What PSU for retro computer on 775Dual-880Pro motherboard?

[The Great Sephiroth]

I am planning to build retro PC dual boot 98/XP on 775Dual-880Pro Asrock motherboard with Intel Pentium D 945 3.4GHz and 2 x 1GB DDR2 667MHz and GeForce 7950 GX2 or GeForce 8800 GTX/Ultra on PCI-E slot and another GPU on AGP slot (anything in the range GeForce4 Ti - 7950 GT), sound card on PCI slot, optical drive and floppy drive, probably 3 x 2.5 inch drives (1 2.5 inch SATA SSD connected to IDE using SATA to IDE adapter, 2 2.5 inch HDD IDE interface drives) and 2 x 3.5 inch HDD drives, maybe some card reader and maybe something on PCI in the future. What would be good PSU for this that has all the needed connectors and enough amps on all 3.3V, 5V and 12V lines? I have poor knowledge in this topic. Would Chieftec GPS-450AA-101A be good and have enough power? But even if it would be OK, is it wise getting this used PSU? Are used PSUs good idea? If not, are there any of new PSUs that would be good for this specific retro build? Would any of SilverStone Strider series PSUs be good for this specific retro build? If the mentioned 2 are bad, what PSU would you recommend for this specific retro build?

[jaclaz]

Without making an exact calculation (but you can find several different PSU calculators online), that should be something that could run off a 450 or maybe 500 W PSU, here is an old test made with a 460 W PSU, JFYI:

https://www.phoronix.com/review/245/6

Personally I would look for something in the 600 to 650 W range, power supplies tend to work better if they are a bit oversized.

That Chieftec model you mention appears to be a rather expensive PSU (used).

Again personally I wouldn't go for an used PSU, in my (little) experience PSU tend to fail for no apparent reason[1] and I never saw a real difference in their life correlated to their cost (and supposed quality/brand name), so, while a "no-name" one might be risky, many cheap, known brands would do.

jaclaz

[1] I suspect it all boils down to hours powered on + number of switch on/off + years of age, the only thing you can (often, not always) check on a used PSU is the manufacture date, but you have no way to know if it was inside a machine working 24/7 for years or a machine powered once weekly for a couple hours to check e-mail.

[D.Draker]

While theory is good, and @jaclaz is the local Guru, I had these parts in the past.

GeForce 8800 GTX (at stock, no OC) is 155W minimum, under full load it would be like 170-180, I had that card myself, hot and power hungry.

Keep in mind, that old beast has NO power saving features, so it will still consume a lot, even when fully idling.

Intel Pentium D 945 is almost 100W at load.

They will simply take too much on the power lines, especially on the 12v line.

I'd consider a better PSU, like 500W or 550W, minimum.

EDIT:

I'd suggest to look at the models with at least 38 Amps power ratings on the 12v line.

Edited June 13, 2023 by D.Draker
addition

[The Great Sephiroth]

How powerful each line (3.3V, 5V and 12V) should be?

[D.Draker]

3 hours ago, The Great Sephiroth said:

How powerful each line (3.3V, 5V and 12V) should be?

The answer about 12v, read the above, the more you get - the better, but 38 is a must if you intend to play.

3.3v and 5v are not that important, if you have only a couple of HDD they are usually about 30 amps.

Be quiet!, a power supply manufacturer based in Germany,  worked fine for me for the last years.

[jaclaz]

A current 600 or 650W PSU should have *around" (and roughly):

20-25A @3.3V

20-25A @5V

40-50A@12V

older PSU's (current at the time of that motherboard) were - if I recall correctly - a little beefier on the 3.3V and 5V lines and a little feebler on the 12V one.

jaclaz

 

[D.Draker]

20-25A @3.3V

20-25A @5V

Might not be enough for a board that old. The chipset itself + DRR2 are quite consuming, he also wrote he will use an old PCI soundcard, which are 

very power consuming (take Xonar D2, as an example). So there was a reason they made 30A ratings on 5v and 3.3v in the older models.

[Cocodile]

22 hours ago, D.Draker said:

hot and power hungry

and very loud! Better off with something like a used 9800GTX.

[Cocodile]

22 hours ago, D.Draker said:

a power supply manufacturer based in Germany

German Inter-tech Argus is cheap, but enough for a system like this. I think now they are made in china tho.

50A on the 12V line

60 Months warranty

https://www.inter-tech.de/produktdetails-137/Argus_GPS-600_EN.html

what I like it's very quiet. Intelligent fan control (IFC)

Inter-tech

Edited June 14, 2023 by Cocodile

[jaclaz]

Unfortunately you cannot create Amperes without using Watts, if we go for:

30A@3.3V

30A@5V

40A@12V

those imply 30*3.3+30*5+40*12=99+150+480=729 Watts, so a 750 W would be more suitable, but newer 750W ones generally speaking don't have as well more juice on the 3.3V and 5V than the mentioned 20-25A, so if the requirements are confirmed, OP has no other option than finding an used PSU , it seems like the extra Wattage on recent PSU's goes all on the 12 V rail.

See also here:

https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=34076

jaclaz

 

 

[D.Draker]

3 hours ago, jaclaz said:

those imply 30*3.3+30*5+40*12=99+150+480=729 Watts, so a 750 W would be more suitable, but newer 750W ones generally speaking don't have as well more juice on the 3.3V and 5V than the mentioned 20-25A, so if the requirements are confirmed, OP has no other option than finding an used PSU , it seems like the extra Wattage on recent PSU's goes all on the 12 V rail.

Yes, seems like a very logical thing to do, go old. They just don't make *honest* wattage anymore.

Here's the legenadary *TRUE* 600W PSU they used in Fujitsu Siemens of that era, I think up to 2010 or so.

Fujitsu Siemens Power

Output Max. Load

+5Vsb 3.0A

-12V 0.8A

+12V1 18A

+12V2 18A

+12V3 18A

+12V4 18A

+5V 30A

+3.3V 36A

12v x 4 lines , all lines are independent. (not virtaul crap, like in most modern ones)

For reference. He needs to look for smth like this.

https://www.atxpowersupplies.com/600-watt-power-supply-FSP600-80GHN.php

[D.Draker]

6 hours ago, Cocodile said:

and very loud! Better off with something like a used 9800GTX.

Or even GTS250, which is a rebrand of 9800GTX anyways, but with less heat.

[The Great Sephiroth]

On 6/14/2023 at 11:43 AM, Cocodile said:

and very loud! Better off with something like a used 9800GTX.

Unfortunately it won't work on this motherboard.

[The Great Sephiroth]

On 6/14/2023 at 3:39 PM, D.Draker said:

Or even GTS250, which is a rebrand of 9800GTX anyways, but with less heat.

Unfortunately this won't work too. According to manufacturer only PCI-Express generation 1 GPUs work.

[D.Draker]

14 hours ago, The Great Sephiroth said:

Unfortunately this won't work too. According to manufacturer only PCI-Express generation 1 GPUs work.

Then you definitely won't get away with a modern low-power PSU, you need to look for that appropriate one I told you.

But from what I know, you could borrow that card and try, becuase GTS250 has a decent backwards compatibility, so (in theory) it should limit itself to the 1.0 PCI-e version,