Question Really puzzled by an old PSU of mine, but also a general question regarding PSU connections

[mikeymikec]

I was boxing up (to keep as a spare due to my line of work) an old Corsair VX450W PSU, and as I was attempting to convince the cabling to fit in a PSU box I realised the sheer amount of connectors this thing has: 12x molex/SATA connectors! I couldn't help but think in what universe on a 450W PSU are all/most of those ever going to get used? I just find it weird that given in electronics that it's as common as hell for the industry to say, "oh, you want this slightly unusual feature do you? Well despite the fact that it would cost us peanuts to provide it, we're going to force you to pay say $100 more and hop up a tier or two into our selection with several other features you're never going to use!", that a PSU maker would say on a reasonable quality but low wattage PSU, "12 molex/SATA connectors? totally normal!".

Sure there were (are) other uses for such connectors like additional fans, but it still really surprised me. I continue to be impressed by the longevity of the VX450W though, I haven't had a single one fail yet. I know it's non-ideal because it's now ancient and also because it doesn't support later standards like CPU C6, but if I'm working on an ancient PC which needs a quick PSU fix, they have come in handy.

Second question along a similar vein: I'm often buying what I regard to be basic but reasonable quality PSUs like Be Quiet's System Power 10 450W, but I'm puzzled as to why they would provide 2x PCIE 6+2 pin power connectors because the two recent-ish GPUs I've owned have needed that kind of connectivity but the minimum recommended specs for those GPUs and general Internet wisdom say that one should have a 650W or 750W PSU respectively in that kind of setup, especially in the era of more modern GPUs having issues with momentary power usage spikes.

 

[In2Photos]

Looking at the vx450 online I saw a review dating back to 2007. Keep in mind that back then it wasn't uncommon to have 1-2 DVD drives and several SATA drives. So 12 connectors may seem like overkill but data drives were much smaller back than as well so it was plausible to have a few drives. I'm guessing there's 6 per cable? So if you wanted to supply more than 6 you went to 12.

As for 2 pcie 6+2 pin it's likely for having 2 pcie devices rather than 1 higher powered device. Likely a small GPU and maybe a fan controller or raid card or something.

 

[mikeymikec]

AFAIK:

In the days of PATA the number of molex drives was topping out at 4 (unless you added additional cards, which we can safely say wasn't commonplace). In the days of PATA+SATA you'd either get two PATA ports (so 4 drives) plus 2 SATA ports, or one PATA port (2 drives) plus at the very most 6 SATA ports, either way you're topping out at 8 drives, then plus another 4 devices.

What do you mean by "data drives were smaller"? - edit - ah, I think you mean lower capacity, not physically

I haven't used any fan controllers or RAID cards lately but I was under the impression they typically used molex/SATA power connectors.

PS: I'm not saying it's impossible to find a configuration that would use all 12 power connectors, I'm just surprised that a relatively low-end PSU would have that kind of connectivity.

 

[In2Photos]

My x58 system from 2009 had 6 SATA ports. The case I built that system in had room for 9 5.25 or 3 5 inch drives. The PSU had 8 SATA power connectors (4 and 4, no molex). I used 5 and added a 6th later on. But it helped having 2 different cables to power those drives because they were not spaced out where one cable could connect to them easily. I would have needed adapters or extensions. So it's probably more about versatility than the total number of connectors.

By smaller drives I meant in capacity. When I built that system I think 1tb drives were just coming out. So you had to have more drives. I know file sizes were smaller but I filled up 500gb drives with photos even back then. If you stored any DVD or Blu rays you easily filled up drives. Was it common? Probably not, but for some it happened.

My 650w Corsair TX also had 2 6+2 back in 2009, but I only had a cheap GPU cause I didn't game back then. I've actually only used 1 of them for a GTX 1060, then a 1660.

 

[Torn Mind]

Back then, it can be inferred that the market of computer builders were not just single-minded gamers but other types of general purpose "heavy users" where some hobbyist could be doing servers, ripping a ton of audio, Photoshop etc.

The needs of the market has adjusted, so microATX cases now focus on accommodating graphics cards over places to install storage drives. Gamers are the main reliable source of revenue and demand in a slowing market. In addition, the old timey geeks are aging, and thus death or morbidity is taking out the population that used computers with tons of drives or other similar bunch of connectors.

All that inventory has been cleared out of places like Newegg, Micro Center, etc. Stuff like the Cooler Master Cosmos case, which is clearly meant to stash as many drives as possible, are now something to hunt the used marketplace now.

 

[mindless1]

There was a time, and to some builders even today, that most people didn't care as much about how tidy their system looked inside, so it wasn't an issue to them if their PSU had unused leads as long as they were secured out of the way of fans, heatsinks, airflow.

If two PSU were deemed roughly equal from the available data, but one had more leads and connectors, that's a selling point. Adding $1 to the BOM but making a sale, beats losing the sale to a competitor.

450W isn't really a low wattage by the standards of what is needed for a non-gaming system. A half dozen HDDs don't need 100W, except if/at simultaneous spin-up, leaving over 350W for what... typically under 120W CPU, under 100W for mobo and everything else except a GPU, which was often a reason to buy a higher capacity PSU.

Also consider that having more connectors means you have more flexibility in which one to plug something into, does not necessarily mean that you expect to use them all. I do recall that back in the day, particularly before cases with 120mm fan mounts became more popular, I'd have some PSU connectors powering additional fans, and some of those were in less traditional placements like over the VRM section of the motherboard if I was heavily overclocking, or in the side panel if I was reusing an old case that didn't have the best airflow to accommodate video cards... I mean I was buying fans by the case for a while (building for friends/family/other), so had the fans, minimal cost increase per fan, and can fabricate metal brackets easily, so it was nothing to me to toss a few more low RPM fans in a system as needed, instead of running the sub-120mm intake and exhaust fans at higher RPM to hit the hot spots in the case.