My thinking is that I want different sound / video hardware in each of my machines for interests sake. I do have multiples of some tech though because there are often different implementations of it that differ in quality, and it takes me a while to find "the one". Tseng VGA cards and the ESS Audiodrive chipset come to mind.

Duplicates? I see them as spares.

I might need them someday!!! 🤣

Anyway I have 2 V3-3000 AGPs, 4 SB128s, 2 SBLive 5.1s, 3 RagePros, 2 R7500s..., 2 M919s...

You're right about needing spares. One of my V3 3000s failed on me, so I had to replace it--even though it was technically a spare itself.

Forgot about SB Live! I've got at least three of those. Different models, though. I try to avoid this card in 98SE builds. In fact, I kind of hate it.

Also forgot I have 3x Turtle Beach Vortex 2. Different revisions of the Vortex 2, though. Love this card. Always want to have spares of it and of Voodoo 3.

I have no fewer than 6 PowerMac G5 systems!

I don't have the money for spares of vintage DOS-era stuff though.

I also have 5 different S3 Trio64v's 😜

My collection has tons of duplicates, including a box of SB & PAS16 cards, Voodoo 1s and 2s, socket 7 motherboards, etc. It's more that I find great caches of retro stuff that needs to be moved on, and the duplicates get subsumed into my stash.

It's my ultimate aim to really whittle things down to one top condition working item, and one good condition spare, and some core machines that excite me for use. Perhaps beyond that it's just hoarding.

A good example of this was a very recent visit I made to the home of a chap who passed away this year. He was a troubleshooter for a massive tech company, and it was a privilege to visit his basement - but it was as though he was a retro doomsday prepper. While it was a great day for me (a massive haul that could keep me busy for life) it was a bit sad as he'd passed away leaving a huge cache that his widow was either throwing away (from the discard pile I scavenged a dual P3 server with 4 HD SATA RAID installed, a fully loaded Vectra XU6/150, 2 Pentium towers, 486DX4/100 & 486/33 towers, all free, among quite a few other things), or put in the hands of a friend/ebay consultant who sold stuff to me crazy cheap. Almost felt his ghost watching this process, lamenting the breakup of his collection. It got me thinking - I'd better have a plan for my stuff in case I come to an early end! (sorry for the slight downer vibe, really I am happy with the new toys 😉)

I have tons of duplicate and spare parts, they will eventually break if you use them (and I do).

I also have machines that I would consider duplicates that I need to sort out and sell eventually.

Diamond Monster II... Oh wait, that's for SLI 😀

Actually, I only have a spare 9800Pro. Bought 2 from one hands locally, the price was good and I thought it would be a shame to leave with just one.

2x Asus PVI-486SP3
2x Asus P5A
3x AWE32
3x AWE64
2x GUS
2x GUS PnP
3x Tseng ET4000AX
3x S3 Virge
2x Voodoo5
2x GeForce Ti 4600
4x 3com 3c905

In most cases they are different revisions (so no exact duplicates) and usually I had one of each since it was fairly new and got the others when old hardware was still cheap (around 10 years ago).

This list would be very long if I included all items I have more than one of.

Here are the worst hoarding examples.

Geforce 7800GTX 256, 5+
Geforce 7900GTX, 5+
Geforce 8800GTS 512, 5+
Geforce 8800GTX, 5+
Geforce GTX285, 5+

I really like all these cards and I do not expect the cards to last forever so its good to have a few spares...

I also have 3x EVGA Classified SR-2 motherboards, two of them complete and boxed.

The only duplicates I have are network cards; I have a load of 8255x cards and at least three different types of Etherlink III. Otherwise, I'm trying to keep my retro machines to a minimum - hoping to get away with the pentium II box for later games, and the 486 for anything early.

I have a TON of 386/486/Pentium boards, all stowed away. I can't count how many add-in boards either.

All are spares...no "duplicates". 😉

Skyscraper wrote:

Geforce GTX285, 5+

Nice!

I always try to order 2 of whatever I'm interested in. It often is worth it regarding postage, but I also like to have a spare 😀

If there's anything I have plenty of, it's Rage XL and TNT2 M64 video cards. 🤣 I must have at least three of each.

Lots of dupes - prolly too many to list. Some view it as hoarding I view it as hobby preservation. 😀

I think I have 11 iDX4-100 SK096.
That's my top duplicate 😁

Then I have 4 AWE64G, 2 AWE32 CT2670, 2 MB1433/40/50UIAV, 2 wrapped HD2900XT ... more standard numbers 😁

Lots and lots... typing the full list is not an option, the men in white coats would come 🤣

meljor wrote:

Lots and lots... typing the full list is not an option, the men in white coats would come 🤣

This could be the most dangerous thread on Vogons if the people we lived with ever saw it. 😲

I have tons of spare parts.
I think around 10-ish Pentium-MMX 233's or so and a couple other CPU's I have a lifetime supply of spare parts. And around 9 of the same Chaintech 440BX boards with 4 SDRAM slots (I'm not sure all of them are in working condition though, but most of them should be. They are a few different revisions though).
I have I think 8 or 9 S3 Virge's, but most are of different makes.

I even have 2 of the same AT cases made by Commodore 😁 (they were Pentium 60's, still got the two Socket 4 boards as well).

And 5+ A7V133's, though I didn't find those particularly special, but all were for free anyway. No ISA slots though and no official Palomino support, so the use of those boards is rather limited.

I happened to have checked in my attic yesterday for those IBM clicky keyboards, apparently I only have two of those, one is missing it's sticker with serial numer and such and the other has had a couple of it's keys replaced with non-matching keys (I found it this way). Dunno of the 2 keyboards are in working condition though, they are rather old (the other was from around 1994-ish).

2 GA-6OXET Tualatin boards I remember having bought from the UK (I was the only bidder, they were sold as scrap but both posted fine and one is in one of my rigs even. Was a lucky shot).

I know I have multiple ASUS Tualatin boards (both several of the TUV4X and TUSL2-C variants) and I should have around 6 Tualatin 1400S chips along with plenty Tualerons of almost all speed grades (Not all Tualerons I have spare parts of though).

2x Radeon 9600 256MB made by Sapphire. These are identical except that one has some kind of extra sound chip I never bothered to use and the other one is missing it.

I think I had 2 of those ASUS 430HX AT boards (both v3.1 or so, the variant with the tag RAM pre-installed), but I do remember one had a broken memory clip or something (memory worked fine in the board though) and I also had at least two FIC AP-2000-something boards? (the ones with the VIA Socket 7 chipset which could run with single memory modules installed instead of never being able to boot with memory installed in pairs).

I should also have 2 Intel D815EEA (not supporting Tualatins though), the first one was broken (Socket lever was broken at the base, no way to glue it back so I replaced it with an identical Socket lever from a dead Socket A board, lifting up the top half of the entire Socket, replacing the lever and "clicking" the top of the socket back, the part that slides forwards and backwards when you install and uninstall the CPU) and it worked! ...except that I found out the board I had repaired had a dead floppy controller. Still build a rig around it though which served me for many years. The second one I got years later which I never really used but it did POST I think.

Of course I have enough Coppermine 1000's (I think all revisions which are 133MHz FSB, don't own any 100MHz FSB 1GHz Coppermines though).

Several Athlon Thunderbird 1400's (133MHz FSB ones again), also have many of Intel's and AMD's stock coolers as spares, some identical and some with slight changes, some with somewhat different heat sinks but identical mounting clips.

I don't know from top of my head, but I have 5+ Live! sound cards (some 5.0's and some 5.1's, something like that).

And I do know that I had at least 1 or 2 matching pairs of Voodoo 2's (have 9 in total).

All my Rendition 2100's are made by Diamond (5 or 6 in total, they only differ in the sticker I think) and I also have the Viper 550 (TNT) and Viper 770 (TNT2) twice, along with a single Viper 770 Ultra.

A couple Geforce 2 cards I have identical copies of I think.

The funny thing is that even though I have tons of sound cards, except for the Live!'s, virtually all of them are different (except maybe for a 1320 or 1350-something? , but I think one of them had a broken resistor or something).

I do know I have 2 ASUS P2B's, but both are totally different revisions (one supports Coppermines and the other doesn't)

I have some other CPU's as spares, but they aren't really significant I think (like a Sempron 2400+ or so)

One of my more interesting spares is a VC820 board, as one is a production model with 2 RDRAM slots and the other an engineering sample board with 3 RDRAM slots (the board with 3 RDRAM slots is hopelessly unstable though, impossible to finish installing Windows ME before it starts to bluescreen, the other boards installed it without significant issues).

This all is from top of my head (where do I keep al this info stored 🤣! )

edit: I forgot I also bought 10 of those 400MHz ATZ 3+ chips from that German seller, tested every single one of them one by one with success! 😁
At first he didn't want to sell to me (as I was abroad, even though The Netherlands and Germany are neighboring countries) but I persuaded him into selling me the chips anyway 😁
Also have a couple other Super 7 AMD mobiles with spares, but less then 10.

And iirc I also had the s370 1.0GHz or 1.2GHz VIA chip with a single spare (I wasn't sure both of them posted though, but the board did have some kind of issue)