Using Old Power Supplies

clowesy

clowesy

clowesy

Associate
Joined
4 Nov 2007
Posts
44
Dear All,

Investing in a new rig soon (quad core) and looking at what I need and what I can salvage from my current rig. I have 2 Tagan 480W power supplies. Can I use these together if I buy a big enough case? I will be buying a new case anyway as I'm not really that happy with it.

One would power the MB, fans, Graphics (8800GT?) etc and the other power the HD's?

Would this be possible or just sell the parts on ebay and buy a new power supply? Trying to reduce costs...

Cheers
Clowesy
 
assuming they have the correct connectors that your new pc needs i dont see a reason why not, however if you can get a good return on the PSUs why not sell them and get a new one which might make things easier unless you know what you are doing
 
Yes its possible, my new case ( lian-Li A-10) has two bays for power supplies, and comes with a special motherboard cable, so your motherboard turns both on simultaniously when you power the pc up.

The "break-out" cable would plug into the "secondary" PSU, while the main connector would fit to the PSU that will be powering the motherboard.


cpa-167.jpg





DSC00234.jpg
 
You may even find that a single Tagan PSU is able to power your entire new system. Obviously that depends on what your new system will consist of.

As an aside, I am still using an Antec 550W that I bought about 3yrs back (when the higher watt psus first came out). On that I run an [email protected], 4hds, 2 optical drives, NVidia 7900GS, sound card and a tv card. When I first upgraded I was apprehensive about using such an old psu, but it worked fine.
 
One Tagan should be enough/fine. Its the TG480-U01 with 28A on the +12V Rail, 20+4-pin motherboard connector, etc right?
 
One Tagan 480W should happily power an Intel quad-core, 8800GT and a couple of hard drives. The power draw of that system won't go much over 250W.
 
I also think it "should" be more than enough, I would rather not sell one though as with your set up you can run 2 and then have the benefit of much quieter operation than 1 uber powerful one.
 
If he's overclocking and wants to have the option of adding more hardware, Using the two he has is a sensible option.

If hes happy with them it will save having the hastle of selling one or both in future and having to get a new one.
he could use one to power the motherboard, and the other to power graphics, with other devices spread between them as appropriate.
I'm actually of the opinion that running two smaller ones will be quieter and more efficient, less heat, slower fans, for example:two at 40% capacity rather than one @80%. but Im prepared to stand corrected.

Plus having two power supplies is cool, lets not forget that :)
 
I still say that he wont need to run both Tagan PSUs. I feel that 1 Tagan will meet his requirements.

Once he has his system running it will be interesting if he tells us whether or not a single Tagan was able to power his PC.
 
Oh, sure, think one should work for his proposed system, im just thinking it will be pretty limited...and why sell one now only to upgrade later if you know what i mean.
 
He probably will be able to upgrade some of his parts and still use the Tagan. Ive noticed that over the last 2yrs or so there is this frenzy for high power PSUs that manufacturers have introduced. I too fell for this. When I upgraded recently I thought that my old PSU wouldnt be able to handle the load. Well, after asking around and going through the upgrade process I found that my PSU is able to handle the load with ease.

If someone has a good quality psu, I honestly cant see why they would need to make sure that it has more than 500 watts. The cheap quality psus, I can imagine, but the big brand name ones - I dont understand.

Think about this: Dell and other big computer suppliers sell more PCs than the enthusiast market. Do you think they bother with 500W psus? You would be lucky if they used a 400W+ psu and that is when they equipping the system with a 8800GTX.

I'm looking at Mattyfez's system in his sig:

"A64 3400+ 2x1gb DDR400 corsair, Asus 22" XFX 7800gs (256MB) Jeantech" 600w."

Im sure that a 350w - 400W psu would be more than enough to handle that. But then I guess he is thinking about future upgrades. 600W is way over the top and bearing in mind that we are becoming more and more environmentally oriented it is likely that computer component manufactuers will be lowering, not increasing, the power requirements of all their parts. We have seen that Intel are leaning in this direction - their new Core2Duo parts consume less power than the old P4 Prescott CPUs.

The way I see it is that these new 620w, 750w and 1000w psus are just marketing gimmicks and it is upto you whether or not you fall for it or not.
 
I agree with you on the point of horrificly powerful PSU's, which is why I think he should probably keep what hes got, and then he can always utilise the second PSU if needed, thats basicly what ive been trying to say, in a round about kinda way.

I think I should clarify, the jeantech psu in my spec are "enthusiasticly" labled...they retail around £40-£50 for the 600w model.
That was kinda an impulse purchase due to the origeonal PSU not supporting that graphics card, but anyhoo...as you see in my "in-progress" build, ive gone for a not unreasonably frivolous 620w unit...mainly due to its reputation and the fact it will take pretty much anything I care to throw at it...hopefully this one will be with me for longer than its 5 year warranty...well thats the plan anyway.

edit, basicly if he has a case that can accomadate two, he has the best of both worlds, at no extra cost.
 
Last edited:
mattyfez said:
That was kinda an impulse purchase due to the origeonal PSU not supporting that graphics card, but anyhoo...as you see in my "in-progress" build, ive gone for a not unreasonably frivolous 620w unit...mainly due to its reputation and the fact it will take pretty much anything I care to throw at it...
Click to expand...

You could easily get away with using the Corsair 520w model, if you are intent on going the SLI route. If you dont intend to ever get SLI, or more than 4-5 hard disks then the 450w model should suffice.

It has become extremely rare, for us to ever see a thread stating - I need a new PSU, my PC is underpowered. The marketing campaigns of companies making PSUs have worked a treat. Most people, especially the enthusiasts have fallen for it, hook, line and sinker.

Im sure DELL sell SLI systems. It would be interesting to know what PSU they use for their SLI systems.

EDIT: just checked.
Geforce 8800GTX equipped PC comes with 425W PSU (and you can guarentee it will be a cheap brand).
The dual 8800GTX equpped PC comes with 1000W PSU (overkill, but they have equipped this PC with bleeding edge components throughout, so cost has gone out of the window).
 
Last edited:
mattyfez said:
True, but why buy a new PSU if he already has two perfectly respectable and reliable PSU's?
Click to expand...

Hehehe. I actually directed that comment to your good self. No need to buy a 620W PSU. 520W is more than enough.

OP should stick with using a single Tagan. More than enough power (unless he is running 2 x GTXs and 20 hard disks, or similar ;))
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom