I have pretty much all the parts I want.. but most of my systems are in different states of assembly.

Trying to decide exactly what to put in each system is my problem.

xeon3d wrote:

- Gigabyte GA-8I865GME-7775-RH: Intel 865, AGP, MicroATX, 2 SATA + 2IDE. Has W98 drivers for most stuff. Had an unsoldered SBLink header.
- Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600: Why not?

You ask why not?
Because the 865 chipset can't really support 1066FSB (266Mhz), you end up running RAM at 166Mhz (DDR333) with a divider that further kills performance and this all works out slower than just running a 800FSB (200Mhz) CPU with RAM at DDR400 (200Mhz) running 1:1 ratio and not waiting around.
Since Win98 can only see a single core, pretty much any 800FSB 65nm Core2duo / 45nm Pentium Dual Core (and even 65nm single core Celerons) which cost less than postage would run faster and cooler.

ABiT BP6 (have)
Dual Mendocino 400's @ 600 (have 4, haven't tested them for speed yet) fallback is the 2x366's I have, which have run @ 550 for years 😀
2xGolden Orb coolers, to be modified as http://www.bp6.com/orbs/ (have the Orbs, not modified yet)
768 MB of RAM (may or may not have - I am pretty certain, I have at least 2x256 in the right BX-compatible configuration)

For graphics, I think ATI Rage Fury Maxx would be appropriate, being a dual-GPU board for a dual-CPU board 🤣 (trawling eBay ..)
Also one or two 12MB Voodoo2 would be nice
And also a Matrox m3d - just for nostalgic reasons as I had one "back in the days"

cyclone3d wrote:

I have pretty much all the parts I want.. but most of my systems are in different states of assembly.

Trying to decide exactly what to put in each system is my problem.

Same here, I spend more time fiddling with each system and swapping parts than actually using them. 😢

My favorite build would be 486DX2/66
SB/GM audio
Fast video card (Tseng, Diamond or equal)
Flight stick + throttle (pedals preferred)
DOS 6.22
8+ Mb of RAM

That would run all my favorite games pre -95 pretty well. Problem I have is that once you go beyond this magical year it becomes more of a hardware race and it's really hard to stop at any given year to say: "this is perfect now". I tend to go for a faster processor only to discover I should also upgrade the graphics card only to realize I need a new mobo to support AGP 4x, 8x and I need faster mem chips, better OS and so on. It's a never ending battle and you end up with some Quad Core GTX monster that has nothing to do with a proper retro rig anymore.

cyclone3d wrote:

Trying to decide exactly what to put in each system is my problem.

Problem, or part of the hobby, I'm not sure which, but me too. 😀

I have almost everything I want, but I don't think my list would help you determine how to downsize. I'm all about building a system around some piece (or pieces) of hardware that I had, or find noteworthy, or just want to experiment with. Rationalizing the number of builds is sometimes tricky... I have more computers now than I "need" to run the software from those periods in time. I've found a way around this by designating some as "development boxes" and installing C compilers on them. I figure that's a good reason to have two 486s, for example, or both a 423 and 478 Pentium 4. But I don't think I'm fooling anyone, least of all me.

I started to make a quick list with hardware, but it ended up not being quick at all. Perhaps I should start my own thread in the showcase forum...

No, I just like too much stuff to ever have room for it all. The only time a hobby is really complete is when you get bored with it and don't want to go further.

I have more or less what I consider being my ultimate collection for my personal need's.

286 machine
CL-5422-ISA, 640k Ram, 80mb SCSI, Audician32 soundcard.

486dx33 machine
ET-4000-ISA, 8mb Ram, ISA-Controller, Jazz16 Soundcard.

486dx2-80 machine
VLB S3-805, 16mb Ram, VLB Controller, Audician32 Soundcard.

5x86-133 Machine
CL-5446-PCI, 16mb Ram, onboard controller, Audician32+DreamblasterS1

Pentium-166 Machine
S3-Virge325-PCI, 32mb Ram, Voodoo1 and no soundcard at the moment.

Pentium3-933 Machine
Geforce3-ti200, 512mb Ram, YMF-724 Soundcard.

A couple of Dell and HP Socket775 machines. (not using them at all)

Commodore64 Breadbin (Board revision 250407)

Commodore64 Model-C (Board revision 250469)

Amiga500 Rev.5
Stock configuration, except kickrom 1.3 and 512k mem upgrade.

Amiga500 Rev.8a,1
Upgraded chipram onboard from 512 to 1mb, 1mb Trapdoor memory allocated as ChipRam, Internal Scandoubler, TF-530 Accelerator, kickrom switch (1.3/3.1) and boot selector.

Amiga600 Rev 1.5
Upgraded with 1mb Trapdoor ChipRam, Internal scandoubler, and 9,5mb FastRam module.

Then I have tons of spare parts. Everything from TNT1, TNT2-Ultra to GF4-ti4200. Tons of memory modules. Tons of different harddrives, cables and so on. Some C64/Amiga spare parts as well.

I've got a couple of systems in progress and planned.

IBM 5160, largely complete:
Orchid Tiny Turbo Xtra Upgrade
2 MB EMS Card (Eh, it's a thing I guess)
Floppy/Serial/Parallel Controller ( Currently have these separately with an experimental combined board on the way)
XT-IDE with ~500 MB DOM
Sound blaster 2.0 + CMS Chips
3C503 Ethernet Adapter
CGA Card
Hercules/Monochrome card (currently causes issues with Paratrooper)
Base 8088 (Tiny Turbo runs at V20 4.77 speed with cache disabled)
1 MB UMB (mostly working, dealing with issues with bank 4)

Tandy TL (Not acquired yet)
XT-IDE
3C503 Ethernet Adapter
Nice 8 bit VGA card
CMS and AdLib card, or maybe just an FMonster
Base 10 MHz CPU for those sensitive games

386 System (Maybe?)
Something with that nice GD510/GD520 video chipset with the really accurate CGA support.

486 DX2 66 MHz System (Sort of an edge case plan)
I dunno, something involving a Pro Audio Spectrum or Sound Blaster Pro 1.0. And another FMonster. And a CL-GD530. Maybe a Gravis Ultrasound Classic.

Pentium MMX Time Machine (In progress)
MMX 233 currently, might switch it back to a 200 for even slower support. Can get it down to about a 386DX-16. Maybe if I can get it a little slower I can run Bubble Ghost. Or just use some software hacks, I dunno.
Intel Pro/1000 LAN card
S3 Virge GX
Creative Encore DXR3
Sound Blaster Pro 2
Music Quest Clone
Combo 1.2/1.44 MB floppy drive
Spoilers, kinda want to throw an FMonster in this 😜

The above system may get turned into a SS7 system with a Voodoo 5500, Voodoo 1, the DXR3, same ethernet adapter, Sound Blaster Pro 2, Gravis Ultrasound PNP (in-hand), and FMonster.

Something nice to use with an AWE32.

I currently have a Voodoo 5500 in A7V333 system and I really want to test my Matrox M3D in it. Hopefully Mechwarrior 2 doesn't run into too many speed bugs... The same machine also has a Audigy ZS 2 and Aureal Vortex in it. This runs 98 and XP. Diablo II is pretty nice!

Something with a Ti 4200 or whatever else is better.

I also want to make a ridiculous Windows 7/XP combo box with a 980 Ti, a PCI Voodoo 5500, whatever the last Sound Blaster with XP support was, and whatever other weird stuff I can jam in it.

I really like this hobby. Maybe I should play a video game for an extended period of time on one of these boxes.

I left out a bunch of other stuff, but I do have an MSX Turbo R. I would like to do a RAM mod but I don't like the broken diagrams I've been finding for that.

I'm into Mid 90's dos till around GTA San Andreas so with that in mind.

My Dual Slot 1, voodoo 2 SLI, GFti4600, Audigy 2 ZS and AWE64
This play's 99.9% of my dos games and all my Win9x games. The Dual cpu is just for extra kicks. dream would be dual 1Ghz but M/B maxes out at 600Mhz which is fine really.

My Socket 775, GF 590 SLI, SB X-Fi Titanium PCIe
WinXP and anything that's too slow on the P3 runs fine on this, Even a single GF590 is pointless but again kicks. Dream would be dual CPU system.

My DX2/66
Not needed but it's my very first PC so of course it stays.

That's if I HAD to limit myself but I've got 10? PC's set up full time and more in storage.

Definitely my favourite retro pc is my 486dx 33Mhz with 8Mb ram, tseng labs et4000/w32 vlb card, SB16 and MT-32. I originally built it as my perfect ultima 7 pc, but then I realised that by disabling caches and using turbo button I can slow it down to pretty much any speed I want and I can play such huge range of retro dos games with it and I can even make the first wing commander game run at correct speed. I don't have to slow it down so much fortunately that I would see problems that I see when trying to slow down faster computers. For me it is basically the perfect dos pc. There are newer dos games that need faster pc but I think it makes it up by how wide range of dos games it can run perfectly.

we had a 486 dx 33mhz when I was a kid, and I always wanted the dx4 100. don't think I've ever used one. that would probably be my dream pc because I don't think i'm ever going to see one for sale (at a reasonable price).

but i'm pretty close! tonight i'm putting together my socket 7 build; the motherboard I bought came with a Pentium 166mmx and i'm going to slow it down to 90mhz on the jumpers, pretending it's a 486 (I feel like it's still going to be much faster than the dx4 but whatever).

I remember loading up command and conquer after I got it for my birthday one year, and nearly cried because it ran at like 2fps. the minimum was 66mhz on the box and I thought "it can't be that bad! it'll run". that was the moment I thought about all my friends with faster 486/pentium pcs and how I was not in their league 😜

H3nrik V! wrote:

ABiT BP6 (have) Dual Mendocino 400's @ 600 (have 4, haven't tested them for speed yet) fallback is the 2x366's I have, which hav […]
Show full quote

ABiT BP6 (have)
Dual Mendocino 400's @ 600 (have 4, haven't tested them for speed yet) fallback is the 2x366's I have, which have run @ 550 for years 😀
2xGolden Orb coolers, to be modified as http://www.bp6.com/orbs/ (have the Orbs, not modified yet)
768 MB of RAM (may or may not have - I am pretty certain, I have at least 2x256 in the right BX-compatible configuration)

For graphics, I think ATI Rage Fury Maxx would be appropriate, being a dual-GPU board for a dual-CPU board 🤣 (trawling eBay ..)
Also one or two 12MB Voodoo2 would be nice
And also a Matrox m3d - just for nostalgic reasons as I had one "back in the days"

Too bad you can't run the Rage Fury Maxx and the Mendocinos in dual at the same time since ATI newer made a driver that supported AFR with the Maxx in NT based Windows (I think it only can access one of the GPUs).

Kamerat wrote:

H3nrik V! wrote:

ABiT BP6 (have) Dual Mendocino 400's @ 600 (have 4, haven't tested them for speed yet) fallback is the 2x366's I have, which hav […]
Show full quote

ABiT BP6 (have)
Dual Mendocino 400's @ 600 (have 4, haven't tested them for speed yet) fallback is the 2x366's I have, which have run @ 550 for years 😀
2xGolden Orb coolers, to be modified as http://www.bp6.com/orbs/ (have the Orbs, not modified yet)
768 MB of RAM (may or may not have - I am pretty certain, I have at least 2x256 in the right BX-compatible configuration)

For graphics, I think ATI Rage Fury Maxx would be appropriate, being a dual-GPU board for a dual-CPU board 🤣 (trawling eBay ..)
Also one or two 12MB Voodoo2 would be nice
And also a Matrox m3d - just for nostalgic reasons as I had one "back in the days"

Too bad you can't run the Rage Fury Maxx and the Mendocinos in dual at the same time since ATI newer made a driver that supported AFR with the Maxx in NT based Windows (I think it only can access one of the GPUs).

Thanks for the info .. That was one thing I hadn't checked up on. That's however a good reason for not chasing a Maxx, though 🤣

my problem is i sort of like them all. so with around 30 machines (had to let some go already) spanning every iteration from 8088 to pentium 3 as well as all the great commodore/apple/atari /tandy machines, I have a bit of a storage problem.

Same problem of liking them all here although with a limited collection (just 7 fully dessed up pc's) of retro's. If I ever have to abandon them the last to go is the P3B-F based system. Sentimental reasons plus awe for the design and reliability.

Aside from not owning an MVP3 motherboard to replace the TX in my K6-2/SLI rig, I already have all my dream retro PCs, they are in my signature.

That said, I wouldn't mind an A3000, and a decent scandoubler for my A500 (which I will be getting soon hopefully).

I already have pretty much everything I wanted to... but there are still some things that would be nice to own. Probably they don't fit the "could be assembled cheaply" rule... but whatever. 🤣

i820 / i840 dual Slot 1 board with pair of PIII-S 1400 and prefferably onboard SCSI controller.

i860 dual Socket 603 board with pair of Xeon MP Foster with L3 cache.

appiah4 wrote:

That said, I wouldn't mind an A3000, and a decent scandoubler for my A500 (which I will be getting soon hopefully).

I would rather have an 2000 with all the bells and whistles and a VampireV2 inside it. 😜

Regarding a500 scandoubler. If you are using CRT monitors, then a ScanPlusECS is the best choice, as it is sadly locked at 50hz refresh rate. And only a handfull of LCD monitors can do 50hz. Yet when you have a monitor that can display 50hz, then ohhhh boy... The ScanPlusECS are just the shit, for the money. The only reason as to buy an IndivisionECS-V2, is if you only have an Amiga600. It can do +62hz refresh, yet you need an extremely high quality monitor, in order to avoid some ghosting artifact. And the IndiECS-V2 are a bit more expensive than the ScanPlusECS. The IndiECS-V2 are more difficult to set up. It can be firmware updated and have more settings. Compared to the ScanPlusECS that are just plug-n-play and works without any setup needed, right out of the box. I personally like the ScanPlusECS better, as it is so easy to work with, and the output quality are just better. Again... Only minus is the 50hz-only signal.

I have both scandoublers....

I have so many systems in my collection, according to my records literally 55 working systems at present of which 46 are fully built & functional ranging in years from the 1980s up to the 2010s.

It's insane really, I could probably strip many of the systems for parts and build several super duper dream PCs out of them, but then I'd feel guilty and end up spending money to rebuild the stripped PCs. 🤣

My collection spans a wide range of eras, so I have systems to represent (using Intel terminology here, I do have AMD & other 3rd party equivalents too): 8088, 286, 386SX, 486DX, Pentium, Pentium II, Pentium III, Pentium 4, Core 2 & then various generations i3/i7 onwards.

But if I'm honest, I'd love to fill a couple of gaps, namely a 386DX & a 486DX2 or DX4. A K6-2+ or K6-III+ based PC might also be nice, as I have 3 regular K6-2 systems so could possibly upgrade one of those.

My absolute main dream retro PC, either as a new build or an upgrade to my existing system, would be an 8088 with at least 640KB RAM. My custom built 8088 (using an IBM 5160 XT motherboard) only has 256KB RAM which limits me a lot in what I can do with it at present. If I could ever find a reasonably priced memory upgrade for that thing to take it to 640KB, I'd jump at it!