cyclone3d wrote on 2023-03-15, 13:12:

TrashPanda wrote on 2023-03-15, 05:21:

IIRC the 295 also had a dual board model, I might be wrong but I swear I remember there being one that used the 285 dies and had 4gb of shared memory instead of the 280 ones. (Possibly one of the crazy ASUS Mars models)

The original 295 was 2 boards. After they had issues with that one, they went to a single board model.

There was also a 3rd party 285x2. The regular 295 by specs is a 275x2 with lower clocks than the 275.

Yeah I looked up the ASUS Mars ..such a beast of a card, sad it was a limited run card.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2023-03-15, 04:46:

Oh boy... what did I do to myself this time? Just a week or two ago we had a discussion here regarding DX10 era cards starting t […]
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Oh boy... what did I do to myself this time? Just a week or two ago we had a discussion here regarding DX10 era cards starting to become scarce and maybe having some niche use cases in the near future. Just a few days later, what do I find?

yikes1.jpg

Uhg... why why why. I could have just bought the two FX 5950 Ultras and been on my way, but no. These were sold as scrap, and I'm sure would have ended up as such eventually. There were even more 8800GT\9800GT cards and many more DX10-DX11 era cards without their coolers attached (and the seller said they were already thrown away), but the weight and size of this lot was getting absurd as it was, so I had to let them go.

They were apparently recently pulled from systems, so they have not been thrashing around in a scrap heap for a 15-20 years. I fully expected some damage, and there is some, but it isn't anywhere near as bad as I thought it'd be. I would say only 2-3 have enough SMD damage to be hopeless without a ton of work. Some have no SMD damage, others just have 1-3 components chipped off... I'm really hoping they're just EMI filters that aren't needed for operation. Until I start testing them out I have no idea if even a single one works, but I have a feeling that most of them will... even if they require a tiny bit of soldering work to get to that point. And I did specifically grab an extra 8800GTX that had been stripped of it's cooler, simply to use as a parts board for the others... or if it's in better shape, maybe just move one of the coolers onto it and use one of the others as a parts board.

What is in the lot:
3x MSI 8800GTX
2x EVGA 9800GTX+
4x PNY GTX 285
2x PNY 8800GTX
1x PNY 9800 GX2 (what a monster of a card! It's built like a solid metal brick. Absolutely no way these can get SMD damage!)
2x EVGA GTX 580
ASUS GTX 1050 2GB
2x Nvidia OEM Geforce FX 5950 Ultra (amazingly, at a quick glance they appear to be undamaged except for one bent cap on the top)
1x ATI All In Wonder 9700 Pro 128MB (looks like it got a bit hot at some point, not expecting it to work)
3x XFX 6800 XTreme 256MB (all three have bad caps but they are through-hole and shouldn't be hard to replace... one card is still in the plastic!)

Bare Cards:
1x PNY 8800GTX
1x Quadro FX 1000 (NV30GL; underclocked FX 5800)
1x Visiontek Geforce 3 (original)
1x All in Wonder 9700 Pro 128MB (completely different layout than the other, but marked the same)
1x ASUS 9980 Ultra FX 5950 Ultra (seems basically intact! Just needs cooling)

I probably won't go too crazy with this stuff right now, but I'll do some testing, mark which ones work, what repairs the others need and just tinker with them as time allows in the future. If the GTX 1050 works it will probably end up in some older Optiplex which I can resell locally as an entry level gaming PC and then pay off the entire cost of this lot... yay. 😁

Finally, I also got this in the mail today. Got it for a very fair price considering how scarce they are.
IBM\Tecmar ARPA PC sound card (~1989)
Tecmar ARPA PC.jpg
I'm really looking forward to tinkering with it! I believe this is now the oldest PC sound card I own. Based on some discussions online I guess with the right drivers it will do something not entirely unlike Adlib and Sound Blaster emulation. Neat. 😁

Oh man.
I spent quite a while trying to find a working GTX285 for a build I was doing.
Ended up getting the Quadro version (5800) instead, which it turns out is superior in every single way.
Doesn't look as nice tho =(

Got 2x MSI GTX580 "TwinFrozr II" tho.
My modern testbench 760 watt PSU was not enough to supply that system 🤣.

I remember reading reviews about this card. It was big, hot, and didn't really provide that much of an uplift for the trouble. SLI/CrossFire also have the side effect of producing poor 99th percentile frames and micro stuttering. I remember this being highlighted about this card.

I don't think that multiple GPUs have been a good solution since probably DirectX 9 and maybe 10. The API overhead and frame complexity is probably too taxing to be done in realtime without some kind of latency anymore for it to be practical. Performance has always been a mixed bag as well, with some games performing worse, not better.

TrashPanda wrote on 2023-03-15, 10:35:

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-03-15, 09:20:

I have a couple of GeForce 2 MXs. Despite then being the bottom of the barrel performance-wise for the generation, these are actually excellent cards. They have fantastic OpenGL and DirectX support, performance is greatly improved over the former TNT2 models, and they will generally "just work". These are definitely my favorite cards for test benches and a great choice for basic builds. The ATI Rage 128 Pro is also good, but the GF2 MX is just all-around better. It's also fairly cheap to find; and definitely not to be overlooked.

I have a soft spot for GF2 MX400 cards the 64MB DDR models are crazily reliable and can take some serious abuse and keep on trucking, they are also perfect cards for quake 1/2/3 or unreal LAN boxes. Actually they are pretty much perfect for period games that don't require Pixel Shaders.

So fun fact GeForce2MX (Along with all other GF2s) and ATI Radeon both support pixel shaders 1.0a, but neither fully supports Vertex shaders (Radeon has some quasi Vertex capabilities via ATI specific OGL extensions that almost nothing supports, GeForce has zero Vertex support). Thus both are somewhere in the middle between being DirectX 7 and DirectX8 class video cards.

What was it the 7500 has that other DX7 Radeons didn't?

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-03-15, 13:48:

I remember reading reviews about this card. It was big, hot, and didn't really provide that much of an uplift for the trouble. SLI/CrossFire also have the side effect of producing poor 99th percentile frames and micro stuttering. I remember this being highlighted about this card.

I don't think that multiple GPUs have been a good solution since probably DirectX 9 and maybe 10. The API overhead and frame complexity is probably too taxing to be done in realtime without some kind of latency anymore for it to be practical. Performance has always been a mixed bag as well, with some games performing worse, not better.

The microstuttering / frame time issues were a problem with both ATI/AMD and Nvidia until one of the review sites started figuring stuff out and then both ATI/AMD and Nvidia fixed it in their drivers.

My colleague was cleaning his storage and gave me some PC cards. This is what I got.

Turbo -> wrote on 2023-03-15, 16:55:

My colleague was cleaning his storage and gave me some PC cards. This is what I got.

That's a seriously nice haul that's a good friend.

cyclone3d wrote on 2023-03-15, 16:02:

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-03-15, 13:48:

I remember reading reviews about this card. It was big, hot, and didn't really provide that much of an uplift for the trouble. SLI/CrossFire also have the side effect of producing poor 99th percentile frames and micro stuttering. I remember this being highlighted about this card.

I don't think that multiple GPUs have been a good solution since probably DirectX 9 and maybe 10. The API overhead and frame complexity is probably too taxing to be done in realtime without some kind of latency anymore for it to be practical. Performance has always been a mixed bag as well, with some games performing worse, not better.

The microstuttering / frame time issues were a problem with both ATI/AMD and Nvidia until one of the review sites started figuring stuff out and then both ATI/AMD and Nvidia fixed it in their drivers.

Actually starting with the GTX 690 NVidia included new hardware on their boards to eliminate frametime and stuttering issues. It wasnt just driver issues. As such the 690 was a tremendous value, if not for games eventually requiring more vram this board could have had a top tier lifespan longer than most other cards.

cyclone3d wrote on 2023-03-15, 16:02:

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-03-15, 13:48:

I remember reading reviews about this card. It was big, hot, and didn't really provide that much of an uplift for the trouble. SLI/CrossFire also have the side effect of producing poor 99th percentile frames and micro stuttering. I remember this being highlighted about this card.

I don't think that multiple GPUs have been a good solution since probably DirectX 9 and maybe 10. The API overhead and frame complexity is probably too taxing to be done in realtime without some kind of latency anymore for it to be practical. Performance has always been a mixed bag as well, with some games performing worse, not better.

The microstuttering / frame time issues were a problem with both ATI/AMD and Nvidia until one of the review sites started figuring stuff out and then both ATI/AMD and Nvidia fixed it in their drivers.

Yes, the TechReport started frame time benchmarking if I recall correctly. That was a very interesting time for hardware. Ugh... that site is in such a sad state now. All of the original articles are broken. Definitely one of the best hardware review sites back in the day. Hopefully all of the articles are backed up properly on archive.org.

Shagittarius wrote on 2023-03-15, 17:52:

Actually starting with the GTX 690 NVidia included new hardware on their boards to eliminate frametime and stuttering issues. It wasnt just driver issues. As such the 690 was a tremendous value, if not for games eventually requiring more vram this board could have had a top tier lifespan longer than most other cards.

Yeah, I think the GTX 690 is the only dual card from nvidia that people talk about favorably. The rest were just "meh", with inconsistent performance, microstutter, high temps, high power draw, lots of noise and eye-watering price tags.

I bet if they'd made a 6GB GTX 690 (3GB for each GPU) it would have been been enough to stay relevant for a while longer.

With the recent purchases I've got this Y2K rom bios card 😀

Obviously we don't need these devices anymore, living past the extinction level event of crossing the new year of 2000.
Still this will make a useful tool. I've socketed the rom chip, and now can put something of my own in 28-pin flash ICs.

The rom strings reads:

BIOS-Y2000 ProblemSolver. Version 1.77
Your BIOS & RTC are ready for New Year!
Product of Ukraine

The dump is attached if anyone is interested 😀

Scored another beige beauty at the thrift again today for $15, complete tower. Haven't had the chance to see if it powers on yet but it has an ASUS A7V motherboard with unknown CPU, two 128 MB PC133 RAM sticks, a GeForce 2 MX video card, Creative CT4810 (I think?) sound card, D-link PCI wireless card, and an IDE hard drive of unknown size. The inside is very dusty and it looks like it spent some time ingesting some pinkish material, not sure what that's about. Needs a good cleaning but hopefully it works!

Turbo -> wrote on 2023-03-15, 16:55:

My colleague was cleaning his storage and gave me some PC cards. This is what I got.

There is a PCI card with only one DVI output (top right corner, picture with the sound cards)
The PCI connector is not even fully used.

Is that a real graphics card, or just some proprietary extension to add a DVI port to an IGP ?

acl wrote on 2023-03-15, 20:14:

just some proprietary extension to add a DVI port to an IGP ?

an ADD2/ADD2+ card

Brawndo wrote on 2023-03-15, 19:32:

The inside is very dusty and it looks like it spent some time ingesting some pinkish material, not sure what that's about.

I had one like that some years ago, got to figuring it was makeup, some lady foofing all over her face with a brush or puff on the daily, getting it airborne.

Brawndo wrote on 2023-03-15, 19:32:

Scored another beige beauty at the thrift again today for $15, complete tower. Haven't had the chance to see if it powers on yet […]
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Scored another beige beauty at the thrift again today for $15, complete tower. Haven't had the chance to see if it powers on yet but it has an ASUS A7V motherboard with unknown CPU, two 128 MB PC133 RAM sticks, a GeForce 2 MX video card, Creative CT4810 (I think?) sound card, D-link PCI wireless card, and an IDE hard drive of unknown size. The inside is very dusty and it looks like it spent some time ingesting some pinkish material, not sure what that's about. Needs a good cleaning but hopefully it works!

Nice, that's Enlight 7237 - pretty much the best case for vintage ATX builds you will find.

acl wrote on 2023-03-15, 20:14:

There is a PCI card with only one DVI output (top right corner, picture with the sound cards) The PCI connector is not even full […]
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Turbo -> wrote on 2023-03-15, 16:55:

My colleague was cleaning his storage and gave me some PC cards. This is what I got.

There is a PCI card with only one DVI output (top right corner, picture with the sound cards)
The PCI connector is not even fully used.

Is that a real graphics card, or just some proprietary extension to add a DVI port to an IGP ?

It looks to be a PCIe 1x card even if the silkscreen says 16x card. My guess is probably just some generic display adapter not sure for what other than just adding additional screen real estate.

Todays pocket change pickup, Evercool Magic Cooler, blue fan purplish anodising, goes on 370 thru 939, though on looking up reviews it's a bit weak for above 60W I think. So will probably keep it to Tualatin or Northwood.

It's kinda garish, so maybe should use it with that purple Soyo board and a nice bright red Radeon for a total clown shoes P4 build.

HanJammer wrote on 2023-03-15, 20:47:

Brawndo wrote on 2023-03-15, 19:32:

Scored another beige beauty at the thrift again today for $15, complete tower. Haven't had the chance to see if it powers on yet […]
Show full quote

Scored another beige beauty at the thrift again today for $15, complete tower. Haven't had the chance to see if it powers on yet but it has an ASUS A7V motherboard with unknown CPU, two 128 MB PC133 RAM sticks, a GeForce 2 MX video card, Creative CT4810 (I think?) sound card, D-link PCI wireless card, and an IDE hard drive of unknown size. The inside is very dusty and it looks like it spent some time ingesting some pinkish material, not sure what that's about. Needs a good cleaning but hopefully it works!

Nice, that's Enlight 7237 - pretty much the best case for vintage ATX builds you will find.

Thanks for the info. That explains the Enlight branded power supply. Well it fired right up! BIOS setup reported a Duron 750 CPU which is garbage, so that's gonna go, and a Quantum Fireball Plus 30 GB hard drive, which the previous owners didn't see fit to wipe so all their data is still present. Jon's profile is pretty boring, 🤣.

Got a bunch of modems this past week, plus a Viking phone line emulator.

One of my next projects will be setting up a home BBS and reliving the joys of dialup. 😁