Aquacomputer AMPINEL 12V-2x6 Graphics Card Power Management - Type B (53320)

AMPINEL is a power supply balancer for graphics cards with 12V-2x6 power connector, explicitly developed and released for NVIDIA RTX 4000 and RTX 5000 series cards. Release for AMD cards is currently being worked on and will communicated after successful validation. AMPINEL works in a much more complex way than other solutions on the market. As a balancer, AMPINEL actively regulates the current on the individual rails, thereby reducing power losses at the connector. This may sound simple at first, but requires highly complex measurement algorithms, as AMPINEL does not simply equalize the current on all lines, but also takes heat generation at the connector into account.

To do this, AMPINEL determines the quality of the connections, which is only possible through a complex analysis of the measurement data. Since the power consumption of graphics cards is highly dynamic and the current may change significantly in the range of microseconds, this has been one of the most difficult tasks in our development. By evaluating the measurement data, AMPINEL can determine not only the contact resistance to the graphics card, but also in the path from the power supply to AMPINEL. The results are visualized in the aquasuite software, where different colors represent resistances in a schematic of the corresponding connectors, thus enabling easy diagnosis in the event of problematic contact resistances.

To enable optimum protection of the graphics card, the following objectives have been defined for the
AMPINEL control logic: 1. The current must not exceed 9.2 A at any of the contacts (plus 5% control tolerance). 2. The total power loss at the connector should be minimized respecting this specification; the current is then balanced accordingly. 3. The power loss of individual contacts must not exceed a specified power rating. 4. The maximum power loss at the balancer must not be exceeded. 5. The temperatures at both connectors and at the balancer are monitored. Finely nuanced alarm managemen