First post, by Almoststew1990
- Rank
- Oldbie
Like lots of people I am working from home (still) and have been for a year. This means lots of time to look at my (moderate) pile of computers, think of builds, plan builds and build builds.
I’ve also got a range of cases, motherboard, monitor inputs and games, so I've got lots of flexibility in what I build. This sounds good but ends up as a problem as I tend to like being able to play anything at any one time, so if I change one build I have to change another.
So if I want a DOS build, in my oldest case that will sit under my desk like normal, I need to build a more modern ITX build that would sit on my desk to compliment it in case playing the Secret of Monkey Island gives me urges to play Battlefield 2. But if I then think I'll set up my M-ATX Slot 1 PC on top of my desk with my AWE32 that means I don't really need my DOS PC so I build a 1155 Win 7 PC under my desk instead...
Basically, I end up constantly swapping PCs and power supplies around between my ATX, M-ATX and ITX cases to the point where a build will last perhaps 48 hours before I get bored and swap it and swap two builds at once. As a result my ‘office’ usually has PC parts left lying around on the side and window sill and desk knowing that it will be used in a few hours for another PC! It leaves my 'office' looking like this...
I spend probably 10 times as much time building PCs, setting up Windows, downloading games and updates than I do actually playing games. I must download getting on for a terabyte a week in games like GTA V, RDR2, the later Assassins Creed games which get downloaded probably twice a week at least across the various more powerful systems I build to compliment the slower ones! I feel like this is either a cause or symptom of poor mental health and regardless it’s driving me nuts, so I made a decision to A) stick most of my parts on eBay so I have less choice and B) challenge myself to make a “retro” PC that I have to use for two weeks. And to make it more interesting, it’s my only PC I can use for two weeks.
A couple of caveats: I have a work laptop that I use for work. If I am buying something online I’ll use my phone. I will manage my eBay sales on both this PC and my phone.
So I asked my computer-indifferent fiancé to pick a motherboard that I would use as the base of my two week system, my eyes lingering hopefully on a Core 2 Quad system. But no, she chose this:
It’s a pretty basic and nasty Socket 939 board with an nforce4 630 chipset, but it at least has a PCI-E slot.
I pillaged whatever DDR1 RAM I could find from my other motherboards and cobbled together 3GB. That should be fine for the sort of games that PC will play.
One of the things I like about 939 is that I can use modern CPU coolers, so I grabbed my “standard retro cooler” which is a budget tower cooler thing. Should keep it cool.
The board is usually used with a single core 3500+ Venice CPU, but I’d definitely like a dual core if I will be using this day to day. S939 dual cores are not very common on eBay (read: expensive for what they are) but luckily an auction was live for a x2 4200+ so I snagged that for £21. it came together looking alright.
I will use my trusty Audigy 2 ZS for sound duties. The graphics card I chose is my X1950 XT(X?), because… I like it. It has a unique sound (whilst still being quiet and able to idle on the desktop rather than be at full fan speed all the time), looks interesting, is a blower design card, and will be fast enough for my build.
I stuck all this in my modern case, which has an 850GB SSD still installed from my last "how fast can I make this i5 3570k go" build, so I'll use that. I hooked up my standard 1080p monitor and retained my Create T40 speakers.
So now I’ve got Windows XP set up, drivers installed, a few key programs like Opera, Spotify and Office 2000 installed. I overclocked the CPU to 2.6GHz from its 2.2GHz.
I’m sure some of you will come out the woodwork to tell me you still use a freakin’ abacus to do your daily computing so I should be just fine with a PC like this, but I am used to a 3700X and playing games like, well, the ones I seem to re-download every couple of days. And that's not really the point, it's more to stick to using it for two weeks and being able to leave my office space tidy without having PC parts lying around everywhere (which is why this is in Milliways).
Lets see how long it lasts! I'll try to play through Far Cry on this, and maybe GTA Vice City.
Ryzen 3700X | 16GB 3600MHz RAM | AMD 6800XT | 2Tb NVME SSD | Windows 10
AMD DX2-80 | 16MB RAM | STB LIghtspeed 128 | AWE32 CT3910
I have a vacancy for a main Windows 98 PC
