I thought I'd dive into some of my Socket 3-based systems for these next few "Artex's Build of the Week" iterations. A few of these have been documented in what turned out to be a massive thread, but I know everyone loves pix so here goes!

Round five of my Socket 3 round of builds...

This one's a classy beast folks - a Cyrix 120Mhz processor sitting pretty in the well known Biostar MB-8433UUD. For the audio freaks out there, this build is pretty versatile as well. You've got the compatibility of the (somewhat 'hissy') Sound Blaster 16 MCD (with DSP 4.05!) as well as the Roland SCB-7 daughterboard for those games that use GM. Finally, I threw in the completely kickass Gravis Ultrasound Classic - fully loaded with memory - so it's ready to rock some of the more well known games that support this card - Jazz Jackrabbit, Epic Pinball, Crusader No Remorse/Regret, and Zone 66 to name a few. While I'm at it, why not blast my wife out of the house with 2nd Reality cranked at full volume. SIMPLY GLORIOUS!

After last week's madness with that bastard stepchild Intel Saturn-based Asus board, I forgot how nice it is to have a late model, PCI-based socket 3 board where everything just... works. This has quickly become my favorite socket 3 system, with my VLB-based AMD X5-160 being a close second. I forgot how good the GUS sounds compared to the plain-jane SB16s and SBPros.. WOW! I think I actually prefer DOOM and DOOM2 with the GUS patches (and Power Drumkit!) that were specifically created for each of these games as compared to even a Roland SC-55 - I'm THAT impressed with the music. I can see why this was the card of choice in the early 90s for the whole demo scene/tracker timeframe. I must have watched/listened to 2ND Reality at least 20 times after getting this system up and running - "I'm not an atomic playboy!"

Anyways, needless to say... I've LOVED doing these socket 3 builds. It was a generation I completed missed growing up, and now I have several systems at my disposal that are ready to rock - each with their own unique qualities. I may do one final socket 3 build using a Pentium 83Mhz overdrive, and I think that will be it for socket 3! I've pretty much covered all the bases in terns of various hardware configurations and have learned quite a bit along the way! It's nice to actually make use of some of the items I've acquired over the years too! 😎

Thanks again to all VOGONS members who helped me along the way with these socket 3 builds! As to what's next....hm... socket 5 perhaps?? As for now... ENJOY!!!!

Specs:

Case: AT Tower Case
Power Supply: Enlight EN-825710 250W
Motherboard: BIOSTAR MB-8433UUD-A Rev. 3.1 with "2012" BIOS
Cache Info:
16KB L1 Cache (In Write-back mode)
256KB L2 Cache
Processor: Cyrix 5x86-120GP (Code: G5K8548B -> 48th week of 1995) "M1sc"
Cyrix Register Config: loop_en=off, rstk_en=on lsser=off fp_fast=on btb_en=on
Cooling: Socket 3 Cooler

Network: 3Com 3C905B TX (PCI)

Storage:
4GB CF Card (CF->IDE Adapter)
GOTEK USB Floppy Emulator
Hitachi DVD-ROM

Memory:
32MB EDO RAM (1 x 32MB 60ns SIMM)

Audio:
Creative CT1750 (Sound Blaster 16 MCD) + Roland SCB-7 GM Daughterboard
Gravis Ultrasound Classic Rev. 3.73 with memory

Video:
STB S3 Trio64V+ PCI (2MB)

Benchmark Results:
SpeedSys Overall Score: 68.16
Superscape: 94.8 fps
PC Player Bench: 22.5
DOOM: 2134 gametics in 1525 realtics
Quake: 14.8 fps

Cache Performance:

CacheChk -d -t6
L1 (16KB) - 246.7 MB/s
L2 (256KB) - 95.8 MB/s
Main Memory Speed - 55.7 MB/s
Effective RAM Access Time (read) - 75 ns
Effective RAM Access Time (write) - 50 ns

CacheChk -d -w -t6
Main Memory Speed - 83 MB/s 12.6 ns/byte
Effective RAM Access Time (write) - 50 ns

Onto the hardware Pr0n!

M0AR GUS!

Misc Hardware Info and Benchies