First post, by chinny22
- Rank
- l33t++
I can't believe I've never done a post on what would easily be my most used PC in my retro fleet, maybe its due to I've been slowly replacing parts over the years.
It started life with old hardware I had spare, mainly a Asus P5KPL-AM motherboard and a Dual core E5200.
The CPU was replaced with a Xeon x3320 pulled from a dead server at work. This has the exact same specs as the E5200 so doubt any upgrade worth but Xeon on the post screen looks cooler!
Then started looking into SLI, more just for fun then actual performance gains and learnt that cards with dual GPU's were a thing! Found someone on gumtree selling GeForce GTX590, I thought it was just 1 but he had a pair!
I was planning on buying a 2nd later on but here was an opportunity to buy 2 perfectly matched cards in 1 hit. That cost me £360 back in 2014
It wasn't till 2018 that I actually got a SLI motherboard. Someone was clearing a bunch of NOS Asus P5N-D motherboards for £45.00
As the old generic case would not be able to handle the SLI setup I went on a spending spree and upgraded,
CPU heatsink: Intel OEM to a Noctua NH-U14S (I'm still impressed with their free support with backwards compatible mounting kits)
RAM: 4GB of Crucial Ballistix Tracer 800MHz (with sexy red flashing LEDS)
Sound: SB X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion, Wanted the Flagship X-Fi soundcard for my "ultimate XP build"
HDD: Pair of 500GB Spinning rust in a stripe array.
and a Gotek and DVD drive.
All put into a Corsair Obsidian 650D case
My most demanding games aren't that demanding. GTA SA and Farming Simulator 2013 which this system can run with ease, as well as majority of my other games.
It's only really dos and a few 9x titles that I need to use anther PC.
I also find XP is old enough to network well with WFW yet new enough for Win11. The system is also fast enough that I'll typically use this to burn CD's or unzip programs and then copy across the network then use the P3 to unzip.
Recently I upgraded to a pair of 1TB drives that I've put in a mirror. Slight performance hit but I'm thinking safeguards me somewhat with my games that required activation, eg FS2013.
Haet was always going to be an issue and Speedfan reports temps of around 85c when playing games which is why I've added a few extra fans just t help out.
