This is why I recommend against using a 10 year old PSU for a new build.

Yeah, I know that's how it's supposed to work, but the point is... I have seen low-end motherboards struggle with high-end graphics cards before, and seen power supplies that can run a card in one motherboard not able to keep it powered on another. Maybe there's some other reason and it's not the power delivery or the VRM, perhaps I was wrong on why it doesn't work. It could be some other aspect of the design, like lane speed or how many layers the PCB has, I really don't know... but I still am convinced it's not a good idea regardless of the fact that it should theoretically work.
Should not, and do not aren't always the same thing. The AMD RX480 series at release drew signficantly more than the 65W of 12V from the mobo they're allowed to. The total for an x16 is 75W, but 10W of it is 3.3v power (to facilitate porting legacy parallel PCI devices which ran on [email protected] power).

This article I found from Toms shows a card they tested drawing an average of 85W of 12V through the slot with short peaks as high as 168W. This originally came to light after a few people with low end mobos actually burned out PCIe slots due to over-current while gaming. AMD eventually released a driver (firmware?) update that reconfigured the cards to draw more power though the PCIe power connectors and less from the mobo.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-radeon-rx-480-polaris-10,4616-9.html

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/4qwzpy/three_motherboards_and_counting_have_died_from/
 
Good question. I'm no electronic engineer, however, I've read somewhere that PSU's can become less efficient over time. It was manufactured by a Seasonic, however, it was a bronze version. So it's possible I started with less wiggle room for wear and tear. (I.E. countless hours of FFXI and WoW, lol.)

Being "bronze" really doesn't matter a whole lot when it comes to that kind of failure. My last PSU that failed was a bronze. It simply stopped working, that was it. 80 Plus is an efficiency rating, it's not necessarily an indication of PSU build quality. You can get a "bronze" PSU that is significantly better built than a "gold" PSU, but just less power efficient.

Given your system stats, it wouldn't surprise me if the PSU got overloaded, which would really have nothing to do with the 80 Plus rating and a lot to do with how well it's designed to handle that. You were running an RTX 3080 on a 650W PSU. Nvidia recommends no less than a 750W PSU. I know people who are running them ok on a 650W high quality PSU, but it also depends on what else you have within your system that would be consuming power. If your system is otherwise fairly low power draw, you can possibly get away with it. I don't know enough about everything in this particular case, but one thing that stands out to me right away is that you were using a power supply that was below the recommended specification for at least one of the components in your system, which was also the component that happens to have the highest power draw.
 
I have a corsair tx 650w on rtx 3060 and ryzen 2700x, I think the power supply is over 10 years old or thereabouts, it's possible that I got it as a claim for the same, but I can't remember exactly now.
 
Regarding pet hair I heartily recommend the metro datavac canned air alternative. It keeps the filters clean in all of our computers via removing them once a month and hitting them with the machine. We have two of them per residence.
 
what if it’s a 1200w Corsair psu around 9-10 years, i have an ax1200i right now. running a 9900KS on a MSI ACE Z390, 32GB 3200 16 Trident Z, water pump for cpu reservoir/loop, 280mm+360mm radiators, 8 total fans, 4070 Ti TUF, 2 M.2 NVMe drives and a few sata SSD.

debating whether to get the RM1000 from Corsair or PX1000 from Seasonic when I need to get a new psu which is probably sooner than later as I want to upgrade to Raptor Lake Refresh by this fall/winter. I’m going to try an mATX build.
 
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what if it’s a 1200w Corsair psu around 9-10 years, i have an ax1200i right now. running a 9900KS on a MSI ACE Z390, 32GB 3200 16 Trident Z, water pump for cpu reservoir/loop, 280mm+360mm radiators, 8 total fans, 4070 Ti TUF, 2 M.2 NVMe drives and a few sata SSD.

debating whether to get the RM1000 from Corsair or PX1000 from Seasonic when I need to get a new psu which is probably sooner than later as I want to upgrade to Raptor Lake Refresh by this fall/winter. I’m going to try a mATX build.
My backup rigs almost identical to your system right down to the rads. The PSU was a Seasonic x1050 until I decided it would be prudent to swap it out for one of my nib Seasonic px850s. I'm still using the x1050 but in a much lower powered system
(i78086k/980ti). But I'm noticing some graphics issues lately that have never happened before. So it may be time to straight up retire it to bleeding and purging duty until I have time to troubleshoot.
Anyhow, 9-10yrs for your primary unit is about where I draw the line. It's just not worth the downtime headaches. Especially if you don't have an appropriately powered backup PSU to pop in.
 
I just get a new PSU when I do a build. The catch is I tend to keep old builds around and builds are a few years apart, so every new build is a full build except for the vid card. I keep a second rig around and use older machines as "lab" boxes running Linux. I haven't had a PSU die on me in ages. I think the last one was in maybe around 2000 or so? I tend to buy nice ones though, or at least decent back in the old days after that failure in 2000 or so. I had a couple Antecs and Fortrons in the early 2000s, then a run of PC Power & Cooling units, now generally going Seasonic.
 
My main Linux rig has a Rosewill 850w PSU. I have no idea how old it is, I've had it forever. It has never given me the slightest problem and I'll continue to use it so long as it doesn't. I've never been one to replace anything without a concrete reason.
 
Haven't heard of PSUs taking out components, but i guess it could happen. Would have thought the PC would just shutdown when it's unable to draw enough power to power a card. Are you sure you didn't forget to plug in some of the 6+2 PCIE connectors? I think i've heard of people smoking/damaging GPUs by forgetting to plug those in.
Have seen PSU smoke a system before. It actually almost got two
 
Haven't heard of PSUs taking out components, but i guess it could happen.
It absolutely can happen. I had one shit the bed and fry two of my four 150GB Western Digital Raptor drives back in the day. It's a lot less common with modern PSU's.
Would have thought the PC would just shutdown when it's unable to draw enough power to power a card.
That's generally what happens.
 
1) I wasn't aware it had a 750w PSU recommendation until I picked it up.

2) After reading a few other threads, I thought I'll be okay with my 650w PSU until I can find a good deal for a new one. (WRONG!!!)

3) I do not recommend using a +10 year old PSU on a new build.

Those things don't correlate. I'm sure that PSU would have been fine if the computer met the appropriate specs.
 
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