Not very good, if I may.

kitten.may.cry wrote on 2022-06-04, 06:32:

Not very good, if I may.

Why not? I keep this AM2 only like as a museum exhibit because of it's originality. I didn't use it intensively, because I am interested mainly in systems befre 2006-2007 like AMD Socket A or Socket 754 ones especially.

Looks like a random assortment of parts to me.

kitten.may.cry wrote on 2022-06-04, 06:35:

Looks like a random assortment of parts to me.

You call it assortment of parts, but this PC was made using the best 2007 parts on the market.

For one, you're not even using the main selling feature of this board. Not the best, either.

kitten.may.cry wrote on 2022-06-04, 06:40:

For one, you're not even using the main selling feature of this board. Not the best, either.

Spoiler

https://www.overclockersclub.com/guides/round … herboards_2007/

Spoiler

https://hardforum.com/threads/best-am2-motherboard.1148610/

I know that I don't use the SLI (x8 + x8) and the AI Tuning overclock, but I received this PC in this configuration.

I don't judge you, but your logic is flawed.

Your own argument about best PC parts just got debunked by yourself, saying it's how you received it.

How do you really know it's the best?

Sorry, I'm in the mood for arguing.

I have a big soft spot for the AM2/AM2+ platform, and for Athlon 64 X2 chips. One of my favorite machines I ever built had a 5200+ Windsor, but I also have a 5200+ Brisbane, which I believe your CPU is also a Brisbane. Those chips were such a bargain - even though Intel had "regained the throne" with Core 2 by that time, A64 X2 still offered great price/performance. My Windsor served me well as a secondary machine for schoolwork and LAN parties well into the 2010s.

I also have a lot of nostalgia for the X1550! Before I built my first custom PC, my dad let me upgrade the family Dell and I used that for a year. I put a PCI (not express) X1550 in it. It was terribly crippled on the PCI bus obviously, but that card played Halo great, and it got me through my first playthroughs of all the Half-Life 2 games and Portal.

I would be very curious to get a PCIE version some day, so I can see what that GPU is capable of when not hindered by the PCI bus. Maybe I could even replicate that same machine with the same CPU, but a motherboard that has PCIE!

Your system hits several nostalgic spots for me, and I like it. I totally get the appeal of having a system with its original components. Was this a machine that you used yourself back in the day, or did you acquire it from somebody else? If the former, what memories have you got with it?

CapnCrunch53 wrote on 2022-06-04, 07:21:

I have a big soft spot for the AM2/AM2+ platform, and for Athlon 64 X2 chips. One of my favorite machines I ever built had a 520 […]
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I have a big soft spot for the AM2/AM2+ platform, and for Athlon 64 X2 chips. One of my favorite machines I ever built had a 5200+ Windsor, but I also have a 5200+ Brisbane, which I believe your CPU is also a Brisbane. Those chips were such a bargain - even though Intel had "regained the throne" with Core 2 by that time, A64 X2 still offered great price/performance. My Windsor served me well as a secondary machine for schoolwork and LAN parties well into the 2010s.

I also have a lot of nostalgia for the X1550! Before I built my first custom PC, my dad let me upgrade the family Dell and I used that for a year. I put a PCI (not express) X1550 in it. It was terribly crippled on the PCI bus obviously, but that card played Halo great, and it got me through my first playthroughs of all the Half-Life 2 games and Portal.

I would be very curious to get a PCIE version some day, so I can see what that GPU is capable of when not hindered by the PCI bus. Maybe I could even replicate that same machine with the same CPU, but a motherboard that has PCIE!

Your system hits several nostalgic spots for me, and I like it. I totally get the appeal of having a system with its original components. Was this a machine that you used yourself back in the day, or did you acquire it from somebody else? If the former, what memories have you got with it?

This machine I acquired it from someone. The person who had it said that was a cool and good PC back in the day. Even I received the original driver CDs and original manuals with it, also the ASUS SpeedSetup for video card. Along with some goodies. The goodies are: a original ASUS FDD cable, a still sealed ASUS DVI to VGA adapter and a still sealed ASUS TV-out composite cable.

CapnCrunch53 wrote on 2022-06-04, 07:21:

I have a big soft spot for the AM2/AM2+ platform, and for Athlon 64 X2 chips. One of my favorite machines I ever built had a 520 […]
Show full quote

I have a big soft spot for the AM2/AM2+ platform, and for Athlon 64 X2 chips. One of my favorite machines I ever built had a 5200+ Windsor, but I also have a 5200+ Brisbane, which I believe your CPU is also a Brisbane. Those chips were such a bargain - even though Intel had "regained the throne" with Core 2 by that time, A64 X2 still offered great price/performance. My Windsor served me well as a secondary machine for schoolwork and LAN parties well into the 2010s.

I also have a lot of nostalgia for the X1550! Before I built my first custom PC, my dad let me upgrade the family Dell and I used that for a year. I put a PCI (not express) X1550 in it. It was terribly crippled on the PCI bus obviously, but that card played Halo great, and it got me through my first playthroughs of all the Half-Life 2 games and Portal.

I would be very curious to get a PCIE version some day, so I can see what that GPU is capable of when not hindered by the PCI bus. Maybe I could even replicate that same machine with the same CPU, but a motherboard that has PCIE!

Your system hits several nostalgic spots for me, and I like it. I totally get the appeal of having a system with its original components. Was this a machine that you used yourself back in the day, or did you acquire it from somebody else? If the former, what memories have you got with it?

I forgot to mention that my CPU is a Brisbane (65nm), so you guessed it correctly!
And also, a 2006 AM2 system with ASUS M2N-E is on its way! I will assemble it soon!

This is alright for a VERY budget build, but way too underpowerd for contemporary games.
Something decent for the time would be a Windsor or Brisbane Core Athlon X2 5000-6000.
A G80 based graphics card, though they are not very reliable. An 8800GTS-640 shouldn't be too expensive.
Also, what's that PSU? Do you trust it?

RandomStranger wrote on 2022-06-04, 08:34:

This is alright for a VERY budget build, but way too underpowerd for contemporary games. Something decent for the time would be […]
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This is alright for a VERY budget build, but way too underpowerd for contemporary games.
Something decent for the time would be a Windsor or Brisbane Core Athlon X2 5000-6000.
A G80 based graphics card, though they are not very reliable. An 8800GTS-640 shouldn't be too expensive.
Also, what's that PSU? Do you trust it?

That PSU is a Romanian OEM; i trust it, so long as I didnțt use this PC intensively.

RetroPC_King wrote on 2022-06-04, 06:29:

This is my 1st Socket AM2 build. It is from December 2007, and it wasn't upgraded over time, it was kept as is, with all it's or […]
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This is my 1st Socket AM2 build. It is from December 2007, and it wasn't upgraded over time, it was kept as is, with all it's original components. Only replaced the PSU and CMOS battery.
-AMD Athlon X2 BE-2300 1.9 GHz with AMD stock cooler
-ASUS M2N-E SLI motherboard
-Spire case with front USB and audio
-2GB DDR2-800 (PC6400) Kingmax RAM (in dual channel) (2x 1GB DIMMs)
-ASUS EAX1550 256MB video card (ATI Radeon X1550) (expands to 512MB)
-Samsung SpinPoint S166 160GB SATA HDD (model HD161HJ)
-ASUS 18X DVD-RW drive (model DRW-1814BL)
-500W PSU
-it runs Windows XP Professional SP2
Any opinions? It is my only assembled Socket AM2 rig.

I see you've posted a LOT of rigs, will take me a while before I've read all of them 😋

This rig seems decent at first glance. One of the slower dual cores made by AMD, a good amount of nice RAM (I would personally also have used 2*1GB DDR2-800), it seems like a nice rig combined with WinXP, yet the parts are easier to come by then for instance my A64 single core WinXP builds which relied on higher tier (but older gen) AGP cards.
X1550 seems like a good fit for the rest of your rig, nobody really needs SLI unless you got a good amount of graphics cards in your stash. And as someone who also build a LOT of rigs just like you I can imagine you not really being up to use 2 graphics cards for just one rig if you could use them in 2 rigs, especially if you're short on decent graphics cards.

Stock AMD HSF is fine, the ones from the AM2 era were decently silent, unlike the Intel stock HSFs which for as long as I can remember were never truly silent (please correct me if I'm wrong).

I loved those late Samsung Spinpoints. Kinda a shame they left the harddrive business. Your 160GB drive should be perfectly fine.

The case looks nice, though I don't recognize this one. Personally I would still add a case fan though. And I'm not much of a fan of that PSU until I know what exactly it is.

I've personally only ever build a single AM2 rig. Also 2*1GB DDR2-800 but with a 250GB WD drive iirc and a 8600GT or something, also a single optical drive. Single core 2.4GHz CPU. That ­µATX case of mine was also missing its harddrive cage but the rig worked alright. Crashed in BF2 but all other games seemed to run fine, I never tested that rig a lot because I ended up lending it to a friend who only brought it back yeeeaaars later 🤣).
Mine was also with WinXP and basically made of parts I had laying around.

Be careful with the chipset heatsink, those nvidia chipsets needed much more cooling than that heatsink, I myself lost two M2N-E-SLI motherboards like that, check the temperature, with a finger you will have a reference.
I hope and wish my case was just bad luck, the M2N-E has much better cooling and I still have it running but the M2N-E-SLIs scare me.
It's just my experience, I hope it's not general, but every product from nvidia afected by the bumpgate is delicate.

Tetrium wrote on 2022-06-04, 21:25:

I see you've posted a LOT of rigs, will take me a while before I've read all of them 😋 […]
Show full quote

RetroPC_King wrote on 2022-06-04, 06:29:

This is my 1st Socket AM2 build. It is from December 2007, and it wasn't upgraded over time, it was kept as is, with all it's or […]
Show full quote

This is my 1st Socket AM2 build. It is from December 2007, and it wasn't upgraded over time, it was kept as is, with all it's original components. Only replaced the PSU and CMOS battery.
-AMD Athlon X2 BE-2300 1.9 GHz with AMD stock cooler
-ASUS M2N-E SLI motherboard
-Spire case with front USB and audio
-2GB DDR2-800 (PC6400) Kingmax RAM (in dual channel) (2x 1GB DIMMs)
-ASUS EAX1550 256MB video card (ATI Radeon X1550) (expands to 512MB)
-Samsung SpinPoint S166 160GB SATA HDD (model HD161HJ)
-ASUS 18X DVD-RW drive (model DRW-1814BL)
-500W PSU
-it runs Windows XP Professional SP2
Any opinions? It is my only assembled Socket AM2 rig.

I see you've posted a LOT of rigs, will take me a while before I've read all of them 😋

This rig seems decent at first glance. One of the slower dual cores made by AMD, a good amount of nice RAM (I would personally also have used 2*1GB DDR2-800), it seems like a nice rig combined with WinXP, yet the parts are easier to come by then for instance my A64 single core WinXP builds which relied on higher tier (but older gen) AGP cards.
X1550 seems like a good fit for the rest of your rig, nobody really needs SLI unless you got a good amount of graphics cards in your stash. And as someone who also build a LOT of rigs just like you I can imagine you not really being up to use 2 graphics cards for just one rig if you could use them in 2 rigs, especially if you're short on decent graphics cards.

Stock AMD HSF is fine, the ones from the AM2 era were decently silent, unlike the Intel stock HSFs which for as long as I can remember were never truly silent (please correct me if I'm wrong).

I loved those late Samsung Spinpoints. Kinda a shame they left the harddrive business. Your 160GB drive should be perfectly fine.

The case looks nice, though I don't recognize this one. Personally I would still add a case fan though. And I'm not much of a fan of that PSU until I know what exactly it is.

I've personally only ever build a single AM2 rig. Also 2*1GB DDR2-800 but with a 250GB WD drive iirc and a 8600GT or something, also a single optical drive. Single core 2.4GHz CPU. That ­µATX case of mine was also missing its harddrive cage but the rig worked alright. Crashed in BF2 but all other games seemed to run fine, I never tested that rig a lot because I ended up lending it to a friend who only brought it back yeeeaaars later 🤣).
Mine was also with WinXP and basically made of parts I had laying around.

My 160GB Samsung Spinpoint S166 is fine, also never had overheating problems with that NVIDIA nForce 500 SLI MCP chipset.

RetroPC_King wrote on 2022-06-04, 06:34:

kitten.may.cry wrote on 2022-06-04, 06:32:

Not very good, if I may.

Why not? I keep this AM2 only like as a museum exhibit because of it's originality. I didn't use it intensively, because I am interested mainly in systems befre 2006-2007 like AMD Socket A or Socket 754 ones especially.

This is not a fast computer. It's wasn't even a very fast computer back in 2007 (Radeon X1800 was much much faster than the X1550). But there's nothing wrong with that, if it's a computer you like and enjoy. Do you have fond memories of receiving and using it? Did you play some of your favorite games on it?

I do recommend you disassemble the computer and clean the parts though. I see quite a bit of dust, especially on the graphics card and the CPU cooler. Removing the dust will help your computer last longer.

I agree, that rig could use a good clean. I even see some cobwebs in there. I mean literally cobwebs 😋

- Bland
- Jumbled mess of semi-office / semi-home parts
- Case without any airflow
- No cable management
- Won't put any faith in OEM PSU with "Cool" in the name, which is probably not 500w by a long shot (although it's not critical for such anemic low-power system).
- Dirty

Not compatible with Windowx 9x and too weak for late Windows XP.

Tetrium wrote:

I even see some cobwebs in there. I mean literally cobwebs

More cowbells won't hurt too!

I know OP asked for opinions but Jesus . .you guys dogpiled, truly a depressing thing to read.