Delta, Astec, LiteON are usually very well built, with good quality parts. Usually found in OEM PCs.

Be careful with the Antec TP line, it is almost guaranteed that those units will have to be recapped. The manufacturer that built those at the time (called Channel Well Technology, or CWT) had a love affair with Fuhjyyu capacitors, which were so abysmal that would fail and leak even on new units! I saw it happen myself with a SmartPower unit I bought NOS, it was shrinkwrapped and still smelled like new, but half the caps were leaking/bloated!

The other problem when recapping Antec is that using garbage caps was not enough, they also had to use custom sized ones, very tall and thin. It is sometimes almost impossible to find adequate replacements that can fit in those cramped spaces. Years ago, when I recapped my old TruePower 2.0 I managed to get in touch with a guy from badcaps.net who managed to put a custom order of caps with non-standard sizes from Chemi-Con, but nowadays I'm not sure there are any reliable sources for those.

I second the sentiment about the older Antec units

I recapped a couple of them and gave up on even bothering with them after that.

The easiest thing to do if you insist on using them, is to mount the caps elsewhere and use wire to extend the leads to the board.

I’m not sure that buying a 15-20 years old PSU is a good idea, even if it was a premium one at the time. It may have many, many, many hours of hard active service behind it. Why not buy a good actual PSU? You obviously don’t need a 1200W PSU for a retro system so investing in a really good 400-500W unit with good 3.3 and 5V rails is also a good option. The only thing and old PSU has for it is its track record.

I honestly don't really bother until I specifically want something that a older unit has.

Examples:

- Socket 939, dual-core Athlon build. I could of have gone with a ~2004-05 Thermaltake PSU - I instead dropped a much better built Raidmax RX-700AC (OEM'd by Andyson, also used in japanese KRPW PSUs) because it handles the 8800GTX with no issue.
- likewise, I had to recap a old unit (and it still isn't done - 5vsb recently failed again, this time the smaller caps failed with high ESR, killing two 754 mobos - a K8N4-E and a K8V-X SE), for usage with older 5v based units - 36A on the 5v rail. It's a CWT-build ISO 500-PP 420W unit, and boy, it's packed as much as FSPs of that era.

Minutemanqvs wrote on 2023-04-02, 18:10:

I’m not sure that buying a 15-20 years old PSU is a good idea, even if it was a premium one at the time. It may have many, many, many hours of hard active service behind it. Why not buy a good actual PSU? You obviously don’t need a 1200W PSU for a retro system so investing in a really good 400-500W unit with good 3.3 and 5V rails is also a good option. The only thing and old PSU has for it is its track record.

Because many of the older systems require a heavy 5v rail to provide enough amperage to system components. PSUs back then often had a 30A-40A 5v rail, and that just doesn't exist with modern PSUs as it's no longer necessary. Not to say that all older systems need that much amperage on 5v, but power supplies of that era were built specifically to fill the power requirements of systems then, so they're best suited to the task. And, admittedly I'm a purist to some degree, so having a period correct PSU just makes me happy.

Also I've only bought BNIB older PSUs, so they have not been used. I know cap leakage can still happen, but it's rare. I had an Antec TruePower 430-watt in my AMD Thunderbird system back in the day and several of them now in various PCs and haven't experienced any quality issues.

The other thing to remember about older PSUs is that when actual load testing was done on them, many of them could only supply about 1/2 their rated wattage before failing or, in some cases, catching fire.

Also, new power supplies are mainly rated for continuous load where older PSUs were rated for max temporary load.

Just because an older PSU is rated sky high for the 5v rail doesn't really mean squat.

You can still find new PSUs which output around 30A on the 5V rail, LC-Power has some for around $90. Granted, not the highest quality manufacturer bur it’s not bad either. But I understand were you are coming from.

And you can find some fair ATX PSU for less if you know what models to look for.... picked up a 2008 Delta made Antec EA-500D for $10 NOS just recently, works well for what I paid it can deliver 24A on 5v w/o issue.
added and edited:

cyclone3d wrote on 2023-04-03, 18:05:

The other thing to remember about older PSUs is that when actual load testing was done on them, many of them could only supply about 1/2 their rated wattage before failing or, in some cases, catching fire.

Also, new power supplies are mainly rated for continuous load where older PSUs were rated for max temporary load.

Just because an older PSU is rated sky high for the 5v rail doesn't really mean squat.

Exactly ! if you find an older PSU best to look up some real testing on it (Antec's TP line were usually built to supply as rated) that EA I got has a decent review for what it is, though not 30A still can provide the full +5v 24A w/o issue
https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/antec-earth … en-test.322679/

TheMobRules wrote on 2023-04-02, 17:31:

The other problem when recapping Antec is that using garbage caps was not enough, they also had to use custom sized ones, very tall and thin. It is sometimes almost impossible to find adequate replacements that can fit in those cramped spaces. Years ago, when I recapped my old TruePower 2.0 I managed to get in touch with a guy from badcaps.net who managed to put a custom order of caps with non-standard sizes from Chemi-Con, but nowadays I'm not sure there are any reliable sources for those.

FSP is another decent brand, but they had the same problem with oddball size caps that fail a lot (CapXon in this case). I think they were okay in the era people on this forum are the most interested in, but the custom caps started around the time they were selling the Blue Storm series.

Seasonic , Delta , CWT , Enermax , FPS , Super Flower , LiteOn . And even if some had problems with poor quality caps used in the design, after all this years expect bad caps in all of them !, replacing them with good quality ones can lead to some nice psu's, if you cant use something with a newer design.

I remember Enlight being a golden standard, looking more in detail looks like Delta was the OEM.