Hello !

A project video:
https://youtu.be/34Qd875xAHU

Upgrading a good but the most boring and plain OEM computer into a good retro gaming machine has been a bit of a wet dream of mine for a while. Finally, a couple of years ago I a perfect candidate and it cost only 20 €: Compaq Deskpro EX that has a good Intel 815 chipset accompanied by 866 MHz Pentium 3 and 128 Mb of RAM. The original GPU was nVidia Riva TNT 2. As usual for these decommissioned workstations, the hard drive is missing but that´s fine.

So, I did the basic disassembly and cleaning, then cable management. Upgraded specs are
- Windows 2000 Professional SP4
- Graphics: GeForce4 Ti4200 128 Mb
- Sound card: Sound Blaster Live! CT 4830
- RAM: 512 Mb
- Storage: 120 Gb Kingston A400 SSD paired with a StarTech adapter
- Other: added fans, USB 2.0 expansion card, newer PSU, a DVD writer, sound proofing...

Oh, and before upgrading, I wanted to see how this PC performs with its original components. I set the resolution to 1024 x 768 with 32-bit color:
- 3DMark2000: 1430
- Quake 3: 19.8 FPS
- Expendable: 26.6 FPS
- MDK 2: 18.3 FPS

And after the upgrades, the numbers jumped quite significantly:
- 3DMark2000: 6090
- Quake 3: 87.0 FPS
- Expendable: 63.3 FPS
- MDK 2: 59.3 FPS

Based on this, I can absolutely recommend trying a workstation like this as retro gaming PC, the performance is great and it is very stable! And by the way, if DOS isn´t a necessity, go for Windows 2000!