First post, by PC-Engineer
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The goal was a universal PC for Win9x applications with as many graphics and sound APIs as possible and thus as much flexibility and experience as possible. The result is a mid 2000 dream PC. Except for the SCSI controller and the hard disk, all components are from the first half of the year 2000 or older.
I want to play games like Tomb Raider 1, Quake 1 & 2 & III, Final Fantasy VII & VIII, Unreal, Expendable, Diablo 2 with 3Dfx effects and Deus Ex.
The Dream - with a big, nice AMD Athlon Badge
The Drive bays
The base is a SlotA system with a completely renewed Epox 7KXA (VIA KX133), an Athlon 950MHz (Orion), and 512MB PC133 CL2 RAM. With a Voodoo 5 5500 as well as a Matrox m3D 3D APIs: Glide, PowerVR, OpenGL and Direct3D are served. My goal is gaming at resolutions of 1024x768, if possible at 32bit. The V5 is already mostly the limiting factor here, so the CPU is more than sufficient and harmonizes well with this graphics card.
The disk system is completely based on SCSI. As removable media it serves CD, CD-R and DVD as well as floppy and Jaz disks (at the narrow bus of the SCSI controller). The U320 hard disk with 15k is only connected to the wide bus of the SCSI controller and can develop freely there.
The sound is handled by an ISA sound card, an AWE32 (CT3900) with a Yamaha DB50XG in piggyback as well as a Soundblaster Live! PCI. This serves the sound APIs of DOS (AWE, GM, SB16 with OPL3) and Windows (EAX, XG-Sound) with excellent compatibility.
The case is an ideal and soundproofed Chieftec Dragon CS601 with an Enermax power supply EG365AX-VE (high power on 3.3V and 5V, as well as support for -5V) that fits the Athlon's requirements. A contemporary 100MBit PCI network card from Intel is mandatory.
Epox 7KXA Rev 0.3 with fresh Panasonic capacitors
3Dfx Voodoo 5 5500 AGP
Housing inside - all slots populated
- Case: Chieftec Dragon CS601 silver
- Mainboard: Epox 7KXA Rev. 0.3 Slot A
- CPU: AMD Athlon 950MHz Slot A @1.7V (fresh MX5 thermal paste on die and 1mm silicone pads on caches)
- RAM: 512MB PC133 CL2 (Infineon)
- Graphics card: 3Dfx Voodoo 5 5500 for Glide / OpenGL / Direct3D (AGP 2x)
- 3D card: Matrox m3D for PowerVR
- SCSI controller: Adaptec 29160N
- Hard disk: Seagate Cheetah 15k ST318453LW
- DVD-ROM: Toshiba SD-M1201 (SCSI)
- CD-R: PX-R412Ci (12x/4x SCSI, Caddy)
- IOMEGA Jaz 1GB (SCSI)
- Sound card 1: SB Live! CT4620
- Soundcard 2: SB AWE32 CT3900 + Yamaha DB50XG (MIDI and XG sound for e.g. Final Fantasy VII and VIII)
- Intel 21143 100MBit PCI
- Floppy: 3,5" Samsung
- Power supply: Enermax EG365AX-VE (32A @3,3/5V; 25A @12V; 1A @-5/-12V)
Benchmark Results
Win98SE / DirectX 8.1 / Raziel 1.01.16 / 3Dfx Tools
3D-Mark 2001: 1625
3D-Mark 2000: 4291 (238 CPU 3D Marks)
3D-Mark 99: 6327 (14089 CPU 3D Marks)
Quake 2 v3.20 (1024x768x32)
Quake 2 Demo1: 104,5
Quake 2 Crusher: 62,8
Quake 3 v1.11 (1024x768x32)
Quake 3 Demo001: 69,7
Quake 3 Demo002: 72,5
Unreal v2.25 (1024x786x32)
Unreal Intro 87,1