Very similar to what I bought back in 2007, just not with Quad Extreme and SLI. You should be able to play modern games with this setup as long as you go down on the settings.

Not 100% retro? This isn't retro at all 😀

Half-Saint wrote:

Not 100% retro? This isn't retro at all 😀

But still a pretty cool system. 😀 Something like this was more than likely the focus of my envy back in '06-'07. And yeah, that should be able to play anything modern, maybe not on highest settings, but play them nonetheless.

I bought my Asus P5B + E6300 + 7600GT in october of 2006. If I had waited just one month, I could've gotten a 8800 GTS or GTX… I had to get a new computer since my older barton build suddenly decided to die on me, and I needed a PCIe graphics card for the new system. My monitor died one month later too, so I even tho I wanted one, I couldn't really afford a 8800.

I still have that motherboard running as a server with a newer CPU. It is still a capable computer. Used it as my main desktop for almost 8 years, and I think it is still more than fast enough for common desktop tasks.

Half-Saint wrote:

Not 100% retro? This isn't retro at all 😀

Exactly!..🤣

My main rig at the moment is a Core2 Quad 9550 with 4GB RAM and a 1GB GTX 560 Ti. Man, I don't even have SLI or extreme CPU...😊

Definitely still a very nice PC even after 8 years! It's amazing how times have changed (again). Imagine it's 1998 all over again and imagine yourself saying well that 386 ain't THAT bad 😉

Half-Saint wrote:

Not 100% retro? This isn't retro at all 😀

This kind of hardware is in limbo, it has moved on but not gotten there yet 😀. When I am done with my a build for every year project so much time will have past that everything has become retro 🤣. I had to start in this end though as almost none of my 2001 - 2006 gear is in systems at the moment 😵 while much of my older gear at least is mounted in cases or stored away.

Im pretty confident that this system would work as a daily driver as long as there isnt too much really heavy gaming involved

I just finished building the system. The case isnt very retro either but at least it dosnt allow for cable management. Modern builds tend to look like they are wearing makeup.
Pictures incoming as soon as I have checked that the system posts.

It lives 😀

A brown box

The Hammer! (I have alot of these so they will be used for more proper retro builds aswell)

The complete system, I will start out with one video card.

Closer.

lucky, this is close to the PC I wanted to build, but eventually crashed and burned.

nice PC , should even be able to run Crysis quite nicely (not the greatest FPS in the world, but certainly a nice showcase for the GPU in there)

Skyscraper wrote:

The case isnt very retro either but at least it dosnt allow for cable management. Modern builds tend to look like they are wearing makeup.

I think the best cable management is done in cases that don't let you hide the clutter behind the motherboard tray. Hidden clutter is still clutter.

Darkman wrote:

lucky, this is close to the PC I wanted to build, but eventually crashed and burned.

nice PC , should even be able to run Crysis quite nicely (not the greatest FPS in the world, but certainly a nice showcase for the GPU in there)

Thanks

joacim wrote:

Skyscraper wrote:

The case isnt very retro either but at least it dosnt allow for cable management. Modern builds tend to look like they are wearing makeup.

I think the best cable management is done in cases that don't let you hide the clutter behind the motherboard tray. Hidden clutter is still clutter.

😀

Here is a wall of screenshots with some performance numbers.

The memory performance is not that great and the low core speed is making an impact but in many cases the 3D performance is more than double that of a system with a Prescott 670 which was a high end CPU the year before and this with the Prescott system using a faster HD5770 video card. Both systems running Vista 32bit with 4GB memory.

I will overclock the system a little to see what that does to the performance before adding the other Geforce 8800 GTX.

Windows Vista Experience Index.

Super Pi 1M.

Sisoft Sandra 2011 CPU scores.

Sisoft Sandra 2011 memory scores.

3Dmark 2001 (This would be much higher in Windows XP)

3Dmark 2006

3Dmark Vantage

Very nice machine!

I also had that Zalman cooler. Great performance but impossible to keep clean / dust free 😀

philscomputerlab wrote:

Very nice machine!

I also had that Zalman cooler. Great performance but impossible to keep clean / dust free 😀

Thanks!

The Zalman cooler is enough for a Core 2 Duo or an Athlon X2 but I have just found out that it cant handle an overclocked Intel 65nm quad. At stock the temps were good, 37C idle, 55C load. When overclocked the system kept shutting off and blue screening during CPU tests at 3466 MHz with low voltage and I thought that it was because of unstable memory... then I noticed the power draw which made me check the CPU temp... The CPU idles at 60C and loads at 70...80...90... I will switch to a better cooler tomorrow.

Here is some quick screen shots with performance numbers at 3466 MHz with resevation for CPU thermal throttling.

Super PI 1M

3DMark 2001 (Still a crap score, I blame Vista)

3Dmark 06

3Dmark Vantage

Well this CPU is one hot running chip.

I replaced the Zalman CNPS 9000 cu with a Zalman CNPS10X Performa tower cooler. It lowerd the (overclocked) idle temp ~20 degrees C but I still see 95C max load temp at 3.46 GHz with only 1.28V vcore (load). At least the system dosnt suffer from heat related shutdowns any more and I can accept the high temperature as long as the CPU is running stable. In real life scenarios the CPU temperature will be ~60C while gaming and perhaps 80C when encoding.

I did some quick searching and it seems most people used water to cool these very early quads back in the day.

The system got 201 FPS running Doom3 timedemo1 at ultra settings (1024) with a single 8800 GTX.

I replaced the Zalman CNPS 9000 cu with a Zalman CNPS10X Performa tower cooler. It lowerd the (overclocked) idle temp ~20 degrees C but I still see 95C max load temp at 3.46 GHz with only 1.28V vcore (load)

WHAT? 95C??? THAT'S BLAZING HOT. That thing should be dead! Give me her before she dies! My main rig is a Q6600 😊

fyy wrote:

I replaced the Zalman CNPS 9000 cu with a Zalman CNPS10X Performa tower cooler. It lowerd the (overclocked) idle temp ~20 degrees C but I still see 95C max load temp at 3.46 GHz with only 1.28V vcore (load)

WHAT? 95C??? THAT'S BLAZING HOT. That thing should be dead! Give me her before she dies! My main rig is a Q6600 😊

Do not worry its nearly impossible to kill a Intel chip with high temperature alone, I have triggered the thermal shutdown (~120C) many times with this chip. In combination with high voltage things get a bit different though.

This chip has extremly high leakage, the system pulls 350W from the wall with only CPU load at 3.46 😲
I bet it would overclock great on high end water but your Q6600 is probably better on air and for everyday use.

That's a premium build, man. Very similar in design philosophy to something I have planned:

P5NE32-SLI -or- Asus Striker Extreme
Pentium D 965 3.73 GHz
2x 7900 GTX

Just barely one step back from your build, but a world of difference in terms of CPU and GPU architectures. Would be interesting to compare benchmarks 😀

Just watch out for those GTX 8800 not to cook everything there. 😉

Not my thing... too new... but I like it anyways 😉