http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?It … N82E16813157266 it is out of stock but if you really want PATA and floppy support this board is pretty awesome.

1600 to 1866 by itself? Probably not that big of a jump. 8GB to 16GB at higher bandwidth and the same latency, probably more noticeable. I'd agree with going with 2x8GB if you were to upgrade, and you could do it in pieces if needed, but you should be completely fine with what you already have as well. I'd agree with G.Skill being a good manufacturer as well. 😀

obobskivich wrote:

1600 to 1866 by itself? Probably not that big of a jump. 8GB to 16GB at higher bandwidth and the same latency, probably more noticeable. I'd agree with going with 2x8GB if you were to upgrade, and you could do it in pieces if needed, but you should be completely fine with what you already have as well. I'd agree with G.Skill being a good manufacturer as well. 😀

I'll have to wait before I can afford the extra $150-ish 16GB 1866. At least I won't have to reinstall Windows - just swap out the 1600.

Here's why I won't buy RAM in pieces no more. Bought both pairs from the same link on the same website, months apart.
Notice the identical part# with different CAS, timings, etc.

What's the Memory tab say?

Honestly I don't see anything wrong - those "other profiles" that it's reading from SPD may not even exist (and certainly don't matter - they're just SPD profiles after all); the XMP profile is identical and correctly showing, and everything is running at some common setting.

The remaining parts I need should arrive Monday. It's going to be a lonnngg weekend!! 🤣

First post has been updated with details.

Cool! Looking forwards to pictures.

Some pics are here 😀
http://bit.ly/1noQKiP

Some things to note:

• First pic is of DOA case - got that sorted
• I'm using the RAM, PSU, Graphics Card, DVD-RW from my current PC once I make the full switch
• Wiring could be a little better, but since it's temporary...
• Whoever decided to put the SATA3 connectors there should be fired!
• Front case fan's cord is too short - used supplied Molex connector for now

That's about all I can think of - more to come soon

What OS do you guys think I should use?
I do a lot of gaming, so Winblows is a requirement.

I've been using Windows 7, but also have wiNdowS A8. *sigh* thinking about the later, as I don't want to reload in 6 mos.

Windows 7 should be fine; afaik its support is extended out as long as Win8 and they support most of the same things/features thus far.

How's that build going? If you'll end up with over 16GB of ram, you should stick with Windows 7 Ultimate or Enterprise. Don't have a clue about Windows 8 though, and Obobskivich is right about Windows 7 support.

Holering wrote:

How's that build going? If you'll end up with over 16GB of ram, you should stick with Windows 7 Ultimate or Enterprise. Don't have a clue about Windows 8 though, and Obobskivich is right about Windows 7 support.

So, I installed Windoze 8 and was like... uhhh... NO!

I misplaced my Windoze 7 Ultimate edition, so I've been tearing this place apart looking for it. I may be able to get an educational discount thru a friend if I can't find my copy. Borrowing half my RAM from this system flagged the Windoze activation BS so I put it back for now.

Really it's OK bc I'm sill organizing all my data before I copy it over. Don't mind taking my time to do it right.

Windoze 8 booted up in less than 6 seconds - but hey, who's counting? 😀

Sorry there's been no recent updates - I've been taking my sweet time on this project.

I finally found Windoze 7 and decided to buy the remaining parts needed, instead of borrowing off my current rig.

I shifted my focus somewhat to include low power with performance - why I chose Xeon. I'm considering replacing my HD6850 with a 750Ti (modest performance boost - significantly lower power consumption)
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1077?vs=1130

I'll eventually post more with pics 😀

I'd agree with the GTX 750 as long as it won't conflict with the chosen motherboard (if the board is even new-ish, it shouldn't be a problem, but I've read issues with the 700 series cards (in general) and older PCIe boards, and experienced them myself with a GTX 770); I switched from an older Radeon to a new 600 series GeForce and the heat/power/noise/etc reduction is pretty dramatic. It idles in that 30-40* C range like I remember my GeForce FX (well, 5800 Ultra still does that, haha) and Radeon 9 cards doing years and years ago - versus the 60-70+ I could expect with my newer Radeon cards. I'm sure the newest AMD cards have some degree of improvements as well, but keep in mind that many of the Rx series are simply re-packaged HD 7000/8000 series cards.

obobskivich wrote:

I'd agree with the GTX 750 as long as it won't conflict with the chosen motherboard (if the board is even new-ish, it shouldn't be a problem, but I've read issues with the 700 series cards (in general) and older PCIe boards, and experienced them myself with a GTX 770); I switched from an older Radeon to a new 600 series GeForce and the heat/power/noise/etc reduction is pretty dramatic. It idles in that 30-40* C range like I remember my GeForce FX (well, 5800 Ultra still does that, haha) and Radeon 9 cards doing years and years ago - versus the 60-70+ I could expect with my newer Radeon cards. I'm sure the newest AMD cards have some degree of improvements as well, but keep in mind that many of the Rx series are simply re-packaged HD 7000/8000 series cards.

Motherboard is:
http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z75%20Pro3/?ca … =Specifications
CPU:
http://ark.intel.com/products/65732/Intel-Xeo … -Cache-3_30-GHz
Proposed graphics:
http://www.evga.com/Products/Specs/GPU.aspx?p … cf-cff61f466d82
PSU: (no need to go bigger now) 😀
http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/products-model_ … x?id=C_00001967

Unfortunately I can't explicitly tell you yes or no for the board - given that it's a Z75 with PCIe 3.0 it probably will work fine (most of the complaints I've come across, and my own experience, were with 2.0 boards). I have the older version of that PSU - it's always been reliable. I'd say everything looks good as-is, but *if* you run into a situation where the system won't boot or locks-up during POST my first advice would be to try another card in lieu of the 750, and if it boots up properly just exchange the 750 for something slightly older (like a GTX 650 or something). Something else I observed with a recent eVGA card is that they come packaged with a rubber/latex thing over the PCIe connector, and I assume it leaves residue on the connector - when I installed that card in my system it only engaged PCIe x2, but wiping the connector off with a towel and blowing a dash of air in the PCIe slot "fixed" it and it ran at x16. There were no error messages associated with this, and the card it was replacing had no problems dropping in at x16. I've not seen non-eVGA cards come with the little rubber/latex thing (e.g. I just bought a PNY card that didn't have it) and I've not seen those cards have the same thing happen. My advice: if it has the little rubber thing, take the 10 seconds to wipe the connector off before you install it the first time. 🤣

simbin wrote:

If you have a vid of Win 98 booting on that PC - it would be awesome. I was like wow booting Win 3.1 on P3/450 back in 99.

http://speedy.sh/ERaf4/98se-am3.avi

I'm using a Rage 128 VR 32MB PCI and was taking out my ct4780. Like the sblive! but I like the au8830 (vortex 2) more. I actually like both and the vortex 2. I'm going back to Windows 95C because it uses under 100MB (excluding swap file), and it feels closer to metal and faster (vortex drivers are VXD). Windows 98 goes great with the Live! (with wdm drivers and soundfonts) and has great drivers for usb gamepads, but I prefer a lean system and A3D (I also don't mind a native gameport pad and the 2mb DLS sounds great to me). Both Live! (emu10k1) and Vortex 2 work great in modern systems, but I think the vortex2 is more of a soundcard.

If you go with a gtx 750 (or any other card), you shouldn't go below 4GB ram and It should at least have 128-bit bus with gddr5 minimum too.

Holering wrote:

If you go with a gtx 750 (or any other card), you shouldn't go below 4GB ram and It should at least have 128-bit bus with gddr5 minimum too.

Do you mean 4GB system or 4GB VRAM? If system - absolutely! (per MSDN TechNet you should try to have at least double your GPU's VRAM as system ram due to how DX uses memory - so if you have a 128MB graphics card, you should have at least 256MB system memory). It's also just a good "starting point" for a machine running 7/8 these days to have at least 4GB of memory (you can get away with 2GB but given that there *are* games that will use 1GB+ by themselves, 4GB+ is much better).

If VRAM - there's zero point to that. Even with much more powerful cards than 750 (running ridiculous high settings) there is no measurable performance advantage to 4GB over 2GB - nothing uses it, and anything that could use it would crush current GPUs. 1-2GB is still very much acceptable for a competent GPU. But that doesn't stop OEMs and advertisers from insisting folks need 128GB for their graphics, and 50TB for their system, etc just to run Solitaire - the whole "memory means speed" myth is alive and well as ever. 😵

Evidence:
http://alienbabeltech.com/main/gtx-770-4gb-vs-2gb-tested/3/
http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Vid … 4GB-Memory-154/

Vram ( video ram).

Holering wrote:

Vram ( video ram).

See previous post. 😊

One other thing I forgot to add though - >2GB cards generally require 64-bit OS.

Sorry guys, I've been busy updating the AV on my retro console collection. I'm in the process of hooking up a XRGB Mini with all the best adapters 😀

I replaced two hard disks in my PC, which fixed the random freezes. Both were ST2000DM001 drives. I've been buying Seagate drives since my first 20MB MFM but had to jump ship after so many recent issues. Every drive I bought after they dumped their 5 yr warranty has been flaky or failed completely - coincidence?

I still haven't decided on a graphics card for my new (6 months ago) build. The more I thought about it - a graphics card without a power connector (750) bothered me. The 780 might be a better balance between performance and power saving. Once I finish this thing - it should be a nice $300 + $1,000 build 😀

Holering wrote:

simbin wrote:

If you have a vid of Win 98 booting on that PC - it would be awesome. I was like wow booting Win 3.1 on P3/450 back in 99.

http://speedy.sh/ERaf4/98se-am3.avi

that video link is broken 🙁

obobskivich wrote:

See previous post. 😊

One other thing I forgot to add though - >2GB cards generally require 64-bit OS.

I'll be using Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit with 8GB DDR3

simbin wrote:

I replaced two hard disks in my PC, which fixed the random freezes. Both were ST2000DM001 drives. I've been buying Seagate drives since my first 20MB MFM but had to jump ship after so many recent issues. Every drive I bought after they dumped their 5 yr warranty has been flaky or failed completely - coincidence?

I've never been a huge Seagate fan; even less after they merged with Maxtor. 😵

I still haven't decided on a graphics card for my new (6 months ago) build. The more I thought about it - a graphics card without a power connector (750) bothered me. The 780 might be a better balance between performance and power saving. Once I finish this thing - it should be a nice $300 + $1,000 build 😀

I wouldn't touch a 780 at this point - despite being a generation old retailers will still happily charge you near $1k for them, and the performance just isn't there. 😠 I wouldn't regard the 780 as a "power saving" device either. 😊 Also, what's wrong with GTX 750 not having a power connector? It doesn't need it, so there's no danger. Other nVidia cards I'd look at would be the GTX 970 and 660. 😀

You may also consider the AMD R9 280 and 290 series - the prices have come down dramatically in recent months, with the top-dog 290X sitting at around $350 (and it's still the same card that will run right up there with GTX Titan, 780 Ti, etc). 😎