I have a home-made desktop about 7/8 years old that has a top quality power supply of the same age driving an Asus M4n68t-m motherboard (atx, socket am3 + amd phenom II 550 2 cores, 4GB). It has not been used much and I would like to replace the motherboard, the memory and the cpu (for a small soho 16/32GB - no gaming) but I do not know if my old power supply can be reused since the old board required a 24/4 connector and new ones seem to be 24/8, I would like to reuse the other components (sata drives, case etc).

If I need a new power supply but I can reuse the cpu, I might do that but if I cannot do either, I will abandon the project and build a new desktop when this one dies.

I could not find a definite answer on the Internet to the following questions:
1) Is there a compatibility between these power supplies/mobo sockets?
2) Can I use the old cpu on new motherboards?
3) Is there any (soho?) motherboard that has wireless networking (so I can put the wifi-enabled laser printer out of the way) or do they all need a separate card?
4) Even simple mobo seem to be designed for gaming (O.C.) although some reviews seem to imply they are also suitable for common tasks like word-processing and surfing the net, is my conclusion correct?

Thank you for your help.

rblampain,

What is the make/model of your PSU?

Here is some general info on PSUs:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answer...therboard.html

http://www.playtool.com/pages/psucompat/compat.html

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I think most modern PSUs are more efficient than the older ones, even good older ones. My PSU died last year and I immediately noticed the new one ran much cooler and quieter.

Some boards have wifi, some don't. I haven't checked, but I suspect the ones with wifi are probably more up-market in other ways; if so, the extra cost may exceed the price of a separate card.

Many PCs on sale these days are designed for gaming: there are more people using a PC at home than there are at work. Their boards will obviously be designed to high-end CPUs; if you get a modest CPU, the matching motherboard will be a modest board.

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They market towards gamers since that is the larger portion of their market.

@DavidMcCann is correct that newer PSU have more efficient designs.


The PSU makers have learned a lot and CAD and CAM just bring a lot of efficiencies into the product design/manufacturing pipeline from end to end.

I got a new PSU recently and it really gives you peace of mind since it provides power and protection for all the components. Crappy PSU can cause hard to diag problems and even component failure.

FWIW I got a seasonic and it has been fine. Some people try to save some cash on the PSU but I thought I should spend a little extra. Some places sell returns at steep discounts but they still back them as new.

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rblampain,

If you do decide to buy a new PSU, do check the size of PSU you actually need, not the size you think you need:

http://powersupplycalculator.net/

PSUs from Seasonic, Corsair and be quiet! are generally very good in my experience.

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1) Yes. There are some caveats, like the 4-pin/8-pin CPU plug. Your 4-pin connector will probably work fine on a low-powered SOHO system, but there are cheap adapters available if you need one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-180-_-Product
Newer Intel CPU's have a "deep sleep" state that some older PSU's don't work well with. If you don't use sleep/hibernate, it's not an issue though.
2) No, unless it's the same socket.
3) There are plenty of mobos out there with wireless. If you want a recommendation, you need to be more specific about what socket/CPU you're looking at and what size case you're using.
4) Ignore the (extremely overused) "gaming" marketing gimmick.

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The power supply is Antec 480w (about twice the estimated capacity required if my recollection is correct).
Given the fact that new power supplies are better as advised above, I will wait and rebuild from scratch.
Thank you for your valuable advises.

rblampain,

In my opinion that is a sensible decision.

Good luck with your new build.