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Help with P5PE-VM and CPU for HD 3850 build

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First post, by danieljm

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Hey all,

I got my hands on an ASUS P5PE-VM. It needs a recap, but once that's done I'm hoping to pair it with my Radeon HD 3850 AGP. The board came with a Pentium D installed, but obviously we've got to do better than that for the 3850. I've got a few questions that I'm hoping you fine folks can help me with, so here it goes.

1) With regard to recapping, there are some more "normal" looking caps that are bulging, so they will be replaced for sure. But I'm having trouble deciphering what the red markings on these cans mean. I suppose I don't even know if these are capacitors, or if this style even needs replacing. They look fine, I suppose, but I don't know if there are any telltale signs to look for. Any input would be appreciated.

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2) There is a modded BIOS for this board that makes newer CPUs available. From what I can tell my best options with that BIOS are the E7XXX and Q6XXX range. It seems the big question then is if this system would benefit most from a faster dual core or a slower quad core. An E7600 looks like a fairly cheap purchase, or I could splurge a little bit and grab a QX6700 or something like that, which might be more flexible with its unlocked multiplier. I suppose the choice might also be dependent on the OS being used and games being played. My first inclination is to make this a totally overkill XP system, but feel free to tell me if that's a completely ridiculous idea. 😀

3) And finally, I don't recall if onboard audio was considered good enough by this point. I have a spare Audigy 2 ZS, but nothing newer. Is it worth using here? Should I try to find something newer like an X-Fi? Should I bother with anything at all?

Thanks!

Reply 1 of 7, by PcBytes

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As a fellow P5PE-VM user:

1. The red ones you pictured are polymer caps. Those don't need replacing.
2. I'd honestly stick to E6xxx tops. Yeah, you probably could go E7600 but since it's unofficial, you might run into issues. I haven't personally tested this (despite owning a semi-broken E7600) but I figure the FSB would be quite a problem, especially when AGP is into play and not PCI-E.
3. IIRC the onboard audio on this thing is an Analog Devices chip - not the worst, but an Audigy 2 ZS should suffice. I'd keep the X-Fi for at least something AMD from the 939/AM2 era.

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Reply 3 of 7, by chinny22

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AGP, 865 Chipset, Forget WinXP, you could go for overkill Win98 but not with the HD 3850.

XP probably makes a bit more sense though I wouldn't call it overkill. For that you need to go with PCI-E
For XP gaming your still better off with faster speed then more cores.
I really like the X-Fi cards you can get the non cripple OEM versions for good prices but have to agree if you have a Audigy 2 lying around I'd put the money towards the CPU over the soundcard.

Reply 4 of 7, by danieljm

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PcBytes wrote on 2023-04-11, 08:08:

2. I'd honestly stick to E6xxx tops. Yeah, you probably could go E7600 but since it's unofficial, you might run into issues. I haven't personally tested this (despite owning a semi-broken E7600) but I figure the FSB would be quite a problem, especially when AGP is into play and not PCI-E.
3. IIRC the onboard audio on this thing is an Analog Devices chip - not the worst, but an Audigy 2 ZS should suffice. I'd keep the X-Fi for at least something AMD from the 939/AM2 era.

Part of me likes to push the limit to see what's possible, but yeah, if I go that route then maybe I should just experiment with something cheap like the E7600 instead of spending more and finding out it's not really useable.

I also have a 939 board that needs rehabilitation. What is it about that platform that you like an X-Fi for it?

bogdanpaulb wrote on 2023-04-11, 13:07:

The 'red caps' are 560uf at 4v polymers, but you can test them and if they check out i also don't recommend changing them without a reason.

Thanks for the info. I was wondering if it might be something like that, but the "561" instead of "560" just seemed so oddly specific. 😀

chinny22 wrote on 2023-04-11, 14:38:
AGP, 865 Chipset, Forget WinXP, you could go for overkill Win98 but not with the HD 3850. […]
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AGP, 865 Chipset, Forget WinXP, you could go for overkill Win98 but not with the HD 3850.

XP probably makes a bit more sense though I wouldn't call it overkill. For that you need to go with PCI-E
For XP gaming your still better off with faster speed then more cores.
I really like the X-Fi cards you can get the non cripple OEM versions for good prices but have to agree if you have a Audigy 2 lying around I'd put the money towards the CPU over the soundcard.

You are right, of course. I think I tend to forget that PCI-E exists when I'm talking about retro PC stuff. 🤣

Do you think it would be a smarter choice to go with a newer version of Windows then?

Reply 5 of 7, by Karbist

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This modded bios looks like a simple cpu microcode update, I would go with E7600, it runs faster and cooler than E6600 and they both have 1066 FSB.
I was reading this Russian article and they were running quad core xeon processor on this board, that's just insane.
https://ideafix.name/?p=2851

Reply 6 of 7, by chinny22

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danieljm wrote on 2023-04-11, 17:33:

You are right, of course. I think I tend to forget that PCI-E exists when I'm talking about retro PC stuff. 🤣

Do you think it would be a smarter choice to go with a newer version of Windows then?

Well Vista is an option but why would you want to do that? I think XP is the smart choice.

Reply 7 of 7, by danieljm

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Karbist wrote on 2023-04-11, 20:46:

This modded bios looks like a simple cpu microcode update, I would go with E7600, it runs faster and cooler than E6600 and they both have 1066 FSB.
I was reading this Russian article and they were running quad core xeon processor on this board, that's just insane.
https://ideafix.name/?p=2851

Oh no, now I feel a sudden urge to put a Xeon in there because it might work. 😁

And thanks for clarifying chinny, I just wanted to ask to make sure I wasn’t missing something important.

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