Case: Some generic ATX gaming PC case from 2003 (does anyone know if it has a known model name?)

In the mid 2000 I really hated the blingbling chassis, they were everywhere and just about every one had to have a window in their computer and ledfans. Now, a decade later, it fills me with a feeling of nostalgia. Very well done, I like the build, with all it's 2003ish feeling 😀

dottoss wrote:

Very well done, I like the build, with all it's 2003ish feeling 😀

Thank you for the comment. Ever since a week of posting about this, the only thing that has changed so far is the video card because the BFG Geforce 7800GS OC video card silently died with nothing more than a black screen on bootup attempts as pointed out on this post here, originally after a few pushes on the reset button it would start to work and now it won't budge no matter what. After owning that video card for 6 years I feel like I used it for as long as reasonably possible, I suppose a recap and/or a reflow may help bring it back but that's a side project for another time. In the meantime I'm using a Sapphire ATI Radeon x800 GTO card which seems more period-correct for the 2004 generation hardware yet is just a step backwards from the 7800GS.

Now I have a couple more pics to show of this system:

And speaking of 2003 hardware. On the bottom of the case there's a sticker that contains information on the hardware that the case was originally equipped with (An AMD Athlon XP 3000+ / MSI KT4 Ultra rig sounds temptingly interesting).

Before anyone asks why it says "Clear Dreamer Blue" when it looks black, it's because I spray-painted the case black not that long after I bought it. 😊

Here's a minor update, since the stock AMD CPU fan sounded like a jet engine on full load, I replaced it with a Nexus 70mm 3-pin fan.

After doing a CPU stress test for an hour, I can certainly say that the new fan (right) is much quieter than the old (left) one.

Expect some new benchmarks and another minor update soon.

I have a similar setup so I'm very curious about the performance of this machine.

I'm not a fan of that particular case, but I do like the rest 😜

I could advice you to remove the honeycomb-like metal covering the 2 rear fan exhaust spots, this will dramatically improve airflow while making your rig more silent at the same time. Provided you actually install some extra case fans there 😜
The A8V is a nice board. Did it have the "Plus" southbridge? (well it technically not a southbridge, but you get what I mean).
It's basically put well together, the parts are a good match to each other and I've used 3 similar rigs myself with great content 😀

The PSU is probably even a bit overkill, but it beats having an underpowered PSU that kills 😁

2GB DDR-400 is a good pick, it's basically a given to use that amount for a late XP rig. The 160GB harddrive should be plenty for a rig only used for to run games from optical drives. I only ever managed to fill up an 80GB equipped A64 due to me starting to save some movies onto it 🤣

Nicely done!

Tetrium wrote:

I'm not a fan of that particular case, but I do like the rest :P […]
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I'm not a fan of that particular case, but I do like the rest 😜

I could advice you to remove the honeycomb-like metal covering the 2 rear fan exhaust spots, this will dramatically improve airflow while making your rig more silent at the same time. Provided you actually install some extra case fans there 😜
The A8V is a nice board. Did it have the "Plus" southbridge? (well it technically not a southbridge, but you get what I mean).
It's basically put well together, the parts are a good match to each other and I've used 3 similar rigs myself with great content 😀

The PSU is probably even a bit overkill, but it beats having an underpowered PSU that kills 😁

2GB DDR-400 is a good pick, it's basically a given to use that amount for a late XP rig. The 160GB harddrive should be plenty for a rig only used for to run games from optical drives. I only ever managed to fill up an 80GB equipped A64 due to me starting to save some movies onto it 🤣

Nicely done!

Thanks for the comment, I know what you mean about the case, the old acrylic glass on the side panel was very fragile and had the habit of cracking on its own, so I managed to get a polycarbonate replica made at a local glass shop, no need to worry about the side panel anymore. I'll look into the suggestion for removing the honeycomb-like grate on the fan exhaust and use ordinary 80mm fan grates as an alternative. As for the power supply, I went through three different power supplies throughout the system's lifetime (a Logisys "480W", an Apevia 480W, and an Antec 450W) and they all felt too cheap, so this EVGA 600W Bronze one is a nice replacement.

Here are the benchmarks:

3DMark 2001 - 15706 3DMarks:

3DMark 2003 - 8636 3DMarks:

Not quite what I expected for a high-end 2005 graphics card, but it may be worth trying older driver versions to improve the score.

Windows Experience Index (Vista):

The latest possible Catalyst driver version (10.2) was used for both 3DMark benchmarks, Windows Vista came with drivers for every piece of hardware in this system, so the default Microsoft WDDM drivers were used in the WEI benchmark.

When I have some spare time on my hands, I might get around to trying different Catalyst drivers to improve the 3DMark 2003 score.

I don't know the status of your build and your bucket list from the original post, but why not join points 2 and 3? Get an Audigy2 and use its firewire header for your case! The sound card is worth it, imo.