TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club

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some anticipation of the next project
started playing with pp/vp unlock on GeForce 6800LE

3DMark03 E6600@default / 6800LE - 8pp/4vp - 300/700

3DMark03 E6600@default / 6800LE - 12pp/6vp - 325/700

F.E.A.R (medium preset, 1280x1024) E6600@default / 6800LE - 8pp/4vp - 300/700

F.E.A.R (medium preset, 1280x1024) E6600@default / 6800LE - 8pp/4vp - 300/700

DOOM3 (Ultra, 1280x1024) E6600@default / 6800LE - 8pp/4vp - 300/700

DOOM3 (Ultra, 1280x1024) E6600@default / 6800LE - 8pp/4vp - 300/700

Unfortunately the last 4pp are not in good shape ...but 12/6 is not bad after all!
Still have to find the GPU limit (don't expect much more, maybe maybe 350). RAM modules are rated at 357MHz so I don't expect much from them either, will see

 

[Splinterdog]

Huh. Why even stick an X16 slot on it then? Does it still have full-width connection to the PCH?

PCH?

 

[80-watt Hamster]

Platform Controller Hub. Which your board might not actually have; I don't know what chipset's on it.

 

[Splinterdog]

Platform Controller Hub. Which your board might not actually have; I don't know what chipset's on it.

It's an Intel Q963 Express chipset.

Product Specifications

quick reference guide including specifications, features, pricing, compatibility, design documentation, ordering codes, spec codes and more.

ark.intel.com

HP Compaq dc5700 Microtower PC Specifications | HP® Customer Support

Specifications for HP Compaq dc5700 Microtower PC.

support.hp.com

 

[Ruru]

some anticipation of the next project
started playing with pp/vp unlock on GeForce 6800LE



Unfortunately the last 4pp are not in good shape ...but 12/6 is not bad after all!
Still have to find the GPU limit (don't expect much more, maybe maybe 350). RAM modules are rated at 357MHz so I don't expect much from them either, will see

Almost just like my 6800 LE back in the day. Unlocked to 12/5 and OC'd to 380/940, it was an Asus model (V9999LE).

 

[framebuffer]

Almost just like my 6800 LE back in the day. Unlocked to 12/5 and OC'd to 380/940, it was an Asus model (V9999LE).

380/940 is not bad at all!

 

[Ruru]

380/940 is not bad at all!

And it was totally stable with those clocks. I had a Pentium D 805 @ 3.4GHz as a CPU with it (Asus P5P800 SE, LGA775 and AGP).

 

[stef]

@framebuffer
Great project

I had similar project in mind, but critically lack time these days. I hope to start it in May/June.
Hardware is ready, and almost all period-correct. I'm targeting smaller AMD64 platform on VIA chipset:
* Asus K8V SE Deluxe (K8T800) -> wanted Abit K8T800Pro, but this will do
* Venice E6 3200+ with AC Freezer64 Pro -> technically, cheating on s754 but chip is too cool to resist ... literally
* 2 x 1GB G.Skill CL 2-3-2-6 (Infineon B-die)
* Leadtek WinFast A400 TDH (non-GT unlockable to 16,6) + new old stock NV silencer 5
All in beutiful biege AOpen H600A case.

I used to have DFI LP UT s754 with GF 6800 back in the day, and had gazillion problems with it. For some reason nforce3 chipset and 6800 did not like each other. Ati worked great on the board, and VIA chipset was best option for AGP GeForce 6800, stability wise. So, trying to go other route some 16 years later .

This is the card:

 

[80-watt Hamster]

It's an Intel Q963 Express chipset.

Product Specifications

quick reference guide including specifications, features, pricing, compatibility, design documentation, ordering codes, spec codes and more.

ark.intel.com

HP Compaq dc5700 Microtower PC Specifications | HP® Customer Support

Specifications for HP Compaq dc5700 Microtower PC.

support.hp.com

Oh, weird. It looks like an X16 connector, but isn't one. Despite ARK listing PCIe revision as 1.1, the Wikipedia page claims no PCIe support for the 963, and if you compare to 965 on ARK, there's no config listed for the 963. Stupid market segmentation.

 

[framebuffer]

And it was totally stable with those clocks. I had a Pentium D 805 @ 3.4GHz as a CPU with it (Asus P5P800 SE, LGA775 and AGP).

Pentium D 805? That's interesting, why you had a Pentium D in a period completely dominated by AMD with Athlon 64?
I also had a Pentium D at some point, but it was at the end of Athlon 64 single-core era and mostly just out of curiosity, you know the just to change and try something different, but mine was a 920, able to clock up to 4.20GHz

@framebuffer
Great project

I had similar project in mind, but critically lack time these days. I hope to start it in May/June.
Hardware is ready, and almost all period-correct. I'm targeting smaller AMD64 platform on VIA chipset:
* Asus K8V SE Deluxe (K8T800) -> wanted Abit K8T800Pro, but this will do
* Venice E6 3200+ with AC Freezer64 Pro -> technically, cheating on s754 but chip is too cool to resist ... literally
* 2 x 1GB G.Skill CL 2-3-2-6 (Infineon B-die)
* Leadtek WinFast A400 TDH (non-GT unlockable to 16,6) + new old stock NV silencer 5
All in beutiful biege AOpen H600A case.

I used to have DFI LP UT s754 with GF 6800 back in the day, and had gazillion problems with it. For some reason nforce3 chipset and 6800 did not like each other. Ati worked great on the board, and VIA chipset was best option for AGP GeForce 6800, stability wise. So, trying to go other route some 16 years later .

This is the card:

That Leadtek is awesome!
And yes doing these tests and everything is incredibly time consuming but since I'm doing it for fun as hobby it's all fine

In fact the platform I started using was a K8T Neo 2 w/ Opteron 185 (which equals to an Athlon 64 FX60) but I wasn't getting the performance I expected, really not a fan of VIA chipsets when performance is concerned, also the K8T800 is unstable over 220MHz so it pissed me off and I moved to the ASRock 4CoreDual-SATA2 (which I know, is again VIA based but still basically the fastest platform for AGP that exists).

Of course even here I found various problems, first with memory modules, then the board refused to boot with C2D E7x00 series, even if it has the latest BIOS, so had to rollback to E6x00
Fortunately I'm crazy and I have so much hardware around that it's just a matter of time before I found the right combination

 

[Ruru]

Pentium D 805? That's interesting, why you had a Pentium D in a period completely dominated by AMD with Athlon 64?
I also had a Pentium D at some point, but it was at the end of Athlon 64 single-core era and mostly just out of curiosity, you know the just to change and try something different, but mine was a 920, able to clock up to 4.20GHz

Curiosity for me too I guess, that was about 14 years ago. And as a teen I was even more broke than I am these days, I had just that Pentium D and that 6800 LE. Still ran games fine tho, I got at least C2D E4300 in 2008..

Built a faster system in 2009 (C2D E6400, MSI P6N SLI Platinum, MSI Radeon HD 3870X2 and 8GB DDR2), sticked with LGA775 until 2011 when I upgraded to AM3 with X6 1055T. Downgraded that later to X4 965 BE until I switched to 2500K in 2014.

In 2015 I had a break from desktop PCs; just had a crappy laptop and played games with X360, but that felt too boring and then I went back to desktop PCs with a G3258. And by upgrade after another, now I'm kickin' with a R5 3600 & 1080 Ti.

 

[Mr.Scott]

ASRock 4CoreDual-SATA2 (which I know, is again VIA based but still basically the fastest platform for AGP that exists).

Debatable. AM2NF3-VSTA produces equal and sometimes better scores when benching 3D. Depends on the benchmark you're running.

 

[Ruru]

Debatable. AM2NF3-VSTA produces equal and sometimes better scores when benching 3D. Depends on the benchmark you're running.

A great board. I've always liked nForce 3 250/250Gb/Ultra.

 

[Mr.Scott]

A great board. I've always liked nForce 3 250/250Gb/Ultra.

The NF3-VSTA has a crappy 1.55v vcore limit, but I have a volt mod for that. The board itself will stay together up to around 1.75v. Anything over that just grenades the VRM section.
Good AGP benching board.

I've always liked nForce 3 250/250Gb/Ultra.

I have those too.

 

[stef]

A great board. I've always liked nForce 3 250/250Gb/Ultra.

And unlike VIA K8T800, you can even run modern SSD on it .
But, I'd be careful pairing 6800 with nforce3. For me, it was one big BSOD party although both, board and card, were good on their own. There were threads about it on NV forum, but I think it was never fully resolved.

This was my first attempt with s754 Venice E6:

A mix of old and new. (notice AMD Wraith cooler and SSD).
Board is very unatractive Asus K8N, non-Deluxe version. 1GB of Winbond BH-5 and Connect3D x850Pro Vivo flashed to 16p,6v. Very snappy system, I was surprised.

Cheap DRAM-less SSD:

System specs:

And some tests:

 

[Liquid Cool]

stef...

Thanks for posting your build it brought back good memories....

Is that an old Chieftec case? Those were my go to cases back in the 2000 to 2003 era. I loved those cases.... Here's an inside shot of one of mine from way back when. That was my last Soyo Motherboard...a Soyo KT 400 Dragon Ultra, I loved that motherboard. VIA chipset if I recall.

Although....I did shortly leave Soyo motherboards right after that for A-Bit....I also...never looked back.



This pc in the picture here was a very early version of RGB. I had to buy red, green, blue cold cathode tubes and the chipset fan to make that lighting effect.

Best,

Liquid Cool

 

[stef]

Case is Antec SX630II, a tank of a case . Very similar to Chieftecs of the era.
Maybe not so period-correct for an early Athlon64 build, but I had nothing better to put into at the time.
Would probably better suit late PIII or K7 Athlon build.

 

[Ruru]

Asus K8N

I had that board with a Sempron "64" 2800+ Venice-256, too bad that it had a 300FSB cap as it OC'd 50% without a problem with a stock cooler (1.6 @ 2.4GHz). I had almost the same GPU back then as mine was X800 Pro VIVO @ XT PE. I actually played Crysis on it back in 2008.

It was a great trade as I had the crappy K8V SE Deluxe, traded it to K8N and I paid 10EUR in exchange.

 

[stef]

Yes, a relatively crappy board by mid 2000s standards, but it survived. A lot of DFIs didn't, mostly due to bad caps.

 

[F-Zero]

Hey guys ! As you may know I got my hands on a Asrock 4CoreDual-Sata2 motherboard. I wanted to make a ultimate AGP test system.



So I put together a Q6600 ( searching for a QX6700 & QX6800 ) 2 Gb of 533 Mhz DDR 2 memory, Crucial BX500 480Gb SSD, Kolink Enclave 500W Gold MPS, Creative X-FI Xtreme Gamer sound card.



It's a combination of old and new. And then I got an idea of testing my 6800 Ultra and X850 XT on the same platform so that everything stays the same just changing the gpu.

Test are:
3DMark2003(default)
3DMark2005(default)
D00M 3(1280x1024, Ultra)
F.E.A.R.(1024x768, Maximum)

Drivers are: Geforce 93.71, ATI 10.2.
Please note however that X850 XT only works in PCIe X4 mode. ( I hope this won't bottleneck the X850 XT ? )

Geforce 6800 Ultra

3DMark2003

3DMark2005

D00M3

F.E.A.R.


Radeon X850 XT

3DMark2003

3DMark2005

D00M3

F.E.A.R.

 

[framebuffer]

Debatable. AM2NF3-VSTA produces equal and sometimes better scores when benching 3D. Depends on the benchmark you're running.

True, forgot about it

 

[lexluthermiester]

2 Gb of 533 Mhz DDR 2 memory

I would recommend 4GB of DDR2-800. This will allow you to get the most out of that system. Other than that, excellent build!!

 

[framebuffer]

I would recommend 4GB of DDR2-800. This will allow you to get the most out of that system. Other than that, excellent build!!

Unfortunately the board supports only DDR II 667 and it's often unstable with them, so you need to scale down to DDR II 533 or use DDR (400)
At the moment I'm using DDR 400 at CL2-3-3-6 1T on this ASRock

 

[lexluthermiester]

Unfortunately the board supports only DDR II 667 and it's often unstable with them, so you need to scale down to DDR II 533 or use DDR (400)
At the moment I'm using DDR 400 at CL2-3-3-6 1T on this ASRock

Ah, ok. Didn't know that. Learn something new every day!

 

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TNT2 family