rated:
posted: Oct. 13, 2008 @ 11:18a
pentiuman said:FYI: As I found out last week, contrary to Microcenters ad at the time, (not now, as I complained and they fixed the ad), the Antec Basiq 500W for $30 at Microcenter does NOT have the newer 8-pin CPU power connector, only a 4-pin one. An older 4-pin power will usually work in the correct half of the 8-pin motherboard CPU power socket. However, it's not reccomended, and forfeits some of the overvoltage protection (as I understand).
That's true, it does only have a 4-pin ATX12V connector. It's not really a big deal though, as you said, you can plug the 4 pins into half of an 8-pin connector on the motherboard. The only issue is that an 8-pin can deliver more current, and thus more stable overclocks for those 4Ghz quad-core chips. It has nothing to do with overvoltage protection. Most 500W-class PSUs do only have the 4-pin connector, so it's not really a surprise.
pentiuman said:So, if your motherboard has an 8-pin CPU power, it's better to get an 8-pin PSU, especially if you're going to overclock or run many pheripherals, as I do. This ad mistake by Microcenter cost me 140 miles total in 2 trips to the store, so I got Microcenter to match Newegg's price on a 500W PC Power and Cooling power supply, at $65. It has a 5 year warranty, comes with a personalized test report, and this brand has been used in the last 10 Dream PC's by MaximumPC magazine.
If you really feel that you need an 8-pin power connector, then by all means get a PSU with an 8-pin connector. I apologize for not getting into more detail about the differences of those two PSUs that I listed. I am planning on using the EA650 (with the 8-pin connector) for my 3.6Ghz Q6600 quad-core builds, on an X48 mobo that also has 8-pin power connectors.
But the Basiq 500W works just fine for an AMD Opteron 165 dual-core rig, with an add-on PCI-E video card.
Edit: I forget what the cutoff for wattage is between using the 4-pin and recommending the 8-pin. I think it's something around 120W TDP, perhaps slightly more because I've seen AMD boards that support 125W TDP chips with only a four-pin mobo connector.
Message edited by: VirtuaL on 2008-10-13 11:21:35 CDT