Matth79 wrote:

What no side window, with that LED RAM

Had a clear plexiglass side panel back in the day, but it's kinda seizure-inducing after prolonged peripheral viewing. 😀

Artex wrote:

Gainward Bliss 7800GS+ Golden Sample Special Edition 512MB AGP (G71 Core) (24 pixel pipelines/8 vertex shaders vs 20/7 of late m […]
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Gainward Bliss 7800GS+ Golden Sample Special Edition 512MB AGP (G71 Core) (24 pixel pipelines/8 vertex shaders vs 20/7 of late models) (2006)

Video Card
Ahh.. the video card. This one holds a special spot in my collection. I could've really maxed out this build by throwing in an HD3850 (released later) but then I wouldn't get to fire up my beloved Gainward Bliss 7800GS+ freak of nature. Not sure how many of you know about this card, but it was released in 2006 and was not readily available in the US. Back in the day, I was looking to extend the life of my aging AGP system which was using a BFG 6800GT + Arctic Cooling NV Silencer 5 + Gainward 6800 Ultra flashed BIOS. I heard some rumblings about this card in EU, and I found a single store that was selling it - Overclockers UK. I purchased it July 12th 2006, and paid 234 British Pounds (NOT Including Shipping to the US)!

Now, there's more to this card than meets the eye. One would think it's based on the NVIDIA 7800 (G70) core given it's name. This card, however, is actually running the 7900GT core (G71) but over the AGP bus instead of PCIe. So this card has the full 24 pixel pipelines and 8 vertex shaders enabled. Adding to the confusion, Gainward released at least three variants of the 7800GS. Supposedly there are only 1500 of these "GS+" editions out there - no idea if that's true or not.

Gainward 7685-BLISS 7800GS 256MB TV-DVI AGP
Gainward GeForce BLISS 7800GS
Chip: 7800GT
Memory capacity: 256MB 1,6ns DDR
Clockspeed Core: 375MHZ
Clockspeed Mem: 1200MHZ
Pipes: 20
Gainwards barcode: 471846200-7685

Gainward 7739-BLISS 7800GS Silent 512MB
Gainward GeForce BLISS 7800GS AGP 512MB
Chip: 7800GT
Memory capacity: 512MB 1,4ns GDDR3
Clockspeed Core: 425MHZ
Clockspeed Mem: 1200MHZ
Pipes: 20
Gainwards barcode: 47846200-7739

Gainward 7876-BLISS 7800GS Silent 512MB GS+ 😎 😎 😎
Gainward GeForce BLISS 7800GS GoldenSample AGP 512MB
Chip: 7900GT
Core: 450MHZ
Mem: 1250MHZ
Pipes: 24
Gainwards barcode: 471846200-7876

Is this the same card that was selling on marktplaats (Dutch second hand trading site) a couple weeks ago?

http://www.marktplaats.nl/a/computers-en-soft … previousPage=lr
I don't think that was the GS+ edition - per my post here: Post 461425

Artex wrote:

http://www.marktplaats.nl/a/computers-en-soft … previousPage=lr
I don't think that was the GS+ edition - per my post here: Post 461425

I think it was, or at least it wasn't really a 7800GS but a 7900GT core (dunno if it was your exact model though), see my post here (I did edit it after you had already posted btw) Post 461429

Not that this really matters anyway, but still would've been fun if another Vogons member had bought this same card.

Btw, your rig is looking very good! Very clean, it's as if it's brand new 😀
Theres basically very little I would've done differently.

Not sure - but that would be cool! I saw one on eBay a few weeks back (http://www.ebay.com/itm/Gainward-Bliss-7800GS … qgAAOSwp5JWYOia) where the seller swapped the cooler for a single-slot variant (or says he did). I don't know if this was the real deal or not, since it looks different than mine and doesn't have the OEM stickers on the back.

The back of the card also looks quite a bit different than mine, unless there were different revisions of the GS+ - specifically the left side of the reverse of the card. The pictures are really lacking in clarity and the fact that none of the OEM stickers are present is suspect as well. Either way, it sold for $100.

Artex wrote:

Not sure - but that would be cool! I saw one on eBay a few weeks back (http://www.ebay.com/itm/Gainward-Bliss-7800GS … qgAAOSwp5JWYOia) where the seller swapped the cooler for a single-slot variant (or says he did). I don't know if this was the real deal or not, since it looks different than mine and doesn't have the OEM stickers on the back.

The back of the card also looks quite a bit different than mine, unless there were different revisions of the GS+ - specifically the left side of the reverse of the card. The pictures are really lacking in clarity and the fact that none of the OEM stickers are present is suspect as well. Either way, it sold for $100.

That's not bad for such an old product! I remember the last time I viewed the ad, maximum bid was only €30 but it might have sold for a higher price, even though that maximum bid wasn't surpassed for days. That guy on marktplaats should've sold his boxed GS card on ebay instead 🤣!

And another thing, your case's front bezel looks very familiar, I have a beige one with iirc either the exact same front bezel, or one very similar to it, and is also made by Antec, except that my case only had a 9.2cm exhaust fan instead of your 12cm one. For some reason I liked this case a lot, even put a rig in there though I had problems with it so I barely used it).

Like I said, I can't really see anything 'wrong' with your rig and it's how I would've done it (though to be frank, I don't think I would've done it as excellently as you have now), personally I'd give your rig a score of 9.5/10 😁 (I don't like the LEDs on your RAM sticks 😊 ).

Lol. Fair enough! The LEDs are a total gimmick - I get that 100% It is great performing memory though!

Artex wrote:

Lol. Fair enough! The LEDs are a total gimmick - I get that 100% It is great performing memory though!

Cheers! 😁

Impressive,yep that's what calls high-end XP era build,good choice thermaltake with voltage control,its pretty loud,mine usually runs in 4k rpm or so or runs hotter.
For this kind of build i missing only EE P4.
Btw try to run TES4 Oblivion and see if its beating crap out of rig 🤣 jk

rein_ein wrote:

Impressive,yep that's what calls high-end XP era build,good choice thermaltake with voltage control,its pretty loud,mine usually runs in 4k rpm or so or runs hotter.
For this kind of build i missing only EE P4.
Btw try to run TES4 Oblivion and see if its beating crap out of rig 🤣 jk

Thanks! Yeah, without that Zaman controller that thing was doing 5000+ rpm and sounded like a hair dryer! I have it at the lowest speed now and temps are totally fine with the system being near silent as I stated. I couldn't be more pleased at the acoustics / temps - even under full load with prime95 and Furmark pegging the CPU and gpu.

With different people suggesting 98SE and XP, let me interject and suggest a middle ground -- 2k! 2k deserves a lot more love than I ever see it actually getting.

Sedrosken wrote:

With different people suggesting 98SE and XP, let me interject and suggest a middle ground -- 2k! 2k deserves a lot more love than I ever see it actually getting.

There are people who do enjoy W2k a lot (and there was actually quite a long thread about this subject a couple years ago??), but when looking at what an OS can do, 2k doesn't have much going for it. XP can do most things better without having a larger footprint and for systems that are too slow for XP, many people tend to prefer 98SE or ME. Personally, if I wanted to use XP on a system that would be too slow for XP/2k for my taste, I'd just tweak XP to have a lower footprint (results may vary).

And last but not least, memory is far less of a problem these days compared to the old days (memory was expensive!). I did use it on one of my own rigs though and used it for a year or 2, but by then I got XP and I preferred to use that instead of 2k.

2k does have some things going for it though, one thing I remember from top of my head is that it supports some legacy hardware that XP officially doesn't (like some of the older internal LS-120 drives) and afaik one of the later beta versions of 2k (which I don't even know for sure I have or not) was the last NT-based M$ OS that had support for Alpha...just a shame I could never get my Alpha board to even POST. Still have that board though.

I remembered that a friend of mine gave me his old p4 pc that was declared "dead" 3 years ago.
When I brought it up home and opened it I discovered that the PSU was a really "crappy" one. 😵
To think the pc was running with that for years I was like "nevermind it may not be a good idea to revive it after all". 😖

After a fast dust cleaning I briefly tested it :
with an another PSU -> blank screen
with an another video card -> barely boot but it worked after some tries
For me it was not worth the effort to pursue tests and put it away until I have time to recover what could be salvageable. 🙄

Then I compltetly forgot about that and it stayed in a corner for all this time collecting dust. 😈
With your and dexter311 threads it made me a bit envious of those P4 builds and I told myself "wait don't you have some p4 stuff lying around ?". 😒
I found it where I left it untouched, after some tries it finaly came to life again (a defective memory stick on the 3 was the last culprit). 😁

After having completely cleaned the motherboard (a P4C800, funny isn't it? 🤣 ) I searched through all my hardware boxes and found :
an XFX Geforce 6600 GT 256 MB AGP video card (bought in a garage sale and never had time/will to test it further)
a WD Caviar Black 500 GB SATA HDD
a Pentium 4 3 Ghz HT 800 Mhz FSB CPU (to replace the 2,8 Ghz present) a better P4 cooler and some quiet fans
my 2x512MB PC3200 Corsair XMS Pro memory Kit
a brand new Corsair VS350 (bought a bunch more than a year ago for cheap)
a brand new energizer CR2032 battery (you never know when you need them 😀 )

I don't need a sound card for this one thanks to its integrated coaxial SPDIF. I plan to wire it to my external DAC later. 😎
Good thing that I had all that at hand. I finished installing Windows Xp SP3 with drivers and softwares yesterday and tried some benchs and games for fun.
Got a 3DMark2003 score of 8200 pts and played a bit of smooth Doom 3 (Ultra 1024x768) and Unreal 2. 😎
Not that bad for a completely @stock pc I was not planning to assemble any time soon 🤣

The only thing I have to buy now is a case that do justice to it. 😁

Don't you just love it when stuff like that happens? Excellent news darksheer!

Nice build, but why SP3? I believe It slows down the whole system by some degree. I am sure that this CPU and the such amount of RAM can handle it easily, but I won't be surprised if you get a few more FPS in games with SP1 or SP2. Someone should test it one day. Also, why does it say Recertified on your WD Raptor?

Dreamer_of_the_past wrote:

Nice build, but why SP3? I believe It slows down the whole system by some degree. I am sure that this CPU and the such amount of RAM can handle it easily, but I won't be surprised if you get a few more FPS in games with SP1 or SP2. Someone should test it one day. Also, why does it say Recertified on your WD Raptor?

Hmm - I guess I wasn't aware SP3 slows down XP! I wonder by how much... it certainly seems blazing fast to me. Not sure on the Raptor - I can't remember if I had one fail back in the day and received it as a replacement. Good eye!

I also always thought that SP3 can impact performance. Maybe on an older machine with 512 MB of memory, but not on a decent Pentium 4. I found this to be a non issue really. Also SP3 is needed for some things to install. I can't remember what exactly, but some software wouldn't install on SP2.

But as always, we should back up a claim with sold evidence (benchmarks), that might be something to look into comparing SP2 with SP3.

I'm sure there's a thread about SP2 vs. SP3, lost to the ages here on VOGONS. 😁

Phil might be right. I did personally notice a slow down as soon as I installed SP3 over SP2, but those were older Pentium III 1GHz machines with 512MB of RAM, so it probably doesn't affect faster systems. Speed difference was huge though.

Stiletto wrote:

I'm sure there's a thread about SP2 vs. SP3, lost to the ages here on VOGONS. 😁

True 😀