First post, by psychofox
- Rank
- Newbie
A couple of weeks ago, I completed (almost) my newest build: Socket 939 Athlon 3700+.
Just a couple of years ago, I had no interest in systems newer than the year 2000. I mostly enjoyed working with XT to 486 machines. Then came the Pentium period. About two years ago, I received this beautiful motherboard from my friend's junk pile: DFI Lanparty SLI.
download/file.php?mode=view&id=183241
I had never owned any Socket 939 system before. In the mid-2000s, I went directly from a Socket 745 Athlon XP 2400+ to a Core2Duo platform. So, I had no idea what this board exactly was. As far as I've read, it is considered one of the best Socket 939 boards available. Of course, there were a couple of bulged caps and some bent pins on the IDE sockets that needed to be I fixed. Then i tried a couple of low-end Athlons until I received the Athlon 64 3700+.
To be period-correct, I purchased a cheap ATI Radeon x1950. It runs just fine, but the fan is very loud, so I lost interest in this system for about a year. One day, I was searching something on a local listings site, and I found a nice acrylic case for sale, priced at about 20 euros. It seemed that this case had seen better days; there were some scratches all over and a couple of little cracks on the front part of the case. However, it caught my interest since, back in the day, I dreamed of having such a computer.
After some searching on the web, I found this review:
https://www.extremeoverclocking.com/reviews/c … lic_Case_1.html
This UV-reactive acrylic monster is the right case for a mid-2000s Socket 939 system. I purchased it, cleaned, glued, and fitted my best components into this nice box.
Here is the partlist:
Mobo and CPU: DFI Lanparty NF4 with AMD Athlon 64 3700+, Thermaltake Contac 30 cooler, with a transparent acrylic fan with blue LEDs, of course 😀
GPU: XFX Nvidia Geforce 7950GT
download/file.php?mode=view&id=183242
It is and cool looking passive cooled card, to bad that the beautiful side is facing bottom of the case and is barely visible. The 3dMark results are about the same then Radeon X1950
RAM: 2Gb RAM, Corsair CMX512-32002PT
download/file.php?mode=view&id=183243
there is 2 different 1Gb kits, strange thing is they are not stable together. (so currently i use 2x512Mb Corsair+ 2x1Gb Hynix kits)
Cooling: Case fans are some cheap AliExpress acrylic fans, quite noisy, so these need replacement in the future. Thermaltake fan controller. It also hosts 2 MSATA SSD disks.
Sound: DFI Lanparty has a reasonably OK onboard soundcard (Karajan Audio Module based on Realtek ALC850), but I had a Terratec DMX fire just lying on my shelf, and I thought it fits like a glove to this transparent case. Absolutely no need for this card, i havent even connected the cable between card and front panel yet 😀
FDD and Cardreader: Gotek floppy emulator and some cheap card reader, painted with silver color.
DVD: Silver Samsung DVD ROM. Actually it does not read all older and scratched disks very vell but it fits there and it is only silver optical drive that i have.
PSU: is some newer 750W FSP product; I modded it with an angle grinder and cut holes to all sides and glued acrylic glass to give it a "transparent look". Added 3 voltmeters for constant live voltage feedback. I am not happy with the result, but it is OK for now.
download/file.php?mode=view&id=183245
All these parts together form such a computer:
download/file.php?mode=view&id=183247
Such a system needs a proper keyboard and mouse. Back in the 2000s, there were at least a few acrylic keyboard makers available AFAIK (like Logisys Clear Acrylic Blue EL Keyboard).
However, such "tuning parts" were usually quite cheaply made these days, and they did not last long. I have searched for at least a year for a period-correct acrylic keyboard but unsuccessfully so far.
So, I bought a modern acrylic keyboard and mouse made by AULA. It is some cheaper Chinese brand, but they work fine, and the keyboard keys feel actually very good. The mouse is just a decent thing, but it does its job just OK.
It still needs some cable management and probably i try to polish side panel, it has couple deep scratches.
I use it mostly for Windows XP gaming, but there is also Windows Vista on the second SSD installed.
Honestly, it is not a very fast system for XP (that’s why there is this unnecessary part in the title). Games up to 2003 or 2004 run mostly OK, but not all. Some titles stutter quite a lot on higher resolutions. However, I plan to keep this PC, if not for usage then just for looks 😀