Trashbytes wrote on 2025-02-13, 09:11:

Yup not really for gaming, good for VMs and other ML stuff if you want to do it on the cheap.

Is it still good for that stuff though? I keep finding reddit posts of people asking whether it is and people giving reasons why it isn't. The drivers are from 2019, so I feel like that would be problematic for use in a bleeding edge field like machine learning.

I guess power draw is quite high, and it has no built in fan so you have to force air into it to cool it.

I am not a ML or VM guy though. If these have a use, then by all means, dive in. 🙂

If they had some latent budget gaming chops I would consider grabbing one or two, but I think there would be a lot of tradeoffs.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-02-13, 09:13:

Is it still good for that stuff though? I keep finding reddit posts of people asking whether it is and people giving reasons why […]
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Trashbytes wrote on 2025-02-13, 09:11:

Yup not really for gaming, good for VMs and other ML stuff if you want to do it on the cheap.

Is it still good for that stuff though? I keep finding reddit posts of people asking whether it is and people giving reasons why it isn't. The drivers are from 2019, so I feel like that would be problematic for use in a bleeding edge field like machine learning.

I guess power draw is quite high, and it has no built in fan so you have to force air into it to cool it.

I am not a ML or VM guy though. If these have a use, then by all means, dive in. 🙂

If they had some latent budget gaming chops I would consider grabbing one or two, but I think there would be a lot of tradeoffs.

Valid points but If I believed everything I read on the Internet I would have never gotten into retro hardware and software.

For me the cards are cheap enough that even if it turns out to be a turd the card itself looks cool enough to sit on the display shelf with the other ..duds that look cool but offer nothing. (The PCB of these cards is damn cool in its own right)

Trashbytes wrote on 2025-02-14, 11:40:

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-02-13, 09:13:

Is it still good for that stuff though? I keep finding reddit posts of people asking whether it is and people giving reasons why […]
Show full quote

Trashbytes wrote on 2025-02-13, 09:11:

Yup not really for gaming, good for VMs and other ML stuff if you want to do it on the cheap.

Is it still good for that stuff though? I keep finding reddit posts of people asking whether it is and people giving reasons why it isn't. The drivers are from 2019, so I feel like that would be problematic for use in a bleeding edge field like machine learning.

I guess power draw is quite high, and it has no built in fan so you have to force air into it to cool it.

I am not a ML or VM guy though. If these have a use, then by all means, dive in. 🙂

If they had some latent budget gaming chops I would consider grabbing one or two, but I think there would be a lot of tradeoffs.

Valid points but If I believed everything I read on the Internet I would have never gotten into retro hardware and software.

Not quite sure what you mean by that in this context, but okay, haha. Retro hardware can be useful for making nostalgia-laden games\programs work the way they were meant to in the past, the rarity of the parts makes them collectible and they tend to increase in value pretty steadily. I think these Radeon Pro cards are still getting cheaper at this point. Some sellers are already selling them for only $49 or best offer with free shipping. If high end 3D CAD (non gaming) cards from the late 90s (3dlabs, etc.) are just finally starting to increase in value, it'll probably take another 25 years for it to happen with machine learning hardware from ~2018.

For me the cards are cheap enough that even if it turns out to be a turd the card itself looks cool enough to sit on the display shelf with the other ..duds that look cool but offer nothing. (The PCB of these cards is damn cool in its own right)

Fair enough. They are beastly looking cards.🙂

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-02-14, 13:52:

Not quite sure what you mean by that in this context, but okay, haha. Retro hardware can be useful for making nostalgia-laden ga […]
Show full quote

Trashbytes wrote on 2025-02-14, 11:40:

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-02-13, 09:13:

Is it still good for that stuff though? I keep finding reddit posts of people asking whether it is and people giving reasons why […]
Show full quote

Is it still good for that stuff though? I keep finding reddit posts of people asking whether it is and people giving reasons why it isn't. The drivers are from 2019, so I feel like that would be problematic for use in a bleeding edge field like machine learning.

I guess power draw is quite high, and it has no built in fan so you have to force air into it to cool it.

I am not a ML or VM guy though. If these have a use, then by all means, dive in. 🙂

If they had some latent budget gaming chops I would consider grabbing one or two, but I think there would be a lot of tradeoffs.

Valid points but If I believed everything I read on the Internet I would have never gotten into retro hardware and software.

Not quite sure what you mean by that in this context, but okay, haha. Retro hardware can be useful for making nostalgia-laden games\programs work the way they were meant to in the past, the rarity of the parts makes them collectible and they tend to increase in value pretty steadily. I think these Radeon Pro cards are still getting cheaper at this point. Some sellers are already selling them for only $49 or best offer with free shipping. If high end 3D CAD (non gaming) cards from the late 90s (3dlabs, etc.) are just finally starting to increase in value, it'll probably take 25 years for it to happen with stuff from ~2018.

For me the cards are cheap enough that even if it turns out to be a turd the card itself looks cool enough to sit on the display shelf with the other ..duds that look cool but offer nothing. (The PCB of these cards is damn cool in its own right)

Fair enough. They are beastly looking cards.🙂

I dont think it came across quite how I wanted 🤣 but simply that the Retro Hardware hobby for me isn't the collecting but the exploration of what it can and cant do and doing the things others have claimed isn't possible. (Not that these cards are "retro" old for sure though)

People talk a lot of shit on the internet and retro hardware/PC hardware boards are no exception to this, people claiming one thing and other claiming something else. Im more than happy to jump in and buy hardware to find out myself rather than relying on the experiences of others to make my decisions for me.

Will these cards be useful . .no idea, others dont think so but I lose nothing by finding out myself, at worst I learn to not buy these cards again and have a participation trophy for the shelf, at best I end up with something that works.

I got to see a high res pic of the PCB with its shiny dies ...its a marvel how they engineered it, die/PCB photos have always fascinated me especially high quality ones.

Trashbytes wrote on 2025-02-14, 13:58:

I dont think it came across quite how I wanted XD but simply that the Retro Hardware hobby for me isn't the collecting but the e […]
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Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-02-14, 13:52:

Not quite sure what you mean by that in this context, but okay, haha. Retro hardware can be useful for making nostalgia-laden ga […]
Show full quote

Trashbytes wrote on 2025-02-14, 11:40:

Valid points but If I believed everything I read on the Internet I would have never gotten into retro hardware and software.

Not quite sure what you mean by that in this context, but okay, haha. Retro hardware can be useful for making nostalgia-laden games\programs work the way they were meant to in the past, the rarity of the parts makes them collectible and they tend to increase in value pretty steadily. I think these Radeon Pro cards are still getting cheaper at this point. Some sellers are already selling them for only $49 or best offer with free shipping. If high end 3D CAD (non gaming) cards from the late 90s (3dlabs, etc.) are just finally starting to increase in value, it'll probably take 25 years for it to happen with stuff from ~2018.

For me the cards are cheap enough that even if it turns out to be a turd the card itself looks cool enough to sit on the display shelf with the other ..duds that look cool but offer nothing. (The PCB of these cards is damn cool in its own right)

Fair enough. They are beastly looking cards.🙂

I dont think it came across quite how I wanted 🤣 but simply that the Retro Hardware hobby for me isn't the collecting but the exploration of what it can and cant do and doing the things others have claimed isn't possible. (Not that these cards are "retro" old for sure though)

People talk a lot of shit on the internet and retro hardware/PC hardware boards are no exception to this, people claiming one thing and other claiming something else. Im more than happy to jump in and buy hardware to find out myself rather than relying on the experiences of others to make my decisions for me.

Will these cards be useful . .no idea, others dont think so but I lose nothing by finding out myself, at worst I learn to not buy these cards again and have a participation trophy for the shelf, at best I end up with something that works.

I know what you mean. Sometimes the "nope, it won't do that" advice that people leave online doesn't have a much evidence (or effort) to back it up. Hopefully in this case these have some latent abilities for normal human stuff. 😁

Make sure to let us know if you get it to do anything, and how you manage to cool it once it's running. Maybe a big duct from some front case fans into the inlet of the card will suffice.

I will admit, I am curious.

But also poor.

So, yeah, I'll just observe this time! 😁

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-02-14, 14:05:

I know what you mean. Sometimes the "nope, it won't do that" advice that people leave online doesn't have a much evidence (or ef […]
Show full quote

Trashbytes wrote on 2025-02-14, 13:58:

I dont think it came across quite how I wanted XD but simply that the Retro Hardware hobby for me isn't the collecting but the e […]
Show full quote

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-02-14, 13:52:

Not quite sure what you mean by that in this context, but okay, haha. Retro hardware can be useful for making nostalgia-laden games\programs work the way they were meant to in the past, the rarity of the parts makes them collectible and they tend to increase in value pretty steadily. I think these Radeon Pro cards are still getting cheaper at this point. Some sellers are already selling them for only $49 or best offer with free shipping. If high end 3D CAD (non gaming) cards from the late 90s (3dlabs, etc.) are just finally starting to increase in value, it'll probably take 25 years for it to happen with stuff from ~2018.

Fair enough. They are beastly looking cards.🙂

I dont think it came across quite how I wanted 🤣 but simply that the Retro Hardware hobby for me isn't the collecting but the exploration of what it can and cant do and doing the things others have claimed isn't possible. (Not that these cards are "retro" old for sure though)

People talk a lot of shit on the internet and retro hardware/PC hardware boards are no exception to this, people claiming one thing and other claiming something else. Im more than happy to jump in and buy hardware to find out myself rather than relying on the experiences of others to make my decisions for me.

Will these cards be useful . .no idea, others dont think so but I lose nothing by finding out myself, at worst I learn to not buy these cards again and have a participation trophy for the shelf, at best I end up with something that works.

I know what you mean. Sometimes the "nope, it won't do that" advice that people leave online doesn't have a much evidence (or effort) to back it up. Hopefully in this case these have some latent abilities for normal human stuff. 😁

Make sure to let us know if you get it to do anything, and how you manage to cool it once it's running. Maybe a big duct from some front case fans into the inlet of the card will suffice.

I will admit, I am curious.

But also poor.

So, yeah, I'll just observe this time! 😁

one of these https://www.ebay.com/itm/285279224783? modded to fit one or two of these https://www.ebay.com/itm/186930420033? if the extra cooling is needed . .depends on how hot the cards gets.

And yes this will be noisy !! like Radeon cards of old that sound like jet turbines !

* I have no affiliation with the sellers, the links are for information purposes only *

Yeah, you get a lot of self appointed experts telling you that if something isn't a top of the line current card then it's e-waste, or if it only does 90% of some arbitrary pie in the sky number it's useless. That's probably how you get all these "Can you use 5 year old hardware in current year" vids on youtube, because reddits collection of popular misconceptions says anything 6 months old is trash.

Anyway, I suspect those are quite useful still, definitely on a bang per buck level. The kind of people that would scream at you that PCI became utterly useless the instant AGP was released are the kind that will have problems with you even trying to use one.

BitWrangler wrote on 2025-02-14, 14:26:

Yeah, you get a lot of self appointed experts telling you that if something isn't a top of the line current card then it's e-waste, or if it only does 90% of some arbitrary pie in the sky number it's useless. That's probably how you get all these "Can you use 5 year old hardware in current year" vids on youtube, because reddits collection of popular misconceptions says anything 6 months old is trash.

Anyway, I suspect those are quite useful still, definitely on a bang per buck level. The kind of people that would scream at you that PCI became utterly useless the instant AGP was released are the kind that will have problems with you even trying to use one.

I mean, the jury is still out on exactly what these can be used for right now since they were built for machine learning in 2018 and the software hasn't been updated or supported since 2019. If it was just a GPU with proper Windows 10\11 drivers then there'd be no question about it's usefulness of course. Depending on whether it could actually be used as 2 GPUs in crossfire it would likely perform somewhere in the realm of an 8GB 1660 Ti - 1070 or even 1080 - 1080 Ti if both GPUs are properly utilized.

As it is, I wasn't even able to find any people saying "I have one, it does this: ..... " , other than ones attempting to flash the BIOS because they couldn't use it as-is . Hopefully that is just because people haven't tried hard enough though, because it's a sad waste of decent GPUs to have them unable to be used for anything just 6-7 years after they were made.

BitWrangler wrote on 2025-02-14, 14:26:

Yeah, you get a lot of self appointed experts telling you that if something isn't a top of the line current card then it's e-waste, or if it only does 90% of some arbitrary pie in the sky number it's useless. That's probably how you get all these "Can you use 5 year old hardware in current year" vids on youtube, because reddits collection of popular misconceptions says anything 6 months old is trash.

Anyway, I suspect those are quite useful still, definitely on a bang per buck level. The kind of people that would scream at you that PCI became utterly useless the instant AGP was released are the kind that will have problems with you even trying to use one.

Is it wrong to admit that I have a thing for HBM cards, I do own a Radeon VII and am looking at getting one of the AMD Radeon Pro Vega II Duo modules once they become cheap enough. Yup its a Mac card so it may never become cheap but that's fine I dont want it to use it I want it as a display piece, eventually a not working one will hit the bay at a reasonable price. (A Radeon Instinct MI60 might be on the books though as their prices are coming down fast)

Bought this oddity, Blu Ray, HD DvD, DvD and CD all in one unit.

Its not exactly retro gear but this little drive is headed to a Retro machine all the same as my modern machines dont have the drive bays for it. (Really hate that modern PC cases dont have external drive bays without losing radiator space, Im 100% sure they could fix the design issues. Putting it at the bottom of the case below the front rad would work just fine)

Sweet, I have been keeping an eye out for something like that. Real shame they didn't go very mass market before desktops were kind of "over" for the average folk.

BitWrangler wrote on 2025-02-15, 13:40:

Sweet, I have been keeping an eye out for something like that. Real shame they didn't go very mass market before desktops were kind of "over" for the average folk.

Blu Ray and HD DVD were pretty much killed on the PC due to licensing costs for the keys, that and the corp that controls the keys could blacklist them over the air killing any drives using them. Its a shame really but they wanted more control over DRM due to how easy DvD was cracked.

I guess the other reason was Microsoft not including the decryption keys or player for either as part of the OS so watching movies with either required something like PowerDvD which was expensive. (If you had enough know how you could sail the seas and use VLC but that was also prone to its keys getting blacklisted)

In the end Streaming and rips were easier and cheaper but there is still hope since new laser tech will make optical discs able to store astronomical amounts of data cheaply with little to no degradation issues older optical media has.

Trashbytes wrote on 2025-02-15, 12:48:

Bought this oddity, Blu Ray, HD DvD, DvD and CD all in one unit.

HD-DVD is kind of retro since it's a dead format. That would be a really nice drive for archival purposes.

I just bought a plain Blu-Ray drive for my new computer (I didn't get an optical drive earlier, but I routed an extra SATA cable inside the case) and a cheap Silicon Power A55 "ass drive" SSD. The SSD will either be for test OS installs or that Toshiba laptop where everyone blames its miserable CPU performance on the storage. I expect the cheap drive to suck (in both performance and reliability - Samsung is the only company left making SATA SSDs with DRAM cache, and the off-brands use a lot of reject NAND chips), but I didn't feel like spending the extra money on a major brand for where it's going. Also, the name fits with the laptop it might go in.

lti wrote on 2025-02-16, 18:21:

Trashbytes wrote on 2025-02-15, 12:48:

Bought this oddity, Blu Ray, HD DvD, DvD and CD all in one unit.

HD-DVD is kind of retro since it's a dead format. That would be a really nice drive for archival purposes.

I just bought a plain Blu-Ray drive for my new computer (I didn't get an optical drive earlier, but I routed an extra SATA cable inside the case) and a cheap Silicon Power A55 "ass drive" SSD. The SSD will either be for test OS installs or that Toshiba laptop where everyone blames its miserable CPU performance on the storage. I expect the cheap drive to suck (in both performance and reliability - Samsung is the only company left making SATA SSDs with DRAM cache, and the off-brands use a lot of reject NAND chips), but I didn't feel like spending the extra money on a major brand for where it's going. Also, the name fits with the laptop it might go in.

For what it's worth, even low end DRAMless SSDs are plenty fast enough for what an older machine will (usually) be doing these days. The performance of QLC drives can be pretty bad at times depending on what you're doing with it, so I still try to get TLC drives where possible and avoid drives with "mystery" NAND that could be either... but in reality, even a DRAMless QLC drive is going to be lightyears better than a hard drive running a modern OS.

You really can't go wrong with any SSD if the price is right (and it isn't a mission-critical machine). That said, I tend to opt for better drives just in case a computer ends up being used for more intensive tasks than originally planned, but I have used lots of drives of varying quality\performance levels and never had issues with any cheaper drives. Ironically, the only major issues I've ever had with SSDs were Samsung drives during the 840 and 870 Evo generations.

Even dropping my positively-ancient Crucial RealSSD C300 64GB SSD from ~2010 into a Core 2 based laptop a few years back allowed it to run Windows 10 and do basic web browsing and media without much trouble.

I don't know if this computer is worth $27, but the old drive is so slow that it feels like it's failing sometimes. However, SMART status is perfect, which is unusual for a Toshiba drive that's more than two years old (even the 3.5" HGST-derived models failed quickly, along with a stupid design flaw where the TVS diodes on the power input connect through tiny surface mount jumpers that blow open and let a bad power supply blow up the whole board). Back when that laptop was my main computer, I remember having more problems with CPU performance than disk performance. Now that it has much lower demands as a simple web browsing machine running modern lightweight Linux, CPU performance isn't as important.

Now I just need to clean up the old drive and prepare it for cloning. It's dual-booting modern Linux and Windows 7, and both partitions have a lot of stuff on them.

Waiting for an i7 9700K, which will be shipped tomorrow. Really crossing my fingers that this is not a dud like the last one I bought, which only worked on 4 cores. Luckily that seller refunded.
Upgrading from a non-K with the solemn purpose of getting 100000+ 3DMarks in 3DMark2001 on my daily driver with a GTX980Ti 🤣

H3nrik V! wrote on 2025-02-17, 22:04:

Waiting for an i7 9700K, which will be shipped tomorrow. Really crossing my fingers that this is not a dud like the last one I bought, which only worked on 4 cores. Luckily that seller refunded.
Upgrading from a non-K with the solemn purpose of getting 100000+ 3DMarks in 3DMark2001 on my daily driver with a GTX980Ti 🤣

Huh... 9700K + GTX 980Ti - now then, what kinda OS does enable all this driving I wonder?

bestemor wrote on 2025-02-18, 05:18:

H3nrik V! wrote on 2025-02-17, 22:04:

Waiting for an i7 9700K, which will be shipped tomorrow. Really crossing my fingers that this is not a dud like the last one I bought, which only worked on 4 cores. Luckily that seller refunded.
Upgrading from a non-K with the solemn purpose of getting 100000+ 3DMarks in 3DMark2001 on my daily driver with a GTX980Ti 🤣

Huh... 9700K + GTX 980Ti - now then, what kinda OS does enable all this driving I wonder?

Windows 11 still has driver support for the 980Ti (or nVidia still has driver releases for Win11/980Ti) but I read somewhere that support for 9xx series will soon be discontinued.

It's kind of "what kind of daily driver can I run on a limited budget" build. So all is second-hand bought 😀 And since I don't even game on it, it's reasonably overkill 🤣 I run Fusion for 3D design, which is probably the most demanding it runs as of now. Maybe I should look into some emulation for older games though.

Oh, Win11 indeed... I see 😁
Well, I somehow thought you might have hacked in some WinXP (for the 980Ti), or Win7 for the 9700K, or a dual boot(!) - for a really overkill retro PC.

bestemor wrote on 2025-02-18, 07:00:

Oh, Win11 indeed... I see 😁
Well, I somehow thought you might have hacked in some WinXP (for the 980Ti), or Win7 for the 9700K, or a dual boot(!) - for a really overkill retro PC.

Don't get me too inspired 🤣 I might just go down that road 😉 But no, I would probably have to install the older OS first, and I'm not up to reinstall all the software under 11 as of now ...