to 450W through the 12-pin PCIe 5.0 power connector.