First post, by boxpressed
- Rank
- Oldbie
I put the finishing touches on my go-to rig this week. I know that builds are never complete, but I'm very satisfied with where this one is now.
The best part about it is that I had purchased the motherboard at retail back in 1998 or so. This is not a period-correct build, but it is close enough to it for me.
CASE: Generic Baby AT with full three-digit LED display. I bought a complete system just for this case. It is very clean and in excellent shape. I used to have a case with an LED display but not one that could display any number past "199." It turns out that this case is the perfect one for my motherboard/CPU combo.
MOTHERBOARD: FIC VA-503+ rev. 1.2. This is a classic SS7 motherboard with the MVP3 chipset and 1MB onboard cache. I use the Turbo switch on the case to change the FSB speed from 66MHz to 100MHz. Because the case has an LED whose display responds to the Turbo switch, there are two three-wire connectors coming from the Turbo switch, both of which are needed for setting the FSB on the motherboard.
MEMORY: 128MB generic PC100 SDRAM.
CPU: AMD K6-3+ 450 ACZ. This one overclocks to 550 MHz with no trouble. I put a Scythe fan on the heatsink, and it is very quiet. The "plus" versions of the K6-2 and K6-3 allow you to set the clock multiplier and disable caches via software (SETMUL).
VIDEO: Geforce 2 MX AGP (about as high as I could go with this SS7) and 3DFX Voodoo 3 3000 PCI (switch via BIOS).
AUDIO: Turtle Beach Montego 2 PCI (Vortex 2) / Creative AWE32 CT3900 with 32MB RAM / GUS Ace
DRIVES: 40GB WD Caviar / Mitsumi FDD with flash reader (SD card super convenient) / LG DVD-RW (DVD function used only for making Ghost 2003 images on DVD-R)
PS: Delta 300W ATX (need to upgrade this).
Other than a new PS, the only other hardware I might add is a Waveblaster-compatible daughtercard for the Vortex 2. But I'm happy with the GM from the AWE32 for now.
All in all, this is a very versatile system. Between the Turbo switch and SETMUL, I can run this rig at speeds comparable to a 486DX-33 all the way to a 550MHz K6-3+.