TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club

[Ruru]

Yes! I always go for the biggest L3 cache.

That one has 4MB as 9xx ones have 6MB. Better than nothing though without a doubt.

 

[Audioave10]

That one has 4MB as 9xx ones have 6MB. Better than nothing though without a doubt.

I found 2 of those cpu's for $13 each. One had 2 bent pins - no problem to fix.

 

[Ruru]

I found 2 of those cpu's for $13 each. One had 2 bent pins - no problem to fix.

Yeah, fixing those is easy. I can't remember how much I paid for one 955BE, 10 or 15EUR... the dude said that test those out and keep the better one, though I'll probably ask that can I buy the other one too with the same price.

 

[Audioave10]

I still have this stuff to play with...CPU is a FX6300

 

[Ruru]

I still have this stuff to play with...CPU is a FX6300

Love those boxes, similar to my HD7970 box

 

[QuietBob]

Welp, I had to jump through some hoops with this one. Right at the beginning I was greeted with this warning:

Isn't 20 GB the official minimum? Wait, you mean 20 GB formatted? Microsoft, you cheat! Looks like I'm 1063 MB short... Still, I clicked "next" and setup copied all the necessary files, only to stop with an error at the "expanding files" stage
But I knew it'd be possible to fit the system on this drive. A complete installation takes less than 20 GB. So I temporarily installed it on a bigger drive and downloaded all the left-over updates, including the most recent ESU dated 2021-07. Then I set up the drivers, some utilities and cleared the remaining junk. Finally, I used Macrium Reflect to clone the drive onto the smaller one:

Et voila, fully updated 64-bit Win7 Home Premium, including a 2GB swap file and around 1.5 GB user data.
Benchmarks incoming!

 

[Ruru]

Welp, I had to jump through some hoops with this one. Right at the beginning I was greeted with this warning:

View attachment 211001

Isn't 20 GB the official minimum? Wait, you mean 20 GB formatted? Microsoft, you cheat! Looks like I'm 1063 MB short... Still, I clicked "next" and setup copied all the necessary files, only to stop with an error at the "expanding files" stage
But I knew it'd be possible to fit the system on this drive. A complete installation takes less than 20 GB. So I temporarily installed it on a bigger drive and downloaded all the left-over updates, including the most recent ESU dated 2021-07. Then I set up the drivers, some utilities and cleared the remaining junk. Finally, I used Macrium Reflect to clone the drive onto the smaller one:

View attachment 211003

Et voila, fully updated 64-bit Win7 Home Premium, including a 2GB swap file and around 1.5 GB user data! Benchmarks incoming

Damn, and I was already pissed off with my first SSD (64GB) back in the day as I could install only BF4 there with Win7...

 

[68Olds]

Yeah, an old 4:3 or 5:4 TFT is IMO fine for a retro build.

And you can use three 4:3 monitors with Eyefinity or Surround. This picture is my C2Q Q9650 (with water cooling in a bucket) & Xfire HD6950s from about 10 years ago.

 

[QuietBob]

Damn, and I was already pissed off with my first SSD (64GB) back in the day as I could install only BF4 there with Win7...

My first SSD was also 60 GB. I put it in a laptop, which I only used for light office work. It never ran out of space, and now it's in my XP desktop.

 

[F-Zero]

So I finally got myself a Geforce 3 Ti 200 from Ebay. It arrived today and after changing thermal paste and cleaning the card and heatsink I put the card in my P4 pc. After consulting HWINFO and GPU-Z I came to the realization that my GF3 Ti 200 is not a TI 200 but an original Geforce 3 ( 200/460 Mhz ) ASUS V8200 Deluxe.

 

[lexluthermiester]

So I finally got myself a Geforce 3 Ti 200 from Ebay. It arrived today and after changing thermal paste and cleaning the card and heatsink I put the card in my P4 pc. After consulting HWINFO and GPU-Z I came to the realization that my GF3 Ti 200 is not a TI 200 but an original Geforce 3 ( 200/460 Mhz ) ASUS V8200 Deluxe.

View attachment 211044View attachment 211045View attachment 211046View attachment 211047

Looks like it's been recap'd. Nice!

 

[Audioave10]

Beautiful Pics - looks almost new - some of the best Retro hardware I've seen is in the European countries.

 

[F-Zero]

Looks like it's been recap'd. Nice!

I have no idea to tell you the truth. I did find the same card with yellow and purple capacitators.

 

[Ruru]

Welcome to the GF3 club then I have an ELSA Ti 200 myself.

 

[F-Zero]

Some quick benches

1: HW Info + GPUZ
2: 3DMARK01SE
3: D00M3 640X480 LOW ALL OFF
4: D00M3 800X600 LOW ALL OFF

 

[QuietBob]

Since I've built two minimum Win7 systems now, I thought I'd do a side-by-side comparison. Here are the full specs:

System #1 AMD+Nvidia
s754 Sempron 2500+ @ 1.4 GHz
GeForce 6100 IGP (128 MB shared RAM)
2x 1 GB (single channel) DDR-400 @ 3-3-3-8
120 GB 5,400 rpm (32 MB/s, 18 ms)


System #2 Intel+ATI
LGA775 Celeron D 326 @ 2.53 GHz
Radeon Xpress 200 IGP (128 MB shared RAM)
2x 1 GB (single channel) DDR-400 @ 3-3-3-8
20 GB 5,400 rpm (31 MB/s, 17 ms)


Let's start with boot times:

A very slow start for the Intel system, taking twice as long to display the desktop and 2.5x longer until everything loads. Probably because the SATA controller on the board doesn't operate in native mode, relying on the legacy IDE protocol instead. ATI's reportedly subpar southbridge may also be at fault here. Or it could be some pesky driver.

Power consumption next:

Total system consumption at the wall. True to its Prescott fame, the Intel platform draws more than 1.5x the power, both at idle and maximum.

Let's look at some synthetic benchmarks:




On paper, the Celeron looks faster due to its much higher clock. But the Sempron's IMC gives it a clear advantage when it comes to RAM latency.

Now for the actual CPU tests:

Intel wins three out of five times here, but only marginally in the SHA3 and ZLib tests. AMD takes a clear lead in the other two tests.

Synthetic FPU tests follow:

The poor Sempron gets dominated in all tests but one, and by a wide margin.

CPU-Z's FPU benchmark tells the same story:

Is there any hope for the lowly AMD processor? Could it redeem itself in practical benchmarks?

Stay tuned for more!

 

[lexluthermiester]

Stay tuned for more!

While this is interesting & fascinating and I'm looking forward to more info, one has to wonder what inspired you to begin this endeavor?

 

[Athlonite]

We used to call Semprons Stumprons because they always got stumped on anything but the easiest of tasks

 

[Audioave10]

I have a Sempron 3000 1.8 Ghz and was thinking of going with my old Gigabyte AM2 (DDR2) Mobo.
I'd put XP on it however.

 

[QuietBob]

While this is interesting & fascinating and I'm looking forward to more info, one has to wonder what inspired you to begin this endeavor?

I appreciate your interest! For me it was mostly curiosity. As I said earlier, it started with the official minimum requirements. Windows 7 is my favorite OS and it's been around for nearly 12 years now. It's becoming sort of retro with only 16% global market share, but can still be used for pretty much everything. I was wondering how it would run on low-end hardware. The kind of components that had long been considered obsolete by 2009? For reference, the Athlon 64 was introduced in 2003 and the Pentium 4 Prescott in 2004. By the time Win7 launched, we had quads that overclocked to 4 GHz on air.

From the current technological perspective, the two boards I used are an unusual mix. Imagine Intel asking AMD to design the chipset for their own board. Or how about AMD employing NVidia graphics on theirs? Conveniently, these motherboards enabled me to build two different entry level systems based on four different architectures. I've never owned either a Pentium 4, or an Athlon 64, and I've never used integrated graphics in a desktop. So, for me it was also a learning experience!

On a personal note, I love experimenting and tinkering with stuff. "That would never work", "it can't be done" and "it doesn't make sense" are not in my dictionary
And I have great appreciation for old technology. I mean, who needs the fastest PC when you have two of the slowest?

 

[debs3759]

Since I've built two minimum Win7 systems now, I thought I'd do a side-by-side comparison. Here are the full specs:

What do you use to generate the charts?

 

[Ruru]

What do you use to generate the charts?

Can't say for sure but looks kinda Excelish to me..? Not sure tho.

 

[68Olds]

Can't say for sure but looks kinda Excelish to me..? Not sure tho.

Since this is the nostalgic thread my guess is gonna be Lotus 1-2-3.

 

[QuietBob]

The battle for the title of the slowest 64-bit desktop rages on:

Things are heating up with the two CPUs finishing neck and neck in Cinebench! But you really wouldn't like to use a single core processor for rendering.

Let's dive into cyberspace now. Surf's up!

Although no longer indicative of modern browsing experience, the Sempron fares better in the Octane benchmark, while the Celeron trumps it in the Kraken test.

How will the two contenders do in data archiving?

Here the AMD processor takes a decisive lead, despite a 1.13 GHz clock deficit. With both systems using the same memory, the result speaks volumes for the AMD64 architecture.

And now for a full system benchmark:

The Intel/ATI combo comes out on top, but you can see that the AMD/Nvidia rig has an ace up its sleeve.
Graphics benchmarks to follow!

What do you use to generate the charts?

MS Word 2003. I thought I'd go with something appropriate for the era

 

[Ruru]

Just bought a X5650 for my 2nd PC