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Project 2004, a retro time capsule

wolf

Performance Enthusiast
Joined
May 7, 2007
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7,784 (1.25/day)
System Name MightyX
Processor Ryzen 5800X3D
Motherboard Gigabyte X570 I Aorus Pro WiFi
Cooling Scythe Fuma 2
Memory 32GB DDR4 3600 CL16
Video Card(s) Asus TUF RTX3080 Deshrouded
Storage WD Black SN850X 2TB
Display(s) LG 42C2 4K OLED
Case Coolermaster NR200P
Audio Device(s) LG SN5Y / Focal Clear
Power Supply Corsair SF750 Platinum
Mouse Corsair Dark Core RBG Pro SE
Keyboard Glorious GMMK Compact w/pudding
VR HMD Meta Quest 3
Software case populated with Artic P12's
Benchmark Scores 4k120 OLED Gsync bliss
Alrighty, time to share a bit more. There's been progress with the system overall, more games, cloning activities etc, but that will come later.

For the time being, some benchmarks to share! everyone loves numbers right? I've tested a decent little spread of cards in this system, 8 in total so far, all of which could be suitable to varying degrees, but one clearly offers lower than acceptable performance, and a couple offer basically too much performance for what I want.

1708410497181.png


So far in terms of the testing that I'm able and willing to share, it's more for a indicative look at performance and feature set compatibility. I suspect I'll dive a lot deeper into the 6800 Ultra vs X850XT battle from here on, concentrating more on key titles performance, tweaking, playability, settings etc.

So what I have today is Aquamark 3, and 3D Mark 03/05/06 with stock and OC results where applicable, and percentage uplifts noted.

1708405614480.png


1708405638557.png


1708405665952.png


1708405720072.png


Some of my key takeaways, findings, interesting points to note and so on, so far, and in no particular order;
  • A burning question on my mind from the outset, and having a 7600GT quite a bit before the 6800U was, which is faster? this testing indicates it is clearly the 7600GT, if only by a smidge in some cases. There are variances in other testing not shown here, especially with heavier AA/AF.
  • The next biggest question was the X850XT vs 6800U, and in the vast majority of situations, the X850XT is the more performant card.
  • The X850XT not being fully DX9.0c complaint means I cannot run certain benchmarks or in game options (hence low 3DM06 score, can't do the SM3.0 tests), which is a shame and may ultimately mean it's not the lasting card in this box.
  • the 8800GTS and 9800GTX+ offer incredible performance on this box, too much performance even, and it doesn't interest me to just have every game be able to be dialed up to 11 and still get well in excess of my target framerate. My preference here is to stick with DX9.0c feature set hardware and performance teirs.
  • The newer the test, the bigger the differences between all cards.
  • 6000, 7000 and 8000 series Nvidia cards tested all netted large gains from overclocking (relative to reference clocks), easily 10%+ sometimes 15%+
  • ATI overclocking proved more mixed, the X1950Pro was a bit of a let down. The 9800GTX+ makes a bit more sense as it's basically end of lifecycle silicon clocked near it's limits already. The X850XT was impressive in it's own right here.
  • Not all cards were tested at the max OC I've been able to achieve, but it would be so close as to not influence the results in a drastic way, it'd be within 10-25mhz core and maybe 50mhz effective memory at a maximum. It's been a long and repetitive (but enjoyable) run of oc'ing and testing.
  • The stock X850XT cooler is obnoxious, no other stock cooler comes close to this in outright volume and the acoustic profile. Having said that it cools the card well, under 65c and doesn't really exceed 50% fan speed, but even 50% is loud.
  • I really miss the days of swapping coolers, but new gen cards tend to come with good albeit massive coolers, a bit of a catch 22 but it's been super rewarding, the highlight so far being finding a brand new in box old stock Artic Accelero X1 to install on the 6800 Ultra (I just scraped off the pre applied paste square and used fresh stuff)
  • 1280x960 @ 70hz and 1024x768 @ 85hz are better than I remember, 85hz feels like absolute silk on a CRT, reallly good for shooters and something where responsiveness is key. 960p70 is the better balance for slower paces games where the extra visual clarity can be enjoyed.
  • NVCP is more responsive and loads faster in XP in this build than my 5800X3D win 10 rig, it's lightning fast.
  • The old Catalyst control centre is very feature rich, well done ATI
  • I have more than 1 card in this batch that has a pre-post sort of post screen of it's own, some do memory checks too, I miss that, it's cool as f.
  • Some of these games still look downright great considering they all use less than 256M of memory so far, some under 100M still looking very nice.
  • the 7950GT works flawlessly without the PCI-E 6 pin connected, it's just locked to stock clocks. The X1950Pro just screams (continuous beep) and shows a DOS looking error telling you to install the cable.
  • In actual games the FPS swings can be wild as the rendering load changes, for example in F.E.A.R, one of the heavier games, it could be 45fps in GPU limited views, then look up to the sky and it jumps massively to 250+, such appears to be the nature of a system with a comparatively very powerful CPU, when the GPU load drops significantly, the FPS can be crazy as the CPU can feed it so fast. As such the way I configure/optimize each game is to be in GPU limited territory as much as possible, as is the design goal - all about the visual experience and making that the defining part of gaming on this box - era rendering hardware at roughly era framerates, viewed on a CRT.
 

Outback Bronze

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WOW!!

Great job, I really wish I had the time to do something like this with all the GPU's I got. Hopefully one day..

Just look at the overclocking of these old school video cards. It's a pipe dream to see something like that of the latest graphics cards.

Nice work once again!
 

wolf

Performance Enthusiast
Joined
May 7, 2007
Messages
7,784 (1.25/day)
System Name MightyX
Processor Ryzen 5800X3D
Motherboard Gigabyte X570 I Aorus Pro WiFi
Cooling Scythe Fuma 2
Memory 32GB DDR4 3600 CL16
Video Card(s) Asus TUF RTX3080 Deshrouded
Storage WD Black SN850X 2TB
Display(s) LG 42C2 4K OLED
Case Coolermaster NR200P
Audio Device(s) LG SN5Y / Focal Clear
Power Supply Corsair SF750 Platinum
Mouse Corsair Dark Core RBG Pro SE
Keyboard Glorious GMMK Compact w/pudding
VR HMD Meta Quest 3
Software case populated with Artic P12's
Benchmark Scores 4k120 OLED Gsync bliss
WOW!!

Great job, I really wish I had the time to do something like this with all the GPU's I got. Hopefully one day..

Just look at the overclocking of these old school video cards. It's a pipe dream to see something like that of the latest graphics cards.

Nice work once again!
Cheers! It's been a pleasure, some frustrating times but overall it's been a great use of my spare time, especially when we had covid recently. Strangely this feels like just the beginning too, I want to do an older AGP box, and at a minimum a 2010ish dx10 box too with SLI /crossfire because I miss those days.

It really is a labour of love, probably enough to start more robust content creation but the time involved in that would be too onerous.

So many interesting takwaeys too, tech used to move so fast, look at those gen on gen leaps and how awesome midrange cards were.
 
Last edited:
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Memory Patriot Viper Steel 4000MHz CL16 4x8GB (@3240MHz CL12.12.12.24 CR2T @ 1,48V)
Video Card(s) Titan V (~1650MHz @ 0.77V, HBM2 1GHz, Forced P2 state [OFF])
Storage WD SN850X 2TB + Samsung EVO 2TB (SATA) + Seagate Exos X20 20TB (4Kn mode)
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I tested things in January, here are some results :
5800 X3D 3DMark 03 Windows XP.png

5800 X3D 3DMark 05 Windows XP.png

Violet stuff is what you are interested in :)

I would recommend dropping overall score of 3DMark 06, and focus on SM2.0 or SM3.0 Scores (depending on what you need).
Example :
5800 X3D 3DMark 06 SM20 Windows XP.png


5800 X3D 3DMark 06 SM30 Windows XP.png
 
Last edited:

wolf

Performance Enthusiast
Joined
May 7, 2007
Messages
7,784 (1.25/day)
System Name MightyX
Processor Ryzen 5800X3D
Motherboard Gigabyte X570 I Aorus Pro WiFi
Cooling Scythe Fuma 2
Memory 32GB DDR4 3600 CL16
Video Card(s) Asus TUF RTX3080 Deshrouded
Storage WD Black SN850X 2TB
Display(s) LG 42C2 4K OLED
Case Coolermaster NR200P
Audio Device(s) LG SN5Y / Focal Clear
Power Supply Corsair SF750 Platinum
Mouse Corsair Dark Core RBG Pro SE
Keyboard Glorious GMMK Compact w/pudding
VR HMD Meta Quest 3
Software case populated with Artic P12's
Benchmark Scores 4k120 OLED Gsync bliss
New installed and cracked games since last check in
  • Crysis
  • Prey
  • Deus Ex
  • Battlefield Vietnam
  • Red Faction II
  • Just Cause
  • STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl
  • The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
  • Serious Sam: The Second Encounter
  • The Simpsons: Hit & Run
  • Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
  • Command and Conquer 3
  • OutRun 2006 - Coast 2 Coast + FXT
  • Flatout
  • Interstate 82
  • Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast
desktop feb 20.jpg
 
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