Due to the recent increase in power required by processors such as the new Pentium 4, the motherboards require additional 12V power connectors. Previously this was handled with the ATX12V connector that was added to motherboards to provide a dedicated 12V line for the power supply. This was beginning to become insufficient for the latest generation of processors, so they adopted the new 24-pin power connector that was previously used by servers.
The 24-pin power connector looks almost identical to the older 20-pin connector. In fact, it looks almost like a 4-pin ATX12V has been added to the connector. Some power supplies come with adapters that allow 20-pin connectors plug into 24-pin motherboards, but these are not very stable as they draw extra current from power rails that were not designed for this.
This has made choosing a power supply somewhat difficult. New computer systems require the 24-pin connector, but older systems may not be able to fit the 24-pin connector. Antec's solution was to design a power connector that could have the 4-pin additional pins separated from the 20-pin connector. This means the TruePower 2.0 series can work with both the new and older PC motherboards.
