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most expensive retro pc parts

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First post, by meljor

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When i am searching for parts i ofcourse only look for parts that i want for my own builds. I am not a big soundcard guy (only using creative cards because they do the trick in my builds) and i'm not very much into XT stuff etc.
I like retro's from pentium 1 and up so there's where my love is. I like especially 3dfx so almost every build i do has some 3dfx love in it.

So there could be a lot of parts that are extremely cool for others and has a LOT of value that i just leave at a fleamarket for example because i don't want it and i don't know the value...

So what is THE most expensive system/rare computer we could build in our heads? Parts don't really have to fit (s370 cpu and a super socket 7 board for example is fine) but must be RETRO. I just want to know te top list of parts and what they are worth.
Normal, used, working, UNBOXED parts with normal going prices (so if a voodoo 5500 has a normal price of 100 dollars i want that. Not the one case where a guy paid 500 for it).
I know a voodoo 5 6000 is extremely rare and expensive but maybe there are other cards that are even more expensive/rare?

example:

AT case Antec type 1200 (normal going price 150 dollar)
Fortron 400w At psu 90+ (150 dollar)
Asus p12b (revision important?) (150 dollar)
cyrix socket2 400mhz engineering sample (150 dollar)
1gb pc150 sdram kingston extreme (150 dollar)
Zalman socket4 full copper freeze cooler (150 dollar)
3dfx voodoo 8000 agp (150 dollar)
Creative AWE128 isa 1gb (150 dollar)
Creative daughterboard (150 dollar)
10-speed floppy drive (150 dollar)
Quantum Bigfoot 25GB 700rpm ide (150 dollar)

etc. etc. don't fill it up with 5 soundcards or 5 graphics cards, just one top dog....

asus tx97-e, 233mmx, voodoo1, s3 virge ,sb16
asus p5a, k6-3+ @ 550mhz, voodoo2 12mb sli, gf2 gts, awe32
asus p3b-f, p3-700, voodoo3 3500TV agp, awe64
asus tusl2-c, p3-S 1,4ghz, voodoo5 5500, live!
asus a7n8x DL, barton cpu, 6800ultra, Voodoo3 pci, audigy1

Reply 1 of 25, by noshutdown

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i would name just a few rare and expensive components:
cpu: cyrix joshua engineering sample
video: 3dfx rampage engineering sample
sound: ibm music card, roland lapc-i, yamaha xg-movie and creative awe64gold rev2
memory: geil ones limited edition(rated at ddr600 cl2.5-3-3-7)
board: dfi nforce4 venus

Reply 2 of 25, by Stojke

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Voodoo 6 8000 , what 😀

Some of the most expensive, yet available, components are Roland LAPC-I , Roland 401AT , Roland CM-500, IBM Music Feature Card, MediaTrix cards and Voodoo 5 6000. There are of course more, but these always pop into my mind when i think of such topic.

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Reply 3 of 25, by brostenen

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I bought a GUS ACE back in 1997.
Still have it, still in original Box and never ever seen another for sale.

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

My blog: http://to9xct.blogspot.dk
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brostenen

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Reply 4 of 25, by PhilsComputerLab

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Seen lots of GUS ACE on eBay. There is one currently. They all are sold from Eastern Europe. The BIN is almost $400 though 🤣

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Reply 5 of 25, by brostenen

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Pretty expensive.... 😮 wow.
Need to switch it for a AWE64 gold and a Voodoo3 then.
Naaa... Just kidding. 😁
Love and hate it on the same time.

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

My blog: http://to9xct.blogspot.dk
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brostenen

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Reply 6 of 25, by soviet conscript

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I'm guessing those are asking and not selling prices? Why anyone would pay $150 for a Bigfoot drive. There not particularly useful or collectable afaik. I guess I lucked out getting a Gravis ACE for $100 off Ebay a few months back.

Reply 8 of 25, by JayCeeBee64

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brostenen wrote:

I bought a GUS ACE back in 1997.
Still have it, still in original Box and never ever seen another for sale.

It's this one, right?

R0gaiaPl.jpg

I got it back in 1996 at a CompUSA store.

philscomputerlab wrote:

Seen lots of GUS ACE on eBay. There is one currently. They all are sold from Eastern Europe. The BIN is almost $400 though 🤣

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Gravis-Ultrasound-ACE … =item3cf0e0fc9a

That's really insane (and it's just the card, no box, manuals, software, etc. 😮 ). I remember paying $60 for mine (and retail was $100).

Ooohh, the pain......

Reply 9 of 25, by borgie83

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The AWE64D PCI is very rare. I've searched for one for almost 2 years and only known 1 guy to have 1 for sale. He wanted $200 US which included shipping but I couldn't justify that amount for a PCI sound card. Especially since it was for a untested bare card with no box, software, cables etc..

Reply 10 of 25, by shock__

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GUS ACE is rare/expensive? Maybe I shouldn't have sold the 4 I had previously.

Try Soundscape Elite or the IBM Music feature card - those are rare (or at least quite uncommon) and often fetch prices of $150+

Current Project: new GUS PnP compatible soundcard

[Z?]

Reply 11 of 25, by PhilsComputerLab

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GUS might not be as rare as Ensoniq or IBM, but they are definitely in more demand by more people. It's simply a very popular card whereas Ensoniq and IBM is quite specialised and not on most peoples wishlist.

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Reply 12 of 25, by noshutdown

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borgie83 wrote:

The AWE64D PCI is very rare. I've searched for one for almost 2 years and only known 1 guy to have 1 for sale. He wanted $200 US which included shipping but I couldn't justify that amount for a PCI sound card. Especially since it was for a untested bare card with no box, software, cables etc..

not really, the awe64d(pci) used to be relatively plentiful and only became rarer in recent years, as it was considered rather useless and unwanted so most were scrapped and destroyed. i would rate its reasonable price to be around $50.
unlike the voodoo5 6000, dfi nforce4 venus and geil ones, which were only produced in small quantities.

Reply 13 of 25, by kixs

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I usually watch this guys auctions. He gets some incredible prices.. I mean _hi_ prices 😲

http://www.ebay.de/sch/diodenmann/m.html?item … =p2047675.l2562

Also look for sold items. Almost everything he sells goes for around 100 euros. Just look at that Hercules ET6000 PCI that was sold for 71€ 🤣

I'm watching his 286 motherboard auction right now. I guess it will also be more than 100€ 😲

Requests are also possible... /msg kixs

Reply 14 of 25, by Thandor

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kixs wrote:
I usually watch this guys auctions. He gets some incredible prices.. I mean _hi_ prices :exclamation: […]
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I usually watch this guys auctions. He gets some incredible prices.. I mean _hi_ prices 😲

http://www.ebay.de/sch/diodenmann/m.html?item … =p2047675.l2562

Also look for sold items. Almost everything he sells goes for around 100 euros. Just look at that Hercules ET6000 PCI that was sold for 71€ 🤣

I'm watching his 286 motherboard auction right now. I guess it will also be more than 100€ 😲

High prices, but also good quality. Diodenmann knows what he sells and when you buy from him you don't have to worry if it works or not... his stuff is tested and works. Nevertheless; a high-end 486 motherboard is getting more expensive. In 2002 or 2003 I bought a 486 PCI motherboard for about 4 euro. That's 25 times the difference in 10 years.

Hardware that is difficult to obtain tends to be pricey (dôh 😀). You can make an endless list.
- VolariDUO V8 Ultra (don't know it's price, haven't seen one for sale since when it was new!)
- Voodoo Graphics in SLI (yes, Voodoo 1)
- Videologic Apocalypse 5D (and also the PCX1-based model...)
- Creative 3D Blaster VLB
- SiS Xabre 600
- Other late Trident/SiS/PowerVR/S3/Rendition based hardware
- Engineering samples of all sorts
- Working NexGen hardware

Somewhat rare:
- Athlon 1000 Slot A
- Cyrix Cx486DRx2 33/66GP
- Working 286/25MHz CPU/Motherboard set
- 386 VLB motherboards
- ATi Rage Fury MAXX

thandor.net - hardware
And the rest of us would be carousing the aisles, stuffing baloney.

Reply 15 of 25, by mr_bigmouth_502

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JayCeeBee64 wrote:
It's this one, right? […]
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brostenen wrote:

I bought a GUS ACE back in 1997.
Still have it, still in original Box and never ever seen another for sale.

It's this one, right?

R0gaiaPl.jpg

I got it back in 1996 at a CompUSA store.

philscomputerlab wrote:

Seen lots of GUS ACE on eBay. There is one currently. They all are sold from Eastern Europe. The BIN is almost $400 though 🤣

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Gravis-Ultrasound-ACE … =item3cf0e0fc9a

That's really insane (and it's just the card, no box, manuals, software, etc. 😮 ). I remember paying $60 for mine (and retail was $100).

So THAT'S where "Insanity Wolf" came from. 🤣 Neat!

Reply 17 of 25, by brostenen

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JayCeeBee64 wrote:
It's this one, right? […]
Show full quote
brostenen wrote:

I bought a GUS ACE back in 1997.
Still have it, still in original Box and never ever seen another for sale.

It's this one, right?

R0gaiaPl.jpg

I got it back in 1996 at a CompUSA store.

philscomputerlab wrote:

Seen lots of GUS ACE on eBay. There is one currently. They all are sold from Eastern Europe. The BIN is almost $400 though 🤣

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Gravis-Ultrasound-ACE … =item3cf0e0fc9a

That's really insane (and it's just the card, no box, manuals, software, etc. 😮 ). I remember paying $60 for mine (and retail was $100).

Yes. That is the one I have.
Everything in the box, even the registration pamphlet and the audio cable.
It is without ram upgrade though. Just stock 512k. 🙁

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

My blog: http://to9xct.blogspot.dk
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brostenen

001100 010010 011110 100001 101101 110011

Reply 18 of 25, by JayCeeBee64

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F2bnp wrote:
mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

So THAT'S where "Insanity Wolf" came from. 🤣 Neat!

My thoughts as well! 🤣

🤣 🤣 🤣 !!

I'm glad I wasn't drinking or eating anything, otherwise unsavory fluids and stuff would be covering my monitor screen by now 😁

Ooohh, the pain......

Reply 19 of 25, by Unknown_K

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486 EISA/VLB boards are pretty expensive.
4MB VLB boards are hard to find and not cheap.
Any of the Promise/DTC/etc caching IDE or SCSI VLB boards are expensive.
Pentium Pro motherboards, also P60/66 ones.

Collector of old computers, hardware, and software