Question New power supply for retro PC (Socket A)

[michaelmk86]

I am trying to find a new psu with at least 25A on both 5v and 3.3v rail in order to power old systems, but I haven't been able to find any.
The system in question: Athlon XP 2000+, K7N2-L, GeForce4 Ti 4600

 

[TerryLaze]

Wut?! Doesn't it have a normal ATX plug?! Old systems just use the 20 pins instead of the full 24, that's why PSUs have the 20+4 connectors.
And athlon 2000 should be new enough to even have some 24pin mobos, the extra pins are for pcie I think and that should have been around by then.

Oh, bottom line, any PSU should do.

 

[BFG-9000]

Used to be you could massively oversize a PSU to get the +5v and 3.3v needed, but things have been getting worse, not better. The new 2800w SuperFlower only delivers 120w now, where the 2000w PSUs from 5 years ago at least were the minimum 150w

If you are not in the USA it appears the usual recommendations of Segotep ATX-500 or LC Power LC6560GP3 are still available overseas.

 

[michaelmk86]

Wut?! Doesn't it have a normal ATX plug?! Old systems just use the 20 pins instead of the full 24, that's why PSUs have the 20+4 connectors.
And athlon 2000 should be new enough to even have some 24pin mobos, the extra pins are for pcie I think and that should have been around by then.

Oh, bottom line, any PSU should do.

The mobo have a 20 pin and 4 pin for the cpu, but that is not my concern, the issue is that old systems draw most of the power from the 5v & 3.3v rails, while new systems draw most of the power from 12v so modern psu are made accordingly.

 

[michaelmk86]

Used to be you could massively oversize a PSU to get the +5v and 3.3v needed, but things have been getting worse, not better. The new 2800w SuperFlower only delivers 120w now, where the 2000w PSUs from 5 years ago at least were the minimum 150w


If you are not in the USA it appears the usual recommendations of Segotep ATX-500 or LC Power LC6560GP3 are still available overseas.

The LC6560GP3 looks promising regarding the 5v & 3.3v rails, although I am concerned that it might be a cheap psu, I mean I have not heard this brand before.

 

[BFG-9000]

Oh yes, they are both definitely cheapo new PSUs, but when the alternative is to get some used old vintage CWT-made Antec TruePower and hack the Fuhjyyu out of it, they don't look that bad.

 

[michaelmk86]

I don't feel comfortable to use these cheapo PSUs, plus they always overestimate how many amps can deliver on each rail.
So I end up geting a Be Quiet System Power 10 550W with 20A on 5v.

 

[BFG-9000]

If you are willing to buy used/refurb, until fairly recently the Corsair TX650 and TX650-M and larger had 30A on 5v and 170w combined. The last ones were only 25A and 130w though (which is the same as recent 1600w-2000w PSUs from 5yrs ago. To put things in perspective, <500w PSUs from the Athlon XP era were very commonly 38-47A on 5v).

Best you can do is give it a try. Many cheap PSUs will either not run without sufficient load on 12v, or else the 12v line voltage will rise dangerously high when the 5v line is heavily loaded. Those two supplies may be cheapos but are known to not do that.