TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club

[agent_x007]

Ready for some old school action?

Voodoo4 4500 AGP vs GeForce 256 SDR

No TnL really hurts Voodoo...

 

[havli]

It is hard to tell whether TnL is the bottleneck here or some other factor. I am no expert on GPU architectures, so I can only speculate. Perhaps it is just the fillrate advantage of GF256 (480 mp/s vs 333 mp/s). Maybe drivers or games a bit too modern for this GPU class.

 

[lexluthermiester]

It is hard to tell whether TnL is the bottleneck here or some other factor. I am no expert on GPU architectures, so I can only speculate. Perhaps it is just the fillrate advantage of GF256 (480 mp/s vs 333 mp/s). Maybe drivers or games a bit too modern for this GPU class.

The GF256 was just a better GPU. That's why the Geforce line took off like it did. Radeon was likewise just a cut above Voodoo. 3DFX failed because it didn't innovate in the right directions unfortunately.

 

[Grog6]

Yeah, the 4500-5000 series was toward the end of their run; a buddy bought a 5500 about the time I was still using the TNT2, and my next upgrade was a GF 2 Ti, iirc.

I want to say we were playing HL or Q2 then.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I want to say we were playing HL or Q2 then.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

 

[havli]

Radeon 9800 XT vs Radeon X800 XT PE

 

[HUSKIE]

X58 and i7 920

 

[lexluthermiester]

X58 and i7 920

And a Skulltrail board. Those were exceptionally solid and decent overclockers. Very nice. How much?

 

[HUSKIE]

And a Skulltrail board. Those were exceptionally solid and decent overclockers. Very nice. How much?

A friend gave it to me for free

 

[lexluthermiester]

A friend gave it to me for free

Score! Well nice that!

 

[HUSKIE]

Score! Well nice that!

untested but working. been sat on his drawer for around 2 years collecting dust

 

[micropage7]

X58 and i7 920

not the top tier but you can't miss intel motherboard especially that time

 

[Mr.Scott]

A friend gave it to me for free

Nice!
Don't get any better than that.

 

[Artex]

Still running my Gulftown 980x in my MSI Big Bang XPower X58 LGA1366 board. Remains rock-solid @ 4GHZ! Such an awesome platform.

 

[lexluthermiester]

untested but working. been sat on his drawer for around 2 years collecting dust

With an updated bios you could run a Xeon X5675 or X5680. 2 extra cores, more speed, generally better overclockability and they are not expensive ATM.

 

[HUSKIE]

With an updated bios you could run a Xeon X5675 or X5680. 2 extra cores, more speed, generally better overclockability and they are not expensive ATM.

That's the plan mate...

 

[emissary42]

Somewhat infamous for the Samxon GF caps used in the VRM of the first batches and the typical stability issues.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Somewhat infamous for the Samxon GF caps used in the VRM of the first batches and the typical stability issues.

View attachment 126621

Oh yes, replace those caps! Good board though. Chipset always ran a bit hot and I mounted heatsinks on both of them, big enough to do the job but low enough not to interfere with the cards..

 

[emissary42]

While the Caps are also green, this one is a later revision and does not use GFs.

 

[lexluthermiester]

While the Caps are also green, this one is a later revision and does not use GFs.

I'd still recommend replacing them as that is an old board and caps will wear out over time. Current caps will last a lot longer as well.

 

[Trekkie4]

In case anyone's wondering, things are mostly quiet on my end... I sold one of my 4x86 machines (DX4, 100MHz) and was about to give up on retro computers entirely when I received an offer from a fellow forumer, who is willing to donate a baby "AT" form tower with (according to him) non-working Socket 7 board. I have no idea what's wrong with it, but even if I don't get to repair the board inside, I can always swap it out for one of the other two Socket 7 boards in my collection, with either 133MHz Pentium (non MMX) or 233MHz Pentium MMX, which would be the 4th one in my collection. I would love to get my hands on one of the AMD K6 CPUs from that era, but that is going to be easier said than done I'm afraid.

Or, I might go in entirely different direction & patch up that non-working 3x86 board with the built-in processor. We shall see... For now this is all just theoretical of course, because I've been promised old components before, from other folks of which (some of them, at least) I never received.

On a side note, I got a pair of nice vintage Pioneer HiFi speakers from 1981. Model CS-656 (pic below is for reference only, mine even came with protective grills)

 

[lexluthermiester]

On a side note, I got a pair of nice vintage Pioneer HiFi speakers from 1981. Model CS-656 (pic below is for reference only, mine even came with protective grills)

Oh, nice. I had a set very similar to those. Wonderful sound reproduction!

 

[Robert B]

A little AGP card...

Gigabyte GV-R465D2-1GI with a mighty 1GB DDR2 video memory... DDR2...

Nevertheless for 5 EUROS is not so bad.

Untested.

 

[Trekkie4]

Oh, nice. I had a set very similar to those. Wonderful sound reproduction!

Thanks!

It is definitely a step in right direction, I've been meaning to grab a pair of 3-way speakers for quite some time but never got around to actually do so due to one reason or another. Didn't get to hook them up yet, I still have to buy the speaker cable but I do know they're working fine.

 

[LittleKonae]

Dual pentium pro system, works great, Its a Intergraph TD300, Some weird videos card. Old P2 System im playing with and no to old but the gpus are still sealed in the boxes.