Would a 20 pin ATX be enough in 24 pin ATX?

[Eniqmah]

Hi,
The PSU I'm using in this build is an old one from the P4 days. As you can imagine, it has a 20 pins ATX for the motherboard, and I'm trying to use it on a P35 board that requires 24 pins. So if this is not enough, I'm guessing I'd have to get an adapter to provide 4 more lines to it, but which one would be appropriate?

Thanks in advance.

[Polizei]

The amount of pins it has should alert you to one thing - since its got 20 pins and the new standard is 24, its not enough. Unless youre running a Celeron on that P35 board, I highly doubt it would be enough. Maybe a Core2 dual core with integrated video, maybe.

Just get yourself a new power supply.

[Eniqmah]

Ah...I thought as much. But because I know so little about PSU's I just wanted to check in. Thanks.

[514y3r]

Its best to buy a new power supply, but i've used adapters in the past and they work just fine.

http://www.xoxide.com/20-to-24-pin-adapter.html

[SparkyJJO]

No need for even any adapters. I'm running a system right now (fold6 in my sig) on a 20 pin PSU in a 24 pin socket, been that way for quite a long time now. Just leaves 4 pins open. Worst that can happen is it isn't stable or just won't run.

[naokaji]

one problem you'll have is that old psu's have the majority of the power on the 3,3 and 5V rails and the 12V rail is weak as opposed to todays psu's that are the other way round.

if you dont have too much stuff in the sytem it might work, but i dont recommend saving on the psu.

[swaaye]

Yeah I have a older 20-pin Enermax Noisetake 475W powering a Gigabyte 965P-DS3. It's perfectly fine. I had an adapter on it until I read that the board didn't require the extra 4 pins be plugged in at all. I also have an adapter in there to power the Radeon 3850 (PCIe power to 4-pin HDD adapter). No problems at all.

I wouldn't recommend a cheap PSU in any way though. You have to get something that's of some quality. Quality matters more than watts, even. But really today's comps don't necessarily use more power than older ones. Unless you want to heavily overclock w/overvolting or run a power-sucking video card, you will very likely be fine with a decent 20-pin PSU. You do definitely need the 4-pin CPU power plug though.

[Zytek_Fan]

You could, but I'd be wary of the amperage on the 12v rail(s)