Jonathan
Enlightened
Star882 is in part correct.
For many of the modern high speed chipsets, the CPU operates at less than 3.3V. But most standard PC power supplies generate 5V, and sometimes 3.3V. So for computers which use these lower voltage chipsets, you will often find a DC-DC converter on the motherboard which takes the 5V standard output and produces what the core CPU chipset requires.
This is certainly not the case with all PCs.
Another place where placing DC-DC converters in series is used is when low voltage DC is distributed to boards in telecommunications, and then DC-DC converters are used on the boards to provide final voltages.
I still claim that it is silly to use 2 DC-DC converters in series to provide a couple of watts to $10 in LEDs, even if it isn't silly to do so when you need to supply 50W to $1000 in CPU.
-Jon
For many of the modern high speed chipsets, the CPU operates at less than 3.3V. But most standard PC power supplies generate 5V, and sometimes 3.3V. So for computers which use these lower voltage chipsets, you will often find a DC-DC converter on the motherboard which takes the 5V standard output and produces what the core CPU chipset requires.
This is certainly not the case with all PCs.
Another place where placing DC-DC converters in series is used is when low voltage DC is distributed to boards in telecommunications, and then DC-DC converters are used on the boards to provide final voltages.
I still claim that it is silly to use 2 DC-DC converters in series to provide a couple of watts to $10 in LEDs, even if it isn't silly to do so when you need to supply 50W to $1000 in CPU.
-Jon
