Ok, sorry. I thought you wanted to know every part in our collections.. Then i think i can take a week off. Almost whole ebay vintage parts are in my hobby room. 🤣
~ At least it can do black and white~
wrote:Ok, sorry. I thought you wanted to know every part in our collections..
Nooooooooo.... 🤣
I listed the parts that were the easiest for me to remember and I thought were the most important... listing each and every video card, hard drive, sound card and RAM that I went through would require too much brain power 😉
My first three PCs belonged to my employer though I upgraded here and there, but the following were all mine:
cpu
athlon xp2000
athlon xp3000
athlon 64 x2 5400+
phenom 9350e
phenom ii x4 965
gpu
gf mx440 pci
fx 5200
gf 6600
gainward 7800gs+
hd 4850
gtx 560ti
audio
sb 128 pci
santa cruz
audigy 2zs
xonar dg
mobo
asrock k7s8x
abit an7
asrock alivedual-sata2
sapphire am2-rd790
Mothership 1 (2000-2003)
First main computer I could call mine was a horrendous K6-II based department store brand white box:
Only upgrades I ever did to it were increasing the RAM to 192MB and adding a CD burner.
Mothership 2 (2003-2010)
Second main machine was a computer store built generic box my mother brought from work in 2003, which I got to keep in exchange for my older one:
Going from the K6-II to this was almost a religious experience. It lasted me until 2010 making it my longest running PC and it saw more hardware changes than Theseus' Ship. It EOL'd as:
Mothership 3 (2010- )
My third and current main computer started as a budget build using a mix of parts I had laying around and others I purchased, spending as little money as possible. It started as:
After scoring some nice deals here and there (especially at clearance sales) it ended up in its current incarnation:
You can telll I'm not really into modern gaming since I haven't felt the need for a significant upgrade. 😵
Here we go I guess. I'm too lazy to figue out the very specific stuff, like motherboards and all, but I'll post what I remember off the top of my head.
Mothership 1:
Pentium MMX 200MHz
64MB EDO 60ns
3GB Maxtor C:
1.2GB WDC 21200 D:
Teac CD-ROM
S3 ViRGE 2MB
Yamaha xWave soundcard with the ESS Allegro (cheapo)
Mothership 2:
Dell Latitude CPi
366MHz PII
128MB sodimm SDRAM
NeoMagic chipset for video and audio
Mothership 3:
HP Pentium 4 2.6GHz
512MB(?) DDR
GeForce4 MX 440 64MB
Mothership 4:
Acer Extensa laptop
Pentium Dual Core (C2D based) 2ghz
2GB DDR2 (upgraded to 4GB a year later)
Intel GMA4500 graphpics
Mothership 5: (mainly for gaming, beats the crap out of the much newer acer laptop. Mainly played TES4 on it)
AMD Sempron 1.7GHz
GeForce 6600 256MB
2GB DDR
Mothership 6: (current PC, a custom build)
Intel i5-2400
8GB DDR3
Gigabyte H77-DS3H motheboard
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 550Ti 1GB (upgraded to a Sapphire 7970 Vapor-X 3GB card this year)
OCZ Vertex 4 64GB SSD
WDC Blue 1TB
Sound Blaster Recon 3d
Corsair TX650 650w PSU
Cooler Master HAF 922 case
Thats about it so far.
My YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Tr3vor42532
My main rig stuff, listed after first time in use in main rig. Bald shows stuff still i my possession.
CPU
Intel Pentium II 300 (Klamath)
Intel Celeron 566 (Coppermine)
AMD Athlon MP 1200 (Palomino)
AMD Athlon XP 2400+ (Thoroughbred)
AMD Athlon XP 2500+ (Barton)
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (Clawhammer, 754)
AMD Athlon 64 3400+ (Clawhammer, 939)
AMD Athlon FX 55 (Clawhammer) (RMAed one time)
AMD Opteron 165 (Denmark)
Intel Pentium M 740 (Dothan)
Intel Core 2 Duo 6300 (Conroe)
Intel Core i7 920 (Nehalem) (second hand)
Intel Xeon 5606 (Westmere-EP) (this I'm using now)
Motherboard
Asus P2L97 (RMAed two times)
Asus P3B-F
EPoX 8KHA+
EPoX 8K3A+
EPoX 8RDA+
EPoX 8RDA+
Abit NF2-S 1.2 (second hand)
Gigabyte GA-K8N
Gigabyte GA-K8NS
MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum
DFI LanParty UT nF4 Ultra-D
Asus P4GD1
Asus P5B-E
ASRock X58 Extreme (this I'm using now)
MSI Big Bang-XPower (dead)
Graphiccard
ATI Expert@Plax 8MB
GeForce DDR (Creative)
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
ATI Radeon X800 Pro AGP (dead)
ATI Radeon X800 XT PCIe (Asus)
ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 (Sapphire)
AMD Radeon 7970 (Sapphire) (this I'm using now)
AMD Radeon 6450 (PowerColor) (secondary card in main rig)
AMD Radeon HD 5770 (Club 3D)
ATI Radeon HD 4850 (HP) (loaned)
Soundcard
Sound Blaster AWE64 Value
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz
(All sorts of integrated)
TerraTec Aureon DualUSB (secondary card in main rig)
Bluegears b-inspirer
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS (this I'm using now) (second hand)
First PC [2002] (BIG mistake):
Intel Celeron 1.7 s478
256MB Ram
Intel Xtreme Graphics 2 onboard
Intel D845GRG mobo
40GB HDD
DVD-Rom
Windows XP SP1
ended up at 2004 with 768MB ram, Ati 9600Pro 256MB vga and XP SP2
Second PC [2006]:
Athlon 64 3500+ s939 Venice
Gigabyte GA-K8NSC 939 mobo w/sata and agp
1GB ram
Nvidia 6600GT
160GB Sata HDD
DVD-RW
Windows XP SP3
vga upgraded to 6800LE @ GT at the end of the year.
Third PC [2007]:
Intel Core 2 Duo E4400
Asrock 4core DUAL-VSTA
2GB DDR1 ram
Ati X1800XT vga
Windows XP SP3
Fourth PC [2008]:
Core 2 Duo E8400
Abit IP35 Pro
4GB DDR2
Ati HD3870
Windows Vista, later 7.
5th PC [2010]:
Athlon II X3 unlocked to X4
Asrock 970 Pro3
4GB DDR3
Ati HD5850
Windows 7
6th PC [end of 2011]:
Core i5 2500K
ASUS Maximus IV Gene
16GB DDR3
2x Ati HD5850
Corsair AX750 PSU
changed to 8GB DDR3, 1x Radeon HD7870XT, Corsair RM650 and Asrock Z77E-ITX on an ITX chassis and Windows 8.1, which is my current configuration.
Core i7-13700 | 32G DDR4 | Biostar B760M | Nvidia RTX 3060 | 32" AOC 75Hz IPS + 17" DEC CRT 1024x768 @ 85Hz
Win11 + Virtualization => Emudeck @consoles | pcem @DOS~Win95 | Virtualbox @Win98SE & softGPU | VMware @2K&XP | ΕΧΟDΟS
I can't really remember accurately.. I've been beat up and banged around in a few car wrecks (others hitting me... not the other way around, got smashed by a drunk driver once) so my memory isn't what it used to be but I think I can come up with a decent list. Also I had a unique situation of where I lived at home with mother (and still do) almost all my life. So When I did get a job, I was free to spend almost all my money on computer hardware, so I usually had "significantly above average" computing rigs, but still at certain points through out the years due to prices, I wasn't able to afford "the absolute best" at the time, sadly. I'm going back and re-building a lot of "Best of the best" older computers now in 2012 - 2014 that I was never able to afford back then.
Anyway on to the list.
CPU
I suppose my first actual CPU in my first PC was a 486-33-SX in a Packard Bell.
From there.. I got the PC bug and went on building my own.
Next was a 133 Mhz Pentium
233 MMX Pentium
AMD K6-II/500
AMD Slot-A 800
AMD Duron Socket-A (Don't remember what.. I think 900 Mhz?)
Then I started to get in to 'the best' for a while, starting with a 1.4 Ghz AMD Thunderbird
After that, upgraded to AMD Throughbred 2 Ghz 2400+ (Barton elluded me at the time due to prices)
I stayed on the AthlonXP wagon for a while longer, skipping over socket 754 entirely and instead saved up and jumped in to 939 later, mostly because I had got in to water cooling and overclocking and my A-XP @ 2.5 ghz was enough for a long while.
Jumped right in to socket 939 with a Athlon64 4000+ single core, and overclocked it to 2.7 ghz.
From there I got my first dual core chip, bought a Opteron 185 and OC'd it up to 3.5 Ghz
Also around that time I started getting in to the systems that would last me 2-3 years and didn't upgrade until it was a significant performance jump, so my next system was almost a "quad core" system before we had quads: Dual-socket platform with two AMD opteron 2220's on Socket-F, overclocked those up to 3.7 ghz, water cooled both of em.
At that time.. I was wholly expecting to jump right in to a dual-quad-core (octo-core) system and drop in a pair of AMD's barcelona quads with a bios update. But.. if any of you remember history that didn't happen. So right around then, I ended up saving up a lot of money because there was nothing to upgrade to.. intel hadn't got it's act together with anything big, amd's quads were recalled, so I just amassed money and sat on it.
Then.. came the i7! Performance in online reviews was great, and I went to a local MicroCenter's i7 launch party and bought a i7-920 on launch day at midnight, and jumped on it feet first. I got it home, jury rigged one of my water blocks to it and had it running at 4.4 ghz within a few days.
With the overclock.. I didn't need an upgrade for a looooong time, eventually I only upgraded my motherboard to support bigger GPU configurations and more pci-e bandwidth. I sailed right over sandy bridge, ignoring it with my overclock, and ignored ivy bridge.
I'd been watching ebay like a hawk all these years and then suddenly around november 2013, I found a i7-980x gulftown 6-core chip used on ebay for $250. I pounced on it and that's my current biggest computer. Running happily at 4.8 ghz with 12GB ddr3-2400 now. It's so fast that there's nothing that exists yet to upgrade to. So.. for now I sit, and wait.
GPU was a much more bland adventure sort of.
I didn't have a 3D GPU for a long time actually. Some how I didn't even know 3D accelerated / alpha-blended games existed for PC until this one day 3DFX Inc had a launch event for the voodoo2 at my local mall. They had multiple Voodoo machines up and running playing descent 3 in a large LAN setup and anyone from the public could just walk up and sit down and play. So.. their sales event worked, I saved up and bought a voodoo2 as my first GPU!
Then later I started to realize that at the launch event.. all of their machines were running dual-voodoo2's in SLI, and the performance I got from a single one.. wasn't anything as nice as at the event. So.. later, I added a second one for more performance.
From there I believe I went on to voodoo3 AGP
and Voodoo4 AGP.
I wanted a voodoo5 dual-chip AGP but they were far too expensive at the time, so I seem to remember I ended up with a geforce2 MX-400 instead.
Then I remember it was a Geforce3
Geforce 3 Ti500
Geforce 4 Ti4600
About then was when I had my first PCI-E system, and to celebrate jumping into PCI-E with the AMD 939 platform, I went with a 6600 GT card in a SLI motherboard.
Later on I added a second one, (my second SLI system since the voodoo2's)
Sat on that for a good while, saving up some cash and then went with a 7950 GX2 for my Dual-Socket-F AMD platform.
Later I added a second 7950 GX2 and was rocking Quad-SLI!
After that.. sold both of those and upgraded to a pair of 8800 GTX's.
The 8800 GTX's were so powerful, I stayed on those and ignored the entire GTX-9xxx line-up and saved up some spare cash for GPU upgrades, and used my 8800 GTX's for a few more months with the new i7 system waiting and then.. jumped in to a pair of HD4890's.
I used those 4890's for a long time, all the way until just recently replacing them in august 2013 and upgraded to my current video card: nVidia GTX-560ti, but not just any 560ti. The 448-cores "limited edition" version, and EVGA's "FTW Edition" version that came factory overclocked. (And then manually pushed it up +20% further with software.. it doesn't void warranty with EVGA, so, why not.)
So far in all games (that actually run correctly on it), it's about +40% faster than my pair of 4890's it replaced. And it's decent at DirectX-11.
Other parts.. I can't remember exactly what I upgraded and when. But there's a little sample of my computing life.
Just the machines I personally owned :
CPU:
386DX/40 (1998 - 2000)
486SX/25 (2000 - very briefly)
Pentium 120 (2000 - 2002)
Pentium II/350 (2002 - 2005)
Athlon XP 2400+ (2005 - 2006)
Athlon X2 4200+ (2006 - 2011)
Athlon II X3 450 (2011 - 2012)
Core i5-3550 (2012 - present)
Motherboard :
Unknown (1998 - 2000)
Seritech LIL1429-v1.2 (2000 - very briefly - anyone have the jumper settings for this btw?)
Intel Advanced/EV (2000 - 2002)
Gigabyte GA-686BX (2002 - 2005)
ECS K7S5A (2005)
Asus A7V600-X (2005 - 2006)
ECS something or other (2006 - 2011)
Gigabyte something or other (2011 - 2012)
Gigabyte Z77-DS3H (2012 - now)
Graphics card :
Trident TVGA9000B 512kB ISA (1998 - 2000)
Trident TVGA8900D 1MB ISA (2000 - very briefly)
Creative Labs Voodoo Banshee 16MB PCI (2000 - 2004)
Creative Labs GeForce 256 DDR 32MB AGI (2004 - 2005)
GeForce 4 Ti4200 64MB AGP (2005)
Radeon X700 AGP (2006 - very briefly)
Radeon 9700 128MB AGP (2006 - 2007)
GeForce 6600GT 128MB AGP (2007 - 2011)
GeForce GT430 1GB PCIe (2011 - present)
Sound card :
Sound Blaster 2.0 (1998 - 2000)
Sound Blaster 16 Value (2000 - 2002)
Sound Blaster AWE32 (2002 - 2005)
Aureal Vortex AU8830 (2005 - 2012)
Nice thread.. My memory is horrible but these parts stand out the most.. Also I have two comps I call my "mains" and both are upgraded closely together, but I'll just focus on my main main:) Only purchased 1 computer, it was my first, a Tandy 2500 SX/33..
CPU:
Intel 386sx 33
Intel 486sx 25 (short lived)
AMD 5x86-P75 133
K6 233
K6 300
K6-2+ 450
Athlon XP 2100+
Athlon XP 3000+
Athlon 64 X2 5200+ (Still running 24/7)
Phenom II X4 965BE
Motherboard:
Unknown 386
Unknown 486
Fic PIO 2 or 3
Shuttle HOT-603
FIC VA-503+
Asus A7N266-Vm
Asus A7N8X-VM
Abit NF7-S2
MSI K9A2 Platinum
Graphics cards:
Onboard Cirrus Logic?
Trident 8900 ISA?
Permidia 2
Voodoo
Voodoo 2
Voodoo 3 3000
Geforce 4 TI 4200
Geforce 6800 Ultra
Geforce GTX 260
Sound cards:
Sound Blaster 2.0
Sound Blaster Pro 2 (short lived)
Sound Blaster 32
Audigy 2 ZS
EDIT:
I'm depressed now.. Just realized I've been using the same Mobo for 5+ years and my Audigy is 10 years old!
Time to upgrade!
Here's my list of components I've been through:
Motherboards:
ASUS P2L97 (yes,I had this one too,but I accidentally killed the flash chip)
Acorp 6BX/ZX/VIA82 (Skt370,microATX)
Acorp 6BX/ZX/VIA81 (Slot 1,ATX)
ECS K7S5A
ECS K7S6A
ECS K7VZA
MSI KT3 Ultra (MS-6380E)
MSI KT4AV (didn't work at all)
ASUS P4B533 (didn't work at all)
ASUS M4A78-PRO (didn't work as it wouldn't support the CPU I have)
MSI P4MAM-V (didn't work and the front panel had corrosion)
Intel Desktop Board D845GLAD
QDI LEGEND P61440BX/B1S/Z1S (SB dead,wouldn't boot at all,fans would just twitch)
ASUS A7V8X-X (2 boards,neither worked)
Gigabyte 8ID533 (shame it was dead,had SDRAM slots)
Gigabyte GA-945GZM-S2-F2 (was my main rig's board,now defunct)
ASUS M2V-TVM (main rig MB,works pretty good but the onboard video sucks)
ASUS P4P800-VM (second rig MB,originally had a T-Systems OEM BIOS)
PCChips M577 v3 (again,shame it broke,was running incredibily perfect and just needed a case,HDD,and CDROM.Form factor was AT,but it had an ATX plug too)
FIC PAG-2130 (ATX Socket 7)
LuckyStar 5MMVP4 (another good board,but didn't had AGP,same for the FIC above)
CPUs:
Intel i486 DX2-66MHz
AMD Am486-100
AMD K6-2 400MHz
AMD K6-2 450MHz
Intel Pentium 100MHz (Socket 7)
Intel Pentium 150Mhz
Intel Pentium 166MHz (non-MMX)
Intel Pentium 233MHz
Intel Pentium II 233MHz (MMX)
Intel Pentium II 350MHz
Intel Pentium II 400MHz
Intel Pentium II 266MHz
Intel Pentium III 550MHz (Slot1)
Intel Celeron 600MHz
Intel Pentium III 933MHz (Skt370)
Intel Pentium III 1GHz (Coppermine,Skt370)
Intel Celeron 1.2GHz(Skt370)
Intel Celeron 1.4GHz(Skt370)
Intel Celeron 1.7GHz(Socket 478)
Intel Celeron 1.8GHz(Socket 478)
Intel Pentium 4 1.7GHz (Socket 478,second rig's CPU)
Intel Celeron D 2.4Ghz (Socket 478,is this one a Prescott or a Northwood?)
Intel Celeron D 2.66Ghz (Socket 478,this one IS a Prescott)
Intel Celeron 440 2.0GHz (Socket 775,I've yet to find a 775 board in here though)
AMD Athlon XP 1700+ 1.10GHz (Socket 462)
AMD Athlon XP 2200+ (Socket 462)
AMD Athlon XP 3200+ (Socket 462)
AMD Sempron 2400+ 1.67GHz (Socket 462)
AMD Sempron 3400+ 1.80GHz (Socket AM2,main rig's CPU)
Sound Cards:
Sound Blaster 128 PCI
Sound Blaster 16 Value ISA (CT2770)
Unknown Yamaha PCI soundcard (I don't have it anymore)
AudioExcel AV511 (C-Media CM8738)
Video cards:
S3 Trio 64 PCI (4MB,1 or 2MB onboard)
S3 Trio 3D\2X onboard (AGP,4MB)
nVidia Riva TNT2 64 (AGP)
nVidia Geforce 2 GTS (ASUS branded,32MB)
nVidia Geforce FX5200 64MB (AGP)
nVidia Geforce FX5700 128MB (is this rare?,it's AGP anyways)
nVidia Geforce FX5200 128MB (Palit branded)
ATI Radeon 7000 32MB (AGP)
BONUS:
HDDs:
IBM Deskstar 13GB (PATA)
Seagate ST310211A 10GB (PATA)
Samsung SP1603 160GB (PATA)
Maxtor DiamondMax 40GB (PATA)
WDC "Protege" 8GB (PATA)
WDC "Caviar SE" WD800JD-55MSA1 80GB (SATA 150MB/s,second rig's main HDD,Windows Vista Home Premium SP2 installed)
Samsung HD103SI 1TB (SATA II,main rig HDD)
ODDs:
BTE CD-RW IDE5224
ASUS CDRW5224
TSSTCorp SH-S182D (DVD writer,Samsung drive,second rig ODD)
HL-DT-ST-DVDRAM GSA-H55N (DVD writer,LG drive,main rig ODD)
Video game consoles:
Sony Playstation 1 (gray,SCPH-5552,modchipped)
Sony Playstation 1 (blue,SCPH-7502,modchipped+NTSC colour fix)
Sony Playstation 2 (black,SCPH-39003,softmodded,FMCB 1.8b)
Sony Playstation 2 (silver,SCPH-50003,LA6508 chip dead)
Nintendo Wii (white,RVL-001,softmodded)
OG Xbox (version 1.0,needs new motherboard and HDD)
And that's it.Not listed here is a Bush VCR807 VCR,which I almost finished repairing.(needs a ribbon cable that connects a PCB on the solenoid motor to the VCR motherboard)
"Enter at your own peril, past the bolted door..."
Main PC: i5 3470, GB B75M-D3H, 16GB RAM, 2x1TB
98SE : P3 650, Soyo SY-6BA+IV, 384MB RAM, 80GB
Here's my list.. old to new with current hardware bolded.
Processors
Intel 386 SX 16Mhz (Packard Bell Legend system)
Intel Pentium P5-75 Mhz (P54C) (Gateway 2000 system)
Intel Pentium 75 with overdrive chip (125Mhz)
Intel Pentium 200 MMX (P55C)
Intel Pentium II 266Mhz
Intel Pentium II 350Mhz
Intel Pentium III 500Mhz
Intel Pentium III 700Mhz (E-Coppermine- 100mhz fsb)
Intel Pentium III 1 Ghz (B rev) (133mhz fsb)
Intel Pentium IV 2.8Ghz (Northwood)
AMD Athlon X2 4400 2.3Ghz (Toledo)
Intel Core i7 930 (Bloomfield)
Intel Core i7 980X (Gulftown)
Video Cards
S3 Trio 64 (2D)
Matrox Millenium II 4MB AGP
Orchid Righteous 3d (3DFX Voodoo)
Diamond Monster 3D II x 2 (3DFX Voodoo 2)
Creative Labs 3D Blaster (nVIDIA Riva TNT2 Ultra)
Visiontek Xtasy 6964 nVIDIA GeForce3 Ti500
Leadtek Winfast A250 TD 128MB NVIDIA Geforce 4 ti4400
BFG nVIDIA Geforce 6800GT OC
Gainward BLISS 7800 GS+ 512MB AGP Silent (nVIDIA 7900GT)
Sapphire ATI Radeon 3850 AGP
2 x Asus AMD ROG 5870 Matrix Platinum PCIe x16
Asus GTX680-DC2T-2GD5 NVIDIA GTX680 DirectCUII TOP PCIe x16
Motherboards
Intel Pentium 200 MMX - Asus TX97/SP97 (Socket 7)
Intel P2 - Asus P2B-S (Slot 1)
Intel P3 - Abit SA6R (Socket 370)
Intel P4 - Gigabyte G8INXP (Granite Bay) (Socket 478)
AMD - MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum Nforce3 (Socket 939)
Intel - MSI Big Bang Xpower X58 (Socket 1366)
Hard Drives
2 x 120GB Western Digital Caviar "Special Edition" (WD1200JB) - EIDE
2 x 250GB Western Digital Caviar "Special Edition" (WD2500JB) - EIDE
2 x Western Digital Raptor WD1500ADFD 150GB 10,000 RPM Serial ATA150
1 x Seagte 750GB SATA/300
1 x Western Digital 750GB SATA/300
1 x Western Digital Velicirator 150GB 10000K
1 x Western Digital Green 2TB
2 x Samsung Spinpoint F4 (2TB) (RAID1)
1 x OCZ Vertex 2 120GB SSD
1 x Corsair Performance Pro3 256GB SSD
CD/DVD Readers/Burners
Kenwood TrueX 72X (CDROM IDE)
Plextor 4/12 (CDRW SCSI)
Plextor UltraPlex 32 (CDROM SCSI)
Pioneer DVR-108 (DVD/RW IDE)
Plextor 8/4/32A (CDRW IDE)
Plextor 12/10/32A (CDRW IDE)
Plextor 16/10/40A (CDRW IDE)
Plextor 24/10/40A (CDRW IDE)
Plextor 24/16/40A (CDRW IDE)
Plextor 40/12/40A (CDRW IDE)
Plextor 48/24/48A (CDRW IDE)
Plextor PX-716A (DVD/RW IDE)
Toshiba SD-M1612 (CD/DVD ROM IDE)
LITE-ON LH-20A1S (DVD/RW SATA)
6X Samsung DVD-ROM
Samsung SH-S203B (DVD/RW SATA)
Cases
Packard Bell stock
Gateway 2000 P5-75 Stock
InWin Q500
Xoxide X450 Aluminum Mid-Tower (P4)
SuperFlower SF-461T1-BK ATX Case (AMD)
Corsair Obsidion 800D
Monitors
Gateway 2000 Vivitron 15
Viewsonic Optiquest 19" Q95 CRT
Samsung SyncMaster 955DF 19" CRT
Viewsonic VX922 19" LCD 2ms
BenQ FP93GX Black 19"
ASUS VW266H Black LCD 25.5" 2ms
Power Supply
POWER SUPPLY Thermaltake Silent Purepower 480W
Corsair CMPSU-400CX 400W
Antec Truepower 550W
OCZ GameXStream OCZ700GXSSLI ATX12V 700W
Corsair HX850
Heatsinks
Zalman CNPS7700-Cu (p4)
Swiftech MCX4000 Heatsink w/ 90mm Delta Fan (P3)
Alpha PAL32 Cooler
Alpha PE66
ZALMAN CNPS9500 LED 92mm 2 Ball Blue LED
Corsair H50 with 2 x Scyth GentleTyphoon AP-14 fans
Corsair H100 with 4 x Cougar Vortex PWM Fans
Sound Cards
Ensoniq SoundScape S2000
Creative Sound Blaster 16
Sound Blaster Live!
Sound Blaster Live! Platinum 5.1 (w/Live Drive)
Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum EX
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum ZS (w/Live Drive)
Asus Xonar Essence STX
My Retro B:\ytes YouTube Channel & Retro Collection
Here is my list as systems:
PC1 (1994-1996):
IBM PS/2 30
Intel 286 10mhz
1MB RAM
30MB HDD
PC2 (1996-1997)
Dell Latitude Laptop
Intel Pentium 150mhz
16MB RAM
Unknown harddrive
PC3 (1997-2000)
Compaq Presario 4766
Intel MMX 166
32MB SDRAM
2.1GB Quantum Bigfoot 5.25" harddrive
S3 Trio64V+ 2MB
ESS Audiodrive 1888
USB
- Later upgraded with:
Orchid Righteous Voodoo Graphics 4MB (1997)
Creative 3DBlaster Voodoo2 12MB (1998)
WD 6.4GB harddrive (1998)
32MB ekstra RAM (2000)
PC4 (2000-2002)
Intel Celeron 433mhz
ABIT BE6-II 440BX
128MB RAM
Creative TNT2 Ultra 32MB
Soundblaster LIVE 1024
-Later upgraded with:
Intel Celeron 600 (overclocked to 100mhz FSB = 900mhz)
PC5 (2002)
Intel Pentium III 800mhz (8x100mhz) Coppermine
Unknown ASUS motherboard with FC-PGA
256MB SDRAM
Geforce3 Ti500
Soundblaster Live 1024
PC6 (2002-2004)
Athlon XP 2000+
Asus A7V333
256MB SDRAM
Geforce4 Ti4200 64MB
Integrated sound
PC7 (2004-2007)
Athlon XP 2800+ (Barton)
Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe
512MB RAM
Geforce4 Ti4200 64MB
Integrated sound
-Later upgraded with:
1024MB RAM
Geforce 6800GT 256MB
PC8 (2007-2013)
Intel Core2 Q6600
ASUS P5N32-E SLI Deluxe
2x2GB DDR2 PC6400 RAM
Geforce 8800GTX 768MB
Soundblaster X-FI Titanium
-Later upgraded with:
ATI Radeon HD 5850
PC9 (2013-
Intel Core2 Extreme Q9650
ASUS P5Q-PRO
4x2GB DDR2 PC8500 RAM
2X ATI Radeon R280X 3GB in Crossfire
Soundblaster X-FI Titanium
(The CPU, RAM and HK upgrades cost me 200 dollars, which is what I sold my old parts in PC8 for)
Still using LGA775 system in 2014! 😁 Runs BF4 on ultra with no issues.
Main PC Components: 1987-2014 - in bold are the parts I still own
===================================
CPU
8088 (1987)
386sx16 (1990)
486dx50 (1992)
Pentium 90 (1994)
PII-333 (1998)
PIII-600E (1999)
PIII-700 (2000)
Athlon 1300 (2001)
Athlon XP1500+ (2002)
P4 2.8 (2002)
P4 3.2 (2003)
Core2Q6600 (2007)
Core2Q9550 (2014)
GPU
Unknown CGA card (1987)
Vtech Auto EGA4+ (1989)
DTK PTI-218B VGA card (1990)
Trident TVGA8900C (1991)
Orchid 16bit color card (possibly Fahrenheit 1280?) (1992)
S3 vision864 (1994)
S3 trio64 (1995)
Matrox Millenium G200 (1998)
3dfx voodoo2 (1998)
Creative 3D Blaster Geforce 256 Anihilator Pro (1999) - failed after a few years
Elsa Gladiac 920 Geforce 3 (2001)
Geforce 6800Ultra (2004)
Geforce 8600GT (2007)
Radeon HD4850 (2009)
AUDIO
Pc speaker (1987)
Sound Blaster 1.5 (1990)
Roland SCC-1 (1993)
Sound blaster 16 Asp Multi-CD CT1750 (1994)
Sound blaster Live PCI CT4670 (1998)
Sound Blaster Audigy 2ZS Platinum Pro (2004)
Various usb audio interfaces (2008)
MOBO
KW-520B Turbo System (XT Clone Mobo) (1987)
Unknown Mobo with 386SX16 (1990)
410S 486 Mobo (1992)
Intel Plato P54C Socket 5 (1994)
Abit BX6 (1998)
ASUS CUSL2 (2000)
Gigabyte GA-7ZXR (2001)
MSI K7T266 PRO2-RU (2002)
ASUS P4G8X (2002)
ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe (2003)
ASUS P5K-E (2007)
These are parts I used for a significant amount of time on my daily primary desktop.
CPU
MOS 6502 1MHz
i386SX-16
i486DX2-66
Cyrix 6x86-133MHz "P166+"
AMD K6-3 450MHz
Xeon 450MHz 512KB x2
P3-600/100 overclocked to 800/133
Athlon TBird 750 at I think 866
Athlon Palomino 1400 oc to 1600/200
Athlon TBred XP-M 1533/133 "1800+" oc to something/200
Athlon Barton XP-M 1800/133 "2400+" oc to 2100/200
Phenom2 X2-555 unlocked/oc to 3x3.6GHz
GPU
um... 2 graphics modes: 40x40 16 colors, or the HIRES MODE! 192x160 4 colors (something like that)
Onboard VGA
Cirrus Logic SVGA 1MB ISA
S3 Virge 4MB PCI
nVidia Geforce2 MX 32MB AGP (huge struggle getting VIA AGP mobo to work, BTW)
nVidia Geforce4 Ti4200 128MB
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB
ATI Radeon HD4350 (512MB?) Express (which has nothing to do with "PCI" so I refuse to call it that)
nVidia GTX260-c216 896MB
Audio
scary buzzing noises
silly beeping noises
Sound Blaster Pro CT1330
Sound Blaster AWE32 (had 2 models over the years and stuck to these until ISA slots were gone)
nForce2 SoundStorm
Whatever is in my current board (some Realtek thing)
Mobo
Apple IIc
Wang 386
PCChips 486
M-Tech R533 (Socket-7 Baby-AT)
Tyan S1590 (Super-7 Baby-AT)
HP Kayak XW 6/450 (Slot-2 440GX)
Asus P2B-F (Slot-1 440BX)
ABit NF7-S v2.0 (Socket-462 nForce2)
ABit AN7 (Socket-462 nForce2)
Gigabyte GA-790XTA-UD4 (AM3 790X)
I stopped chasing state of the art after the K6-3. At that time I wasn't feeling a need for much more speed, but I wanted better quality. I had a strange desire to get that Slot-2 machine on eBay, instead of buying newer faster parts. If I had seen Morrowind yet I probably would have made a different decision.
After that, through most of the 2000s I was using 2nd hand hardware for my main PC. As used parts passed through my hands this made it easy to upgrade several times. I didn't buy new again until the AM3.
That Phenom 555BE was/is a great value chip - probably the best bang for buck I ever experienced for a part bought while still in production. $80 or so [or even less?], BIOS unlock all 4 cores, OC @ 3.8 easy, and just under 4.0 with a little extra fuss and a Hyper 212+.
1990s:
Philips P3238 80286, SB2.0 with CMS
Clone 80486DX33 on Opti MOBO (VLB), SBPro 2 & later SB16 & SCB-7, later SCB-55
Clone Pentium 90, SCSI, PCI, S3 ViRGE, SB16 & SCB-55
Clone Pentium 166MMX, Asus MOBO, SB16 & SCB-55, later maxed out with 200MMX & 233MMX
2000s:
Clone Pentium III 800
Clone Pentium IV
DiGiDiCe Pentium IV HT
ThinkPad T40p
ThinkPad T43p
ThinkPad W500
2010s:
ThinkPad W520
wrote:That Phenom 555BE was/is a great value chip - probably the best bang for buck I ever experienced for a part bought while still in production. $80 or so [or even less?], BIOS unlock all 4 cores, OC @ 3.8 easy, and just under 4.0 with a little extra fuss and a Hyper 212+.
Yeah, I'm happy with it also. $80 sounds about right, and Fry's threw in a basic motherboard (which I didn't end up using). I was feeling a little self-imposed pressure to grab a 790X board before the 8xx chipsets pushed them off the market, because it appeared the 8xx wouldn't support unlocking. I don't know if that actually held true though.
Mine unlocked to x3 but x4 freezes. It passed Prime95 at 3.9GHz but 4.0GHz failed. I didn't want to push real hard so I didn't try increasing voltage. Since 3.9 passed testing I decided 3.6 was safe for production.
The stock heatsink/fan combo was pretty horrible though, mine just came with a plain aluminum heatsink and it ran hot even at stock settings. Once I found the chip would unlock the Hyper 212+ became mandatory. That probably hurt the economics of the processor but I like having an effective HSF and I figure it will continue be useful.
I checked my notes and I actually paid 90 for the 555BE - still a great deal given it's unlockable cores and OC friendliness. I ran it on a mid tier asus 790x evo board and had no complaints with the combo. The Hyper 212+ will always be a great HSF as long as it supports the socket. Inexpensive yet on par with some of the best air coolers - you start getting in liquid-cooling prices for a HSF that's much better - and even that's debatable. I keep the assembly on hand as a backup.
Since the rig was almost exclusively used for gaming and web surfing I was content with passing Prime95 for 2 hours right on or under the temp threshold. But I would not run it pegged if the machine were used for work and any important data processing.
