Intergraph TDZ-610 workstation released in 1996 with maxed out Realizm V25-GT card (64MB texture memory + geometry acceleration) would be very rare config. And i think that Windows 2000 would be running fine on 4xPentium Pro 200Mhz and 1GB or memory 😀 (Sold with win NT, but i had cheaper dual cpu model and win2k worked there fine even on 128MB memory).

http://web.archive.org/web/19970626021815/htt … xt/tdzdtsht.htm

Also not a PC, but at one point I had an SGI Octane2 that had a V8 graphics card with a Dual Channel Display option (that adds two DVI-I outputs, where it normally has only a single 13W3). DCD cards for the Octane were never terribly common to begin with, but the few that there were only sold with the later V12 and not the older V8 AFAIK, which means that was either someone's custom hack (the V6, V8 and V10 did have the connector for it) or it was an option that SGI sold but didn't advertise. I remember it worked fine with stock IRIX 6.5.30 without needing any weird patches or drivers.

As far as PC gear, hmmm. Does anyone remember some motherboards from the Socket 5 or Socket 7 era with 64-bit PCI slots? I remember seeing ads for a few in a magazine, but I don't think I've ever seen one in the flesh, as it were. One of those might be interesting.

You're fortunate, my Octane2's V8 only has the single 13W3... In fact I didn't even know DVI-I was an option on any of the V-series framebuffers. If I recall correctly, even my V12 Fuel was 13W3. 13W3 is such a pain these days, most newer LCD displays don't seem support sync-on-green anymore.

While we're talking about rare SGIs... I've got an R5K Indy which I believe to be an awfully rare little beast too.

Fuels had a single DVI-D unless you added a DCD card, or at least mine did. And unhelpfully, the Fuel/Tezro DCD was different from the Octane one, of course. All the VPro cards for the Octane (and Origin2000, if you felt froggy) had a single 13W3, but you could bolt on the DCD option to get two DVI-I. SGI, I think, only actually sold the DCD with V12s, though. (But I did have that V8, so maybe not? Or maybe they sold them solo?)

Yeah, the R5k Indy wasn't very common at all. More common than the R8K Indigo2/Challenge M, but that's not saying a whole lot. You want rare, though, try to find an RM7000 O2! I actually saw a 600MHz one on eBay at one point - should have snagged it, because SGI never made those (they sold a 350MHz one). Some folks on Nekochan modded some number of them with 600MHz RM7000s - I don't know how many, but no more than a few dozen, tops.

HAH! Yeah, I had an MXE and IO6-G shoved in my Origin 2000. 😀 I didn't think the VPro boards were supported in the Origin...although technically the MXE wasn't either. Man those were the days...I pretty much heated my small apartment at the time with the O2K and Crimson. I actually had a buddy of mine pick up the Origon 2000 from a Los Alamos National Laboratory surplus sale so it was wild to imagine what it might have been used for. I've since unloaded all my SGI boxen except for my Crimson RE, Octane2, and the Indy R5K.

Of all the SGI machines I've owned, the one I liked the least would have to be the Fuel. Considering all the hype around them I was pretty underwhelmed...mine was always finicky and the case design drove me nuts too.

FesterBlatz wrote:

Not really a "build" or even a PC, but I've got a Silicon Graphics Crimson RE (Reality Engine) that's probably one of only handful left in existence...

crimson_re.jpg

That thing is RAD!
I want to paint a mini-fridge to look like it!

kenrouholo wrote:

S3 Savage2000 cards are also fairly rare.

I have quite a few Savage 2000 cards, most of them are made by Diamond. I obtained them very easy in the past and they were *very* cheap. Now they don't appear in the wild so often, but that's true for almost any card from that era, so I don't think they are so rare, compared to other collectible cards.

emosun wrote:

apple 1 comes to mind as the rarest build

I have a working 1976 CASI Apollo VP2 s100 bus computer portrait machine but the keyboard, monitor, original printer and camera are extremely hard to come by.

I only know of one other person who owns these machines

RaverX wrote:

kenrouholo wrote:

S3 Savage2000 cards are also fairly rare.

I have quite a few Savage 2000 cards, most of them are made by Diamond. I obtained them very easy in the past and they were *very* cheap. Now they don't appear in the wild so often, but that's true for almost any card from that era, so I don't think they are so rare, compared to other collectible cards.

Second that. I acquired one last year in a small lot of cards for EUR 30 or so, and passed up another on its own for EUR 15 (because one Diamond Viper II Z200 is cool but two is plain foolish). In both cases the seller knew what the card was. Uncommon perhaps, but truly rare? I'd say there are far more of these than say V4-4500 out there, and not even in same ballpark as V5-6000.

As for really rare stuff - a board with that Micron Samurai DDR-SDRAM P3 chipset?

DNSDies wrote:

FesterBlatz wrote:

Not really a "build" or even a PC, but I've got a Silicon Graphics Crimson RE (Reality Engine) that's probably one of only handful left in existence...

crimson_re.jpg

That thing is RAD!
I want to paint a mini-fridge to look like it!

OR.... you could just do the opposite...! 🤣 😲
https://www.instructables.com/id/Convert-a-Si … -into-a-Fridge/

That reminds me of the guy who gutted an OG Xbox dev kit to make it into a modern PC...

Nx586?

Everything is rare becasue people around here hoard it. 🤣

dionb wrote:

Diamond Viper II Z200 is cool

I was reading the thread and 'till now did not even know it was rare/uncommon! I have had one from new and currently it's in my Gigabyte GA-6BXD Dual Slot 1 1GHz Pentium IIIE (Coppermine) system. I think the 1GHz Slot 1 Coppermines are uncommon, are they?

How about a Digital PWS 600au with a 600MHz Alpha 21164A (EV56) CPU + Digital PowerStorm 3D30/4D20 GPU, see https://www.cnet.com/news/digital-has-600-mhz-workstation/ + https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Personal_Workstation. I have the later MiataGL which runs Windows 2000 RC1 and have never come across another.

hear those dell dimension XPS T series are very rare!

Would a working sound blaster 1.0 CT1320A be considered rare nowadays?

Maybe, but now people managed to clone it, so it won't become unobtainium anymore.

Deksor wrote:

Maybe, but now people managed to clone it, so it won't become unobtainium anymore.

I just don't think it matters if there are clones when it comes to if something is rare. Original can still be rare even if there are millions of clones built later. Also rare doesn't mean it is unobtanium and I would not consider original sound blaster to be unobtanium either since I have one. They were quite popular back then and I think they are only becoming rare because a lot of them are not working anymore.

Baoran wrote:

Deksor wrote:

Maybe, but now people managed to clone it, so it won't become unobtainium anymore.

I just don't think it matters if there are clones when it comes to if something is rare. Original can still be rare even if there are millions of clones built later. Also rare doesn't mean it is unobtanium and I would not consider original sound blaster to be unobtanium either since I have one. They were quite popular back then and I think they are only becoming rare because a lot of them are not working anymore.

I am pretty sure that it is more because most of them were tossed into the trash when people got new stuff.

And even if some of this ancient stuff is still laying around in attics, basements, whatever... when the people finally clean out their old stuff, most of them won't have a clue that it is worth anything and will just toss is.