philscomputerlab wrote:

Very nice boards! […]
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Very nice boards!

So much copper and it has a molex power connector as well.

The Athlon 64 I ordered is a Venice 3400+ 2.4 GHz and 512 KB Cache. Not cheap but you only live once 😀

It will bring back some memories. I used to have a similar Asrock board but with a Sempron, over clocked from 1.6 GHz to 2.4 GHz! But not into over clocking with retro gear, I'm happy to pay a premium for the better chips.

I had a GeForce 7800GT, my most expensive graphics card purchase to date. I went with a 6600GT first but found it struggled to handle 1280 x 1024 resolution that my 17" LCD monitor had. So I had no choice but to get the 7800GT 😵

A while later the 7600GT offered similar performance at half, or less, of the cost.

Games I played on that machine that I remember well:

FEAR
Battlefield 2
Some Need for Speed game
Half Life 2
Doom 3

I'm sure there are more but I can't remember any of them. But will definitely play and benchmark some FEAR. Might put together a benchmark suite that I can use to compare some of these newer parts. Funny how slowly the interest in Pentium 4 and Athlon 64 hardware is picking up. GOG.com and Steam is a good source for cheap games too 😀

The Venice 3400+ is just as fast as the Clawhammer 3700+ in 9 cases out of 10, its a great choice for running stock.
I run my Athlon64 systems overclocked most of the time but not at the edge and mostly without increasing the voltage, when benching on a test bench I do try to find the limits some times.

I have two Geforce 7800 GTX 256MB, one Asus and one OEM, the 7800GTX 256MB are slower than the 7800GT though. I will try to SLI them later together with a dual core s939 CPU to see if we can get some decent numbers in the "somewhat period correct" list. I did also have two Geforce 7900 GTX but I gave one to a friend which I kind of regret now as they would have been perfect in an optimal 2005 DX9 machine. I still have two Geforce 7950 GX2 dual GPU cards but those are not funny to set up at all. I have only managed to get them working in quad SLI once. I am however glad that I went on a spending spree when people started to sell these cards for peanuts a few years ago.

I think we should benchmark Far Cry aswell as its a game most people own 😀

The two 7800 GTX 256MB, Computer porn 😀

JayCeeBee64 wrote:

Got my results from my P4 Northwood running WinXP SP3 with 2gb of ram. […]
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Got my results from my P4 Northwood running WinXP SP3 with 2gb of ram.

Pentium 4 2.4GHz Northwood, Soyo P4I-845PE (Socket 478), 2gb DDR-333, NVIDIA GeForce 6600 256mb AGP (169.28 Forceware WHQL drivers), Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, DirectX 9.0a, Windows XP SP3.

Ultra Quality:
640x480=44.8
1024x768=41.9

Well, what can I say. Doom 3 obviously likes the NT environment/drivers and lots of system memory. And I finally hit the wall with the Pentium 4 2.4GHz - it's stretched to the limit.

You were right Phil, I have to build a faster PC to get more performance. I'll have to think about this though, since I have no other game that needs it.

That is really a great score for that system 😀

I remember Doom 3 running at it's fullest on a Core 2 Duo with a GeForce 7 card. So yea, although it's an "older" game it doesn't really run that great on period correct hardware. I didn't think it was that much processor limited however...

Skyscraper wrote:

[edit] It was not the old Clawhammer core that held the system back, I just switched in my FX55 (2.6) with San Diego core, 95.4 […]
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[edit] It was not the old Clawhammer core that held the system back, I just switched in my FX55 (2.6) with San Diego core, 95.4 FPS. No improvement clock for clock. [/edit]
[edit] Well the system is perhaps a bit bottlenecked by the GPU, 98.1 FPS at 2.8 but it still strange that the Nforce3 AGP beats Nforce4 PCI-E, I think its the video drivers or the Doom 3 version. [/edit]
[edit] I clocked the 6800GT to Ultra spec and got 103.4 FPS, now Im almost sure its the video driver that makes the difference. [/edit]
[edit] I messed a bit with tRAS and subtimings, 105.6 FPS at last the Dothan is beaten [/edit]
[edit] More messing with the memory timings, 105.7 FPS, 0.1 FPS more 😁 [/edit]
[edit] This board with this bios (latest official, optimized for dualcores) wont take me where I want to go. Lets see how the Asus Nforce4 board compares [edit]

Liking the new top list. Now that's more like it. It was getting a bit lonely up there. 😁
I wonder if our Windows installations are also making a difference. With the exception of my Tualatin system, all of the systems I benched were using a very fresh XP SP3 install. No additional updates, no anti-virus, no internet connection, and only 98MB of RAM used at the desktop.

Skyscraper wrote:

The A8N32-SLI, also in the picture A8N32-SLI. I like to have two of the boards I like, you never know how long they will last. The spare board is however not in prime condition but it does work.

That's exactly the board I use with my Opteron 185. Great, great board. Stable as heck, overclocks like hell. None of my other boards will take my Opteron to 3.13GHz. I'm guessing the other 939 boards just don't have as good a CPU power delivery section.
You simply must post results for that one, like, today!

Standard Def Steve wrote:

Liking the new top list. Now that's more like it. It was getting a bit lonely up there. :-D I wonder if our Windows installati […]
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Liking the new top list. Now that's more like it. It was getting a bit lonely up there. 😁
I wonder if our Windows installations are also making a difference. With the exception of my Tualatin system, all of the systems I benched were using a very fresh XP SP3 install. No additional updates, no anti-virus, no internet connection, and only 98MB of RAM used at the desktop.

That's exactly the board I use with my Opteron 185. Great, great board. Stable as heck, overclocks like hell. None of my other boards will take my Opteron to 3.13GHz. I'm guessing the other 939 boards just don't have as good a CPU power delivery section.
You simply must post results for that one, like, today!

I am installing Windows XP SP3 as I write this.

I am starting out with the FX55, I do not think its a great clocker but it should do 2.9 GHz at least on the Asus board.
I do own another San Diego that I know for sure can handle 2933 MHz or perhaps even 3 GHz with some extra pain if the FX55 dosnt play nice.
I do also have a 3500+ with 512KB cache that reaches 3 GHz without much trouble at all (or at least did) but I think the cache will hold it back in the Doom 3 timedemo.

The first run with the Asus Nforce4 A8N32 and the FX55 all stock, 95.3 FPS. This is pretty much exactly the same result (0.1 FPS difference) as with the DFI Nforce4 SLI-DR.
Now I am 100% sure that the much newer video driver Steve is using is a much better choice for Doom 3. I will stick to the 92.91 driver for now though, it has served me well.
I will have to bridge the driver performance gap with clockspeed.

105.9 FPS so far @2.9 with crappy memory timings, I should not have switched to the 2GB UCCC kit. This FX55 is really bad, It runs hot even at low voltage and that limits the speed.
I think the TIM under the heatspeader needs replacing but I do not want to cut a collectable CPU open.

I will switch to another CPU.

That's a great score! Changing Nvidia drivers is really easy. Just remove the current one through Programs and Features, reboot and install the new one. I do it all the time 😀

The latest one is 300 something from 2013.

The A64 3700+ @ 3.0 got the job done 😀

1024*768 Ultra: 109.5 FPS

A64 3700+@3000, A8N32-SLI Deluxe Nforce4. 1024MB DDR429 CL2-3-3-6, 6800GT@Ultra 92.91, onboard audio, XP-SP3

Perhaps it would have been easier to switch to a faster driver but less fun.

Could you split the list into stock settings and overclocked?
Also what does the X stands for in the list?

The X marks that the same system has a higher score with another GPU or overclocked CPU.

But sure we can split the list into stock and overclocked 😀

Massive score!

Could you try a 6600GT with that processor and clock speed?

philscomputerlab wrote:

Massive score!

Could you try a 6600GT with that processor and clock speed?

😀

If I can find one, I think I own at least one 6600GT but I do not really know where it is or if it works.
[edit] I did a quick search, sadly I did not find it but I guess it will turn up sooner or later. [/edit]

Love those 7800GTX cards 😀

Here are my GeForce 7 and 8 cards:

1 7800GTX, two 7800GT with one missing a cap, two 7600GT, a 8800GT and a 8800GTS 512

They all didn't cost much but postage is always a pain in Australia. It's rare that someone sells a few cards, that's when I usually go for them to save on postage.

philscomputerlab wrote:

Love those 7800GTX cards :) […]
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Love those 7800GTX cards 😀

Here are my GeForce 7 and 8 cards:

1 7800GTX, two 7800GT with one missing a cap, two 7600GT, a 8800GT and a 8800GTS 512

They all didn't cost much but postage is always a pain in Australia. It's rare that someone sells a few cards, that's when I usually go for them to save on postage.

A very nice collection, and fun to tinker with!!

Here are a few more of my cards.

7900GTX, 7950GX2, 7950GX2

Love that 7900GTX. That cooler is very good.

Not so keen on the sandwich cards 🤣

Skyscraper wrote:

The A64 3700+ @ 3.0 got the job done :) […]
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The A64 3700+ @ 3.0 got the job done 😀

1024*768 Ultra: 109.5 FPS

A64 3700+@3000, A8N32-SLI Deluxe Nforce4. 1024MB DDR429 CL2-3-3-6, 6800GT@Ultra 92.91, onboard audio, XP-SP3

Perhaps it would have been easier to switch to a faster driver but less fun.

Ay caramba! Very nice!

Here's something from the opposite end of the performance spectrum. A Dell Dimension 2400 I rescued from the alley a while ago. I had absolutely no use for such a machine, but this particular one was in such pristine condition that I kind of felt bad for it. 🤣 Plus, with 1GB of DDR400 and a built-by-ATI Radeon 9250 256MB PCI card in it I couldn't just leave it there.

Celeron 2.6GHz, 400Mhz FSB, 1GB DDR400, i845, Radeon 9250 PCI 256MB (Cat 5.6), onboard audio, XP Pro SP3

640x480 Medium: 17.0 fps
800x600 High: 12.1 fps
1024x768 Ultra: 8.0 fps

Dude, you're getting a Dell 😀

I am bidding on an ATI X850 XT (I thought I already had one but its nowhere to be found) as the top ATI score in the stock period correct list is 14.1 FPS at the moemnt.
Its a boxed card 100% complete and so far I am the high bidder at ~14 Euro + shipping ~7 Euro, a bit expensive for my taste but as Phil says you only live once.

Skyscraper wrote:

I thought I already had one but its nowhere to be found

Time to sort through it all and bag and tag everything? 🤣

I only had dramas with retro ATI gear. I'm sticking with Nvidia because you only live once 😊

I did a better stock run with the FX55 and the Asus board. 1024*768 Ultra 101.2 FPS
I am still not even close to Steves result clock for clock but without USB audio and some OS optimizing the FX55 at least managed to beat the 3700+ San Diego.

The memory is 2x1GB DDR500 3-3-3-8 but the nearest setting was ~DDR480 (CPU/11) so I lowered the latency to 2.5-3-3-5.

[edit] Did some more OS tweaking, 102.1 FPS 😀 [/edit]

Standard Def Steve wrote:

Here's something from the opposite end of the performance spectrum. A Dell Dimension 2400 I rescued from the alley a while ago. […]
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Here's something from the opposite end of the performance spectrum. A Dell Dimension 2400 I rescued from the alley a while ago. I had absolutely no use for such a machine, but this particular one was in such pristine condition that I kind of felt bad for it. 🤣 Plus, with 1GB of DDR400 and a built-by-ATI Radeon 9250 256MB PCI card in it I couldn't just leave it there.

Celeron 2.6GHz, 400Mhz FSB, 1GB DDR400, i845, Radeon 9250 PCI 256MB (Cat 5.6), onboard audio, XP Pro SP3

640x480 Medium: 17.0 fps
800x600 High: 12.1 fps
1024x768 Ultra: 8.0 fps

Good, some more company at the low end 😀 . Now if someone has a Radeon 8500 and is willing to do a test run 😁

JayCeeBee64 wrote:

Good, some more company at the low end 😀 . Now if someone has a Radeon 8500 and is willing to do a test run 😁

You're in luck; I have this All-in-Wonder Radeon 8500 128 MB just collecting dust. I think I bought it strictly to compare TRUFORM performance to later cards like the 9800 Pro, except I never got around to that.

That just leaves the matter of which system to install it in, most likely my Athlon XP 3200+ box. Still gotta dust off that system, give it a hard drive of its own, set it back up again...