TrashPanda wrote on 2022-07-13, 03:53:

darry wrote on 2022-07-13, 01:44:

PcBytes wrote on 2022-07-13, 00:53:

There must be something awfully wrong with me if I have gotten to the point where I find a Socket 939 board boring. And a SLi capable one at that.

It'll grow (back) on you. It's still too new. 😉

I used to despise Pentium 4 CPUs, but they've somehow grown on me, not unlike a fungus inside one's unmentionables (likely a very similar feeling, actually, expect antifungals do zilch for Pentium 4 CPUs, except maybe as a makeshift thermal compound).

I like the late model 775 Pentium4's CeadarMill is not bad for retro gaming XP setups if you can find one of the Asrock AGP/PCIe hybrid boards and it being a die shrunk Presshot Extreme the heat CM produces is considerably less than previous models.

I'm working on trying to make the fastest DOS and (Windows 9x, to a point) capable (with sound) machine I can realistically and affordably build .
This implies
a) DDMA support (
b) the fastest CPU possible

Unfortunately, I'm late to this game, so any white elephant DDMA capable boards with Core support are essentially unobtainium (in my pay grade, at least).

Consequently, I've settled on a board with the last DDMA capable southbridge, AFAIK, which is the SIS963L . This is on a single channel P4S800-MX (socket 478) with a 3GHz Prescott .

We'll see how that goes .

cyclone3d wrote on 2022-07-13, 04:09:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-07-13, 03:53:

darry wrote on 2022-07-13, 01:44:

It'll grow (back) on you. It's still too new. 😉

I used to despise Pentium 4 CPUs, but they've somehow grown on me, not unlike a fungus inside one's unmentionables (likely a very similar feeling, actually, expect antifungals do zilch for Pentium 4 CPUs, except maybe as a makeshift thermal compound).

I like the late model 775 Pentium4's CeadarMill is not bad for retro gaming XP setups if you can find one of the Asrock AGP/PCIe hybrid boards and it being a die shrunk Presshot Extreme the heat CM produces is considerably less than previous models.

But why use a P4 on a board that can run a Core2 based chip?

Because there are far better boards for Core2 CPUs that dont support Pentium4 CPUs without modding the BIOS, the Asrock hybrid board is perfect for a late model Pentium4 and supports it out of the box.

Something for my collection of Arcade sticks 😀

Got the board for my build today, a Gigabyte GA-5486AL and it comes with a Cyrix DX4 clone, although the intent is to swap on the AMD P75 586 i got yesterday

cyclone3d wrote on 2022-07-13, 04:09:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-07-13, 03:53:

darry wrote on 2022-07-13, 01:44:

It'll grow (back) on you. It's still too new. 😉

I used to despise Pentium 4 CPUs, but they've somehow grown on me, not unlike a fungus inside one's unmentionables (likely a very similar feeling, actually, expect antifungals do zilch for Pentium 4 CPUs, except maybe as a makeshift thermal compound).

I like the late model 775 Pentium4's CeadarMill is not bad for retro gaming XP setups if you can find one of the Asrock AGP/PCIe hybrid boards and it being a die shrunk Presshot Extreme the heat CM produces is considerably less than previous models.

But why use a P4 on a board that can run a Core2 based chip?

My reasons to do just that with my current XP machine:

- To me personally XP era was single core and the late multicore XP era doesn't really exist, when I upgraded from AXP 3200+ to Intel Q9500 I'm pretty sure Windows 7 was already out and I migrated to it immediately. So what's C2D XP era to others is early Win7 era to me and with Win7 there's no reason not to go directly Sandy Bridge+
- Games that interest me started to disappear at alarming rate around 2006-2007 just when C2D started to come out, the seventh console generation era was awful as far as I'm concerned
- I also don't play games at 1600x1200 AA maxed out, so I don't need overpowered builds. I like to play 1999-2006 games at 1024x768 or 1280x960, my nostalgia glasses smooth out the jaggies like no other algorithm!

I still deliberately got boards that support C2D just in case, at least I got the option even if I don't see myself needing it currently.

Edit: Q9550, not Q9500 and I must have used Windows XP for about an year before I migrated to Windows 7. Welp. I blame the lack of games I liked around that time, still played the same old games as before.

Exactly how far the XP era stretches is probably very personal. For me it's single core, 32bit and AGP anything newer and it's out.

myrsnipe wrote on 2022-07-13, 10:52:

Exactly how far the XP era stretches is probably very personal. For me it's single core, 32bit and AGP anything newer and it's out.

True.... In my case it was 2001 to 2009. I used XP for stuff like email and other life related stuff. Never gaming and other stuff like that.
Though I did start gaming again on PC after I switched to Win7, then I never really got more into it than Minecraft.
I switched to console gaming during the Win98/Win2000 era. Not that I never played any XP games, I just used games to test if hardware was broken or not.

Sombrero wrote on 2022-07-13, 09:37:

the seventh console generation era was awful as far as I'm concerned

Huh??!!
Xbox360, Playstation3 and Wii are awesomme consoles. Just as good as 6'th generation. Personally I only have 7'th generation these days, as I find it a royal PITA, to find a way to hook those consoles up to my living room television. And I dont want to use lots of money to convert them into HDMI capeable coonsoles.

brostenen wrote on 2022-07-13, 13:15:

Sombrero wrote on 2022-07-13, 09:37:

the seventh console generation era was awful as far as I'm concerned

Huh??!!
Xbox360, Playstation3 and Wii are awesomme consoles. Just as good as 6'th generation. Personally I only have 7'th generation these days, as I find it a royal PITA, to find a way to hook those consoles up to my living room television. And I dont want to use lots of money to convert them into HDMI capeable coonsoles.

Well, I mean the consoles were loud, ran very hot (which caused many of them to fail) and the games ran like ass all too often. The coveted 15-30 fps cinematic experience. Not counting Wii I guess, only passingly tried that once or twice so can't really speak of it. But that's just how I saw it, each to their own. Only specifically console game(s) from 7th gen I personally kinda miss are Guitar Heros.

But I was talking about the games in general around that time, I guess we all have our "golden era" of gaming and mine started to end around 2005.

Artex wrote on 2022-07-13, 00:38:

A couple of recent pickups.. […]
Show full quote

A couple of recent pickups..

Wait I have this one
Not my favorite era but I'll have a look one day.

Spotted this little Socket 370 board on that electronic marketplace I spend too much time browsing. Couldn't find any search results for PICA MB-06004-0. Clearly some kind of router, although I'd have thought a 440BX chipset would be a bit overkill for that. I was hoping for a simple barrel jack power socket but it requires one of those big DIN plugs. I don't see any video out. Anyone recognise the two 64 pin connectors on the underside?

PcBytes wrote on 2022-07-13, 00:53:

There must be something awfully wrong with me if I have gotten to the point where I find a Socket 939 board boring. And a SLi capable one at that.

Nothing wrong. That's not really vintage hardware yet (so I don't know why people even post it here). And from uber-boring era as well.

Big Pink wrote on 2022-07-13, 16:10:

Spotted this little Socket 370 board on that electronic marketplace I spend too much time browsing. Couldn't find any search results for PICA MB-06004-0. Clearly some kind of router, although I'd have thought a 440BX chipset would be a bit overkill for that. I was hoping for a simple barrel jack power socket but it requires one of those big DIN plugs. I don't see any video out. Anyone recognise the two 64 pin connectors on the underside?

Seems to be an Intel reference platform for internet appliances (PICA = Programmable Intel Compute Appliance.) Some old articles online mention PMC (PCI Mezzanine Card) connectivity so that might be the connectors on the bottom. Not seeing any documentation for it floating around 🙁

A Soyo P4S Dragon Ultra with full bundle.
I feel so safe now that I have Norton Antivirus 2002.

pancakepuppy wrote on 2022-07-13, 16:38:

Big Pink wrote on 2022-07-13, 16:10:

Spotted this little Socket 370 board on that electronic marketplace I spend too much time browsing. Couldn't find any search results for PICA MB-06004-0. Clearly some kind of router, although I'd have thought a 440BX chipset would be a bit overkill for that. I was hoping for a simple barrel jack power socket but it requires one of those big DIN plugs. I don't see any video out. Anyone recognise the two 64 pin connectors on the underside?

Seems to be an Intel reference platform for internet appliances (PICA = Programmable Intel Compute Appliance.) Some old articles online mention PMC (PCI Mezzanine Card) connectivity so that might be the connectors on the bottom. Not seeing any documentation for it floating around 🙁

I asked the seller if he knew anything about it and he said the only thing he could find was this archived product page. That would seem to corroborate what you said about PMC and Wikipedia states 32bit PCI is carried over two of these 64 pin connectors. No idea if an adapter exists to break that out to a proper PCI slot for a graphics card.

New in box AT case i got off eBay, going to put the gigabyte MB into it

myrsnipe wrote on 2022-07-13, 19:08:

New in box AT case i got off eBay, going to put the gigabyte MB into it

I would like to buy one of those, but the shipping was the deal breaker for me. It would cost noticeably less for me to drive there and pick it up, but when I asked the seller if I could do a local pick up, they said no, so no deal.

I live in Norway so I had to ship it all the way across the Atlantic, so I was on the fence, but the dealer offered a considerate discount so I decided to bite the 150$ shipping cost (!!!). If it weren't for the fact I'm starting in a new position in two weeks and had to cancel my vacation I wouldn't have splurged on it.

myrsnipe wrote on 2022-07-13, 19:20:

I live in Norway so I had to ship it all the way across the Atlantic, so I was on the fence, but the dealer offered a considerate discount so I decided to bite the 150$ shipping cost (!!!). If it weren't for the fact I'm starting in a new position in two weeks and had to cancel my vacation I wouldn't have splurged on it.

It was astonishing to me that the seller would pass up a sale because they can't do a local pickup? I recently sold a vintage computer on Ebay, and had been sweating how I would have to pack it to ensure that it would arrive intact, but then the person that bought it was local! I was so relieved that I offered to drive across town and deliver it to them.

It's a nice case, and AT cases have become so rare these days that you have to take what you can find.

For sure, I'm picking up a pretty grungy one for 20$ that I'm going to restore. It's always possible to modify an ATX case, but that removes part of the charm