ODwilly wrote:

I have a friend with a box full of RDRAM. He was telling me that at one point he had 1gb and 512's but after 10 years they are all gone and 256/128's are all that remain. A maxed out 4gb RDRAM p4 would be such a cool project! come to think of it I never have even seen an enthusiast 423 motherboard

A maxed out S423 pentium iv would be just a lot of expensive ram on a crap cpu that would not have a clue of what to do with it...

I have a few rambus sticks but they dont play well toghether, at least on the i850gb Another problem of mine is coolers... Cannot find one for the life of me... S423 cooler have vanished from the face of the earth, both new and used...

My dual p3 built in 2000 wiped the floors with p4 machines according to my neighbor who built it and cost around $1000 to build. Compare that to a guy i know who bought a RAMBUS P4 machine for $3500 a year later x) but now nobody wants them and the parts are cheap so why not have a bit of fun with intel's biggest failure?

There's at least one "enthusiast" 423 board from Abit (like see here: http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/465/abit_si7 … um_4/index.html), and I vaguely remember Asus had one or two as well. It was a fairly short-lived platform. P4 with RDRAM, however, isn't a bad machine and will holds its own, or outpace, the P3 once the clock on the P4 is high enough (generally 2GHz and beyond and it'll walk over the P3 in everything, SSE2 or no; the 1.3-1.5GHz chips will be somewhat slower in some areas, but faster in others). I don't think "wiped the floor" is an accurate comparison either - Pentium 4 Extreme Edition vs Pentium MMX or something else equally one-sided is somewhere I think "wiped the floor" would be an accurate comparison. 😊

Some benchies:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-ddr,403-7.html (this is with a 2GHz P4, the top chip for S423 and the fastest chip Intel released in 2001)

Some more with the 2GHz P4:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/818/7

And with a 423 1.5:
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/12/intel_pen … ghz/index6.html

And 1.4 and 1.5 against a number of other chips (including P3s with RDRAM):
http://www.anandtech.com/show/661/16

However, the P3 will almost always win in the court of popular opinion, especially when looked upon through the lens of nostalgia. And the more times it gets repeated, the more people unfortunately accept it at face-value as canonical (and at this point there's actually direct economic incentive to keep that argument going, because it allows scrappers, ecyclers, etc to charge ludicrous prices for P3 equipment). P4 isn't bad, or a failure, by any means - and the fact that you can get them cheap as chips is just great imho. 😀

As far as heatsinks for 423, I found these quite easily:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/251737334244
http://www.ebay.com/itm/280365591015
http://www.ebay.com/itm/380534081114

Again, 423 isn't the most common platform as it was short-lived and I would guess most of the boxes that do (or did) exist were OEM machines, not custom built, so those sinks may not even be workable outside of their specific platform. But 423 isn't so rare that you can't find parts for it if you look a little bit. 😀

obobskivich wrote:

There's at least one "enthusiast" 423 board from Abit (like see here: http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/465/abit_si7 … um_4/index […]
Show full quote

There's at least one "enthusiast" 423 board from Abit (like see here: http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/465/abit_si7 … um_4/index.html), and I vaguely remember Asus had one or two as well. It was a fairly short-lived platform. P4 with RDRAM, however, isn't a bad machine and will holds its own, or outpace, the P3 once the clock on the P4 is high enough (generally 2GHz and beyond and it'll walk over the P3 in everything, SSE2 or no; the 1.3-1.5GHz chips will be somewhat slower in some areas, but faster in others). I don't think "wiped the floor" is an accurate comparison either - Pentium 4 Extreme Edition vs Pentium MMX or something else equally one-sided is somewhere I think "wiped the floor" would be an accurate comparison. 😊

Some benchies:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-ddr,403-7.html (this is with a 2GHz P4, the top chip for S423 and the fastest chip Intel released in 2001)

Some more with the 2GHz P4:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/818/7

And with a 423 1.5:
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/12/intel_pen … ghz/index6.html

And 1.4 and 1.5 against a number of other chips (including P3s with RDRAM):
http://www.anandtech.com/show/661/16

However, the P3 will almost always win in the court of popular opinion, especially when looked upon through the lens of nostalgia. And the more times it gets repeated, the more people unfortunately accept it at face-value as canonical (and at this point there's actually direct economic incentive to keep that argument going, because it allows scrappers, ecyclers, etc to charge ludicrous prices for P3 equipment). P4 isn't bad, or a failure, by any means - and the fact that you can get them cheap as chips is just great imho. 😀

As far as heatsinks for 423, I found these quite easily:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/251737334244
http://www.ebay.com/itm/280365591015
http://www.ebay.com/itm/380534081114

Again, 423 isn't the most common platform as it was short-lived and I would guess most of the boxes that do (or did) exist were OEM machines, not custom built, so those sinks may not even be workable outside of their specific platform. But 423 isn't so rare that you can't find parts for it if you look a little bit. 😀

that abit Board is s478 with sis chips... Did not know (or care) that sis made rambus chipsets...

I rarely buy stuff from the US because customs... Here they charge 23% over the payed price on anything over 45€... And shiping costs for stuff is usually is more than the price of it... The only thing i've bought from the US of A was a motherboard for the Shuttle XPS seen on the second picture ive posted.... The Board itself was 15€... The shipping was 25€... That was 5 months ago... But those Board are hard to find and a want that pc working for my wife... And it came with the cpu cooler and the cpu itself, witch was nive becaise i only had the chassis to work with..

There is a big difference in meaning between recycling and re-using. Don't forget; to recycle is to melt down towards other developments. Re-using is simply having a different use or re-use for old material.!!!!

joacim wrote:

No wife, more room for computers!

In PeterLI's case it will mean no wife no house.

obobskivich: The reason why I believe him is that he used to play games like Soldier Of Fortune and a whole bunch of other games with SMP enabled. Having dual 1ghz processors and a ti4200 would be pretty dang fearsome to come up against back in 2000-2002 even with what would be a typical top of the line machine in 2002 (2.4-2.8 Non HT Northwood)

ODwilly wrote:

obobskivich: The reason why I believe him is that he used to play games like Soldier Of Fortune and a whole bunch of other games with SMP enabled. Having dual 1ghz processors and a ti4200 would be pretty dang fearsome to come up against back in 2000-2002 even with what would be a typical top of the line machine in 2002 (2.4-2.8 Non HT Northwood)

Like I said, it really depends on what applications you're comparing as to which would be better. There will be no universal "wipes the floor" or "better in all situations" between the two. By 2002, we could be talking about something as fast as the 3.06HT (or AthlonXP up to 2800+), which will trounce a Pentium 3 in single-threaded performance (and that's most games up until at least 2007, and note that SSE2/3 started to matter for games before then), especially if SSE2, improved memory bandwidth, etc are considerations for performance. However it's still ultimately a single CPU, and the twin P3s may do a better job with some multi-tasking or SMP tasks, especially if we aren't comparing to something as robust and newer as the 3.06HT or 2.8 Northwood (for example pick a Willamette, which would be more contemporary (2001) against a P3). Generally DPs aren't very useful for pure gaming, even today; they're better as workstation and server machines.

NiPPonD3nZ0 wrote:

But ive thrown stuff away and regreted in the past...

I understand that feeling 🙁 However some stuff isn't all that valuable like HDDs. First they are very likely to fail after a decade of use (if not earlier), and they are also slow, noisy and heavy. Personally I prefer to go with the CF or SSD option these days, unless it's a very old HDD that may have some historical value.

devius wrote:

NiPPonD3nZ0 wrote:

But ive thrown stuff away and regreted in the past...

I understand that feeling 🙁 However some stuff isn't all that valuable like HDDs. First they are very likely to fail after a decade of use (if not earlier), and they are also slow, noisy and heavy. Personally I prefer to go with the CF or SSD option these days, unless it's a very old HDD that may have some historical value.

I've already made a few good €€€€ from using controllers from dead HDD in witch the problem was mechanic to some fine mechanically HDD and dead controllers... my friends, file recovery is a well paid service, and the ONLY reason I keep every HDD i can get my hands on!

Just should get them on a safe place...

PSU is Delta DPS-300PB-2 300W ATX

I'm probably infamous for post padding, and claiming I'll post pics of my computers then disappear for four years. Ok, so I will utter those infamous words again. I'll post pics of my computers when I get time. Though, now I'll tell you the specs.

Starting from oldest to "newest"

1992 Gateway 2000 4sx-33 with 7mb ram and 349mb hd. Later It was upgraded to a 486dx 130mhz with 15mb ram and a 1gb hd. It runs windows 3.11 for work groups and has a windows sound system sound card. It also has a dual 3.5" at 1.44mb density/5.25"at 1.2mb density, it's also outfitted with a 4x CD-ROM drive.

1993 Compaq prolinea 4/66 containing a 486DX2 clocked at 66mhz, 500mb hd, sb pro 2 ISA, 8x CD-ROM, 32mb ram, and a 3.5" 1.44mb density floppy drive.

1997 DIGITAL brand DIGITAL PC 3010 containing a Pentium MMX clocked at 166mhz, 128mb ram, 1gb hd, SB16, 3.5" 1.44mb density floppy drive, 5.25" 1.2mb density floppy drive, 8x CD-ROM drive.

1998 Gateway Optiplex G6-350 Pentium II 350mhz, 64mb ram, 2gb drive, S3-Trio 64v+ graphics, 2mb, 2x CD-ROM, windows 98FE, on board SB16. It was subsequently upgraded to a 500mhz Pentium III, 384mb ram (3x128mb sticks), ATI Rage Pro Ultra 128 4XL 16mb, 10GB hd, 52X CD-ROM, 8X DVD/CD-ROM Drive, Windows 98SE, and an add-in sb16 was added. Never quite understood why my dad chose to put an add-in sound card of the same flavor. Man, that tower was a screamer. I remember many hours racked up on Quake, Quake II, Blood, Blood 2, Hexen, Hexen II, NFS II SE, NASCAR Racing 3. If I remember correctly, that ATI card was a fairly good match for the VOODOO 2, right? It smashed the VOODOO 1 anyway.

Here is one of my first retro computers that I finished building today. I could not have done it without the help I received from the community on this forum. It contains the following: AMD K6-2/500AFX @ 400MHz (66MHz FSB, 6.0 Multiplier, 2.3V VCORE), 256Mb PC-100 Memory, Radeon 7000VE 64Mb, Sound Blaster AWE64.

The interior:

The exterior:

It's interesting to see the same old hardware or similar style hardware that i played with and played old games on back in the early to mid-late 2000s that got me to where i am now installed, in such new cases with new PSUs and fans. 1 guy had his done up in green LEDs it didn't look half bad. (pretty decent)

EDIT: I have respect for the ribbon cable folding and wire management in this photo,

http://postimg.org/image/5vkhmtumf/

If any of you are as crazy me and and have some thin cardboard i found a VERY handy place that all desktop computers have that is great place to tuck wire no matter how crappy the case's wire management. at least in a notable number of situations that is, most not able where the psu is mounted below the mobo.

Geez, that's real nice looking! I will definitely re-wire it. The crappy location of the floppy cable just sucks with this motherboard.

Evert wrote:

Geez, that's real nice looking! I will definitely re-wire it. The crappy location of the floppy cable just sucks with this motherboard.

My TI5VG+ is just the same, it seems it was a common placement for both the ATX and Floppy connectors would go there. It makes sense economically I suppose but in reality it can be a pain, esspecially in my case with the ATX connector so close to, and the clip lever being almost touching the case.

Hello fellow Vogonists....

Were you shocked from the lack of cleanliness of my "workspace"??? well... a few weeks ago i've gathered with some friends and gave the place a good spruce up!!!

This was the result of the cleaning session:

and i've found this old precious 😜

Now, one of my first self made PC was a Celeron 333MHz, cuzz at the time a Pentium II was prohibitive.

I've gathered a few parts and build the PC i've allways wanted back then, and today I will show you the PC assembled:

So, specs: Motherboard and CPU: QDI Excellent II (i440EX based) and a Pentium II 333MHz

Graphics: Diamond Viper V550 (nVidia Riva TnT based GPU)

Ethernet: Intel Pro/100+

Sound Card: 3D Melody MF1000 (ISA, this is the actual card i've bought back in 1998)

The chassis is a ASUS MicroATX, unknown model, had it laying around so ...

I know its a ASUS because...

The computer assembled in it:

The OS will be Windows 98 Second Edition and will be installed on a 8GB Western Digital Caviar HDD, And some RAM i've got to choose, and I have no pics...

Teaser of my next build:

Nice! What an improvement 😀

My PC from 1998 was also based on a QDI motherboard, but the it was the Legend V, and the CPU was a Pentium II 266MHz. The 333MHz version was my dream CPU back then, but it was super expensive. I have to get one of those now that they are cheap 😀

BTW, the cooler on your P2 is not the stock cooler is it?

No, it is not. Its a cooler master, and today arrived the silent fan i've ordered for it, some noiseblockers for the cpu, power supply and chassis so this sucker will be quiet

I spy a Shuttle XPC in there - what's its specs? They're neat little machines. 😀