@AlphaDangerDen

Yeah the first thing I do to a case is tear it down and clean it. I didn't go 100% on this one though but it still looks ok. I really should have scrubbed all of the outside plastic with a Mr Clean pad and water.

There were quite a few Dell systems that use this same case. I love it, it works very well. You will see everyone of them very dusty and for good reason. The airflow in that case is a lot more than you might think for an OEM system and nobody ever blows out their OEM Dell system. Treat it like any other gaming rig and blow it out on a regular basis and it will be fine. I really believe if you are building a Micro-ATX system then this case is great. Usually you can get them for free or at most $5-10. You could easily mount the hard drive elsewhere and use the front air intake to duct fresh air to the video card and/or CPU. I might play with that.

My new i5 is waiting at home, I should have it in tonight!

EDIT:

Am I that bad of a typer or is autocorrect out to get me? Maybe it's ok now.

I believe the i5 is a total bust.

I thought no way a 2.6-GHz Celeron could push a GTX 285 all the way, looks like I was wrong. Back then they were overclocking CPU's to over 4-GHz to run these things. Anyways I can lower the multiplier and disable cores to take a look at things later. I guess a 30% increase in core speed just went to waste? Might make a difference with some games. 3DMark06 score shot up to over 21000.

I believe the i5 is a total bust.

I thought no way a 2.6-GHz Celeron could push a GTX 285 all the way, looks like I was wrong. Back then they were overclocking CPU's to over 4-GHz to run these things. Anyways I can lower the multiplier and disable cores to take a look at things later. I guess a 30% increase in core speed just went to waste? Might make a difference with some games. 3DMark06 score shot up to over 21000.

If I were to upgrade the GPU I have several options the way I see it.

1. Go SLI

I do not consider this to really be an option for me. It doesn't work with all games and causes problem for others. I truly believe in a fast single GPU system except for certain circumstances.

2. GTX 480

Can still use pre-300 series drivers
Fast

3. GTX 580

Can still use pre-300 series drivers
Fast

4. Stick with GTX 285, re-install Celeron G1610 and use the i5 3570k in another system or sell it.

I'm not sure what I will do, more testing is needed though. I would like to try Crysis 2 in DirectX 9.0.

I am leaning heavily towards trying the GTX 580 with pre-300 series drivers and in Windows XP for DirectX 9.0. Sticking with XP and pre-300 series drivers might alleviate problems some others have seen with DirectX 9.0 games on these cards, like the red screen of death?

I may then dual boot with Windows 'something else' for newer version of DirectX. Thoughts?

Just keep trying different cards and games, this is very useful.

Not sure about Crysis 2, I would keep it strictly up to 2007 / 2008, but then again, it's your project 🤣 That's why I asked earlier what this machine is for.

But I think you just want to have fun, try out all sorts of things, that's also great. It's about the journey.

Yeah, it's for fun. I am not trying to recreate a system from the past. I just want to turn it on and throw whatever games at it.

Windows XP
i5 3570k CPU
4GB RAM
GTX 285 Video Card
SB Audigy 2 Sound Card

http://www.futuremark.com/benchmarks/legacy

These are the benchmarks that seem relevant for this system. The early ones not really to show speed but that they work and display correctly.

All benchmarks were run with their default settings. Everything looked good.

3DMark2000 - DirectX 7.0
3DMark2001SE - DirectX 8.1
3DMark03 - DirectX 9.0
3DMark05 - DirectX 9.0c
3DMark06 - DirectX 9.0 with Shader Model 3.0

OK, not really a legitimate benchmark but fun. I ran unreal in software mode at 1600x1200. I really liked the way it looked and definitely worth looking at on a fast CPU if you like the game!

It really looks better in game than the screenshots show but you can see that colored lighting and reflections do exist in software mode.

Ok... if you were going to upgrade the video card what would you choose?

Used off Ebay
Nvidia GTX 480
Nvidia GTX 580

Brand new off Newegg
AMD/ATI Radeon 6970

Really leaning towards the Radeon since it is brand new and inexpensive.

Either card would be overkill for this so if the price difference is high I would go for the Radeon, if budget is not a concern the Geforce 580 is the way to go. But honestly having a brand new card with a warranty would be great, no need to worry about it being DOA and nonreturnable 😀
p.s. Would the card you are looking at happen to be this?: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?It … N82E16814202113 I used one in a budget fx-6300 build for a friend and he loves it.

ODwilly, yes that is the one. Good to hear.

Ok, I can finally make good use of the Dell OEM Windows XP Home COA on my case. The only XP Home disks I had were copies and I couldn't remember if I had slipstreamed them, if they had tweaks, etc. I borrowed an original Windows XP SP3 OEM disk (holographs and all) from a friend today and made a good and verified ISO image. I have the image backed up and labeled correctly so in years to come I will know exactly what it is and won't have to find an original pressed disc. I might grab one if I can off eBay just to have. I normally use XP Pro but these cases had home installed and I'm kind of anal about things like that. I used it to create a modified install disk with all of the official DriverPacks from http://driverpacks.net/driverpacks/latest

Here is a list of software that I will install, it's pretty much a list of my 'go to' apps.

7-Zip 9.20 32-bit: Handles all of my compression/decompression needs
Adobe Reader 9.4: Ok, I can read PDFs
Daemon Tools Lite 4.41.3 (I do not like the newer versions UI): Gotta mount some ISOs!
Google Chrome - newest: Yay, I can surf the web if I have to. I used a corporate offline installer MSI.
QuickPar 0.9.1: Making parity data to keeps certain files safe for archiving. Hopefully 7-Zip gets around to adding a feature like WinRAR's recovery data, or whatever they call theirs, but I really do not like WinRAR.
ImgBurn - newest: Alright! I can burn discs and make images to use with Daemon Tools.

That about covers any utilities I use for such a system. Can you think of anything else that is a must have app?

Few years back i ''upgraded'' my gtx580 to a gtx660. I got a very good deal on the gtx580 so i sold it and bought the gtx660 very cheap (used).

At first, the gtx660 was only 10% slower but with newer games it became atleast 10% faster compared to the gtx580 as it has 2gb vs 1,5gb (according to anandtech reviews etc. where both cards were in the mix).

The gtx660 should be easy to find for little money and is a very good performer and uses a lot less power. The TI version is a lot faster but should be more expensive.

If you stick to dx9 the gtx285 is a very good card, the gtx580 is a BEAST.

I have a GTX660 too 😀

It uses its own chip, and not gimped / stuff disabled. The 660 Ti uses a much larger chip, but with stuff disabled and draws a lot more power.

I thought the 600 series is where the problems started with older DirectX games, the drivers that support the 600 series I mean. Refurbished ones are even available on Newegg cheaper than most used ones from eBay.

Never had a problem with ''older'' games that work with windows 7, never tried it with windows xp. Could be so, in that case the gtx580 is your best bet?

Still think for dx9 games the gtx285 is more than enough.
HD5870 is a screamer as well, but don't know if that one plays nice in xp either.