tarik wrote on 2025-08-28, 11:40:

Did you DIY the coolers? They look super cool and seem built to last.

No sir they're just some coolers I had laying around when I built the systems.
Cooler on the i7 is a Scythe Grand Kama Cross and on the Pentium 4 is a Zalman CNPS7700.

The cooler on the nvidia 4600ti ís custom, it's a Zalman VF1000 gpu cooler.

TIMMUN, excellent photography of some beautiful builds.

Boomer wrote on 2025-03-19, 11:49:

Hello Does early AMD socket 939 high-end AGP system hit different than old beige Intel computers? 😁 Here is my specs: AMD Athlon […]
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Hello
Does early AMD socket 939 high-end AGP system hit different than old beige Intel computers? 😁
Here is my specs:
AMD Athlon x2 4800+
MSI K8N NEO2 PLATINUM
ATI HD3850 AGP
KINGSTON HYPERX DDR1 512MT x4
SOUND BLASTER X-FI ELITE SB0550

why yes yes they do!

AMD Athlon X2 4400+ OCed to 2.4GHz (4800+)
Asus A8NSLI32 Deluxe
Nvidia Geforce 9800 GTX+
2GB Corsair XMS DDR 400 (2x 1GB)
250GB Maxtor MaxLine III (probably going to upgrade to a more modern HDD as this is dog slow even for a 7200RPM Sata drive)
Audigy 2 ZS

iGamer wrote on 2025-09-02, 21:42:

why yes yes they do! […]
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why yes yes they do!

AMD Athlon X2 4400+ OCed to 2.4GHz (4800+)
Asus A8NSLI32 Deluxe
Nvidia Geforce 9800 GTX+
2GB Corsair XMS DDR 400 (2x 1GB)
250GB Maxtor MaxLine III (probably going to upgrade to a more modern HDD as this is dog slow even for a 7200RPM Sata drive)
Audigy 2 ZS

it is cool looking, what kinds of games would you say are the sweet spot for this set up that is kind of in between 'beige' and later systems?

wanzerr wrote on 2025-08-03, 23:00:

PD2JK wrote on 2025-08-02, 17:37:

Indeed, I recognize the Sony SD-HS73P monitor (I have the 74), but a Kayak is worth taking a picture of. 😉

Please see attached 😀

No interior pics - it is clean, but boring with the original airflow ducts installed.

Beautiful machine, very unique looking case never seen any like that before.

iGamer wrote on 2025-09-02, 21:42:

AMD Athlon X2 4400+ OCed to 2.4GHz (4800+) Asus A8NSLI32 Deluxe Nvidia Geforce 9800 GTX+ 2GB Corsair XMS DDR 400 (2x 1GB) 250GB […]
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AMD Athlon X2 4400+ OCed to 2.4GHz (4800+)
Asus A8NSLI32 Deluxe
Nvidia Geforce 9800 GTX+
2GB Corsair XMS DDR 400 (2x 1GB)
250GB Maxtor MaxLine III (probably going to upgrade to a more modern HDD as this is dog slow even for a 7200RPM Sata drive)
Audigy 2 ZS

A good-looking machine. The red LED fan is custom, right? Most TT cases from that era had blue LED fans, IIRC.
Is that a DELL 2007FP?

Hello! Long time lurker but finally put together a 1999/2000ish 440BX build and wanted to share before I move onto a 386 build.

Mobo: ABIT BF6
Slocket: ASUS S370-DL
CPU: PIII 1000/256/133 (set to 133FSB and stable, for some reason 100FSB Coppermines have given me more issues)
RAM: 2 x 256MB Micron PC100 (might change to 133 but they're stable right now too)
PSU: 650W Enermax EG651P-VE
AGP: Leadtek WinFast GeForce2 Ultra (with a Zalman cooler I took from a Radeon HD 4670)
PCI #3: Adaptec AHA-3940UW SCSI controller
PCI #4: Tseng Labs ET6000 4MB
PCI #5: Digital Research "DRSOUNDPCI" (YMF724F-V)
ISA: Axra 3D (YMF719E-S)
CD Drive: SCSI Plextor PX-32TSi from an IBM workstation
HDD 1: 20GB Maxtor DiamondMax Plus (Windows 98SE)
HDD2: 7.5GB Quantum Fireball LCT 15 (DOS 6.22 / Windows 95)
Other: Zip 250

sunkindly wrote on 2025-09-11, 16:18:

Hello! Long time lurker but finally put together a 1999/2000ish 440BX build and wanted to share before I move onto a 386 build. […]
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Hello! Long time lurker but finally put together a 1999/2000ish 440BX build and wanted to share before I move onto a 386 build.

Mobo: ABIT BF6
Slocket: ASUS S370-DL
CPU: PIII 1000/256/133 (set to 133FSB and stable, for some reason 100FSB Coppermines have given me more issues)
RAM: 2 x 256MB Micron PC100 (might change to 133 but they're stable right now too)
PSU: 650W Enermax EG651P-VE
AGP: Leadtek WinFast GeForce2 Ultra (with a Zalman cooler I took from a Radeon HD 4670)
PCI #3: Adaptec AHA-3940UW SCSI controller
PCI #4: Tseng Labs ET6000 4MB
PCI #5: Digital Research "DRSOUNDPCI" (YMF724F-V)
ISA: Axra 3D (YMF719E-S)
CD Drive: SCSI Plextor PX-32TSi from an IBM workstation
HDD 1: 20GB Maxtor DiamondMax Plus (Windows 98SE)
HDD2: 7.5GB Quantum Fireball LCT 15 (DOS 6.22 / Windows 95)
Other: Zip 250

The attachment IMG_6541.JPG is no longer available

A great selection!

Thanks!

The 386 build is coming along now! Here's the behemoth Syscon Consulting / Northgate Elegance AT board and how the cable management is going. Had to move the speaker to accommodate it.

CPU: Intel 386DX-25 w/ 387 coprocessor
RAM: 8MB
Cache: 256KB
ISA: GoldStar Prime-2
ISA: Video Seven VEGA VGA-16
ISA: Sound Blaster 16
HDD: 140MB Western Digital Caviar 2170

What a nice board! And with maxed out cache + FPU one can expect tremendous performance....

(btw do you know the release date / bios date of the board?)

Aui wrote on 2025-09-15, 22:27:

What a nice board! And with maxed out cache + FPU one can expect tremendous performance....

(btw do you know the release date / bios date of the board?)

It is, it's beautiful!

The board has a date of 08/09/89 and the BIOS date is 04/09/90 (DINT-6061-040990-KH)

Current state of my collection (minus various cards that are not currently in any builds, various motherboards and peripherals).

The PC on my desk to the right is my "1999 dream PC build" with Pentium III 733MHz/Gigabyte GA-6VXC7-4X/512Mb PC133 SDRAM/3dfx Voodoo3 3000 16Mb/Diamond Monster 3D Sound MX300 (Aureal Vortex 2)/TP-Link 10/100 ethernet card.

I finally have a Trinitron G220 DualScan, although I'd argue the Viewsonic you see in the picture compares very favorably to it.

The other computer on the desk is something else I wanted and couldn't afford in the 2000s. Basically, my 2002 dream PC. It already has a Pentium 4 Willamette 1.6GHz in it, with D850MD Medford motherboard, 512Mb PC800 RDRAM, which is a silly thing I drooled over back in the day, and a Creative Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 sound card. Currently it has a GeForce4 MX440 in it, but I'm putting a GeForce4 Ti4200 in it pretty soon - one is on its way from Germany.

And then there's about 11 more builds starting with Pentium 133MHz non-MMX and ending with a Core2Quad Q9400, my XP gaming rig.

And there's a Dell Poweredge 2300 server down in the bottom I'm restoring - doesn't have the PSU to be operational, and I'll likely need to source SCSI-2 hard drives or replacements to make it operational and tinker with it quite a bit - but with two Pentium III CPUs it could be the backbone and shared storage of my retro infrastructure.

songoffall wrote on 2025-09-16, 16:51:

Current state of my collection (minus various cards that are not currently in any builds, various motherboards and peripherals).

Nice collection. Are you using a KVM or just moving the one you want to play with to your desk?

RetroPCCupboard wrote on 2025-09-17, 06:21:

songoffall wrote on 2025-09-16, 16:51:

Current state of my collection (minus various cards that are not currently in any builds, various motherboards and peripherals).

Nice collection. Are you using a KVM or just moving the one you want to play with to your desk?

No KVM as of now, just manually moving computers around. I'm planning to do a retro gaming convention/LAN party with Pentium 4/Athlon XP rigs locally, we'll see how it goes.

Hello,
Long time lurker. I see that several other members are posting their XP retro builds. I thought I'd post mine:
For the machine, it's a combination of old parts that I kept from back in the day combined with new (modern) parts:
Specs are:
CPU: Intel Core 2 QX6700 Extreme OC @3.20 GHz Quad Core Processor / Artic Silver MX-6
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master 212 LED with upgraded fan (Thermal Right 120MM)
Motherboard: Intel D975XBX2KR (Bad Axe 2) Socket 775
RAM: Mushkin Enhanced 2x2GB (4GB Total) PC6400 DDR2 (With Heat Spreaders)
Hard drive: Toshiba 2.5 Mechanical 500GB Hard Drive SATA3
GPU: EVGA NVIDI​A GeForce ​GTX 570 1280MB PCIe
PSU: Corsair 1000HX (1000W) Modular Power Supply
Soundcard: Creative S​SoundBlaster​ Audigy 2​ ZS
Case: Be Quiet! Base 501 // Sound Dampening Case
Case Fans: 3x 140MM (2x140MM Noctua Redux 1x140 Pure Wings 3)
Other: Ageia PhysX P100 Processor

Hey all!

Well I have three main Retro PC's at the moment, always hooping to build more, but making more room for that is always a challenge I am sure many are familiar with.

The K7 is getting a new Western Digital WD400EB 40GB PATA 133 HDD with 8MB Cache for anew fresh reinstall of Win98SE + Un-Official Service pack ver. 3.2 for NTFS file support and improved networking support.
Basically the same installation I did for the P3/E 850 Slot1 system.
The AthlonXP 2200+ has WinXP Pro x86 + SP3 and also runs rock solid.

So here the system specs and pics of them they all use the same monitor keyboard & mouse, all due to space limitations, which I am still trying to improve
The K7 used to have Win2K pro on it, but this will change once the new HDD has been installed in to it.

Nighthawk

AMD Athlon Thunderbird 700Mhz Slot A
3x 256MB PC-133 Legend / Hynix @ PC-100
MSI MS-6195 AMD Irongate AM751 Chipset
3dfx Voodoo3 3500 TV AGP 16MB Rev.A 3199 (Eur PAL variant, mint in box)
Vantec Cooling Spectrum Slot cooler card for V3 3500
Samsung 3.5" FDD Drive
1x 40GB Western Digital Caviar WD400EB 7200 rpm HDD Main drive + 8MB Cache**
1x 80GB Seagate Barracuda V 7200 rpm HDD Main drive + 2MB Cache
LG 40x/16X CD/DVD RW Drive
NEC 5 port USB 2.0 PCI Card + Front Panel 3 in PCI Card 2 in Front Panel
3-Com 3C 905C 10/100Mbit Ethernet PCI Card
Creative Labs Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold CT4390 4MB ISA PCB Date 3197
(Gold Recap done for CT4390 by by Backfire from Voodoo Alert Forums, Germany)
2002 A-Open H-600-B ATX Case
A-Open FSP350-60PN 350 Watt PSU
Compaq S710 17" Blackshade CRT from 2001
Reso @ 1024x768x32 ! 85Hz | 0.22.5 Dot Pitch

Win2K Pro UK + SP4
AmigaSport 3.0 for Win2K/XP by AmigaMerlin for V3 3500

Avenger M99

Intel Pentium !!!/E Coppermine 850Mhz S.E.C.C. II Slot1 CPU
Thermaltake Golden Orb for S.E.C.C. II Slot 1 CPU's
2x 256MB PC-100 Legend CL2 matched kit (Kingston ram chips)
EPoX EP-BX3 + Modified Bios 4.23
Matrox Millennium G400 MAX DH AGP 32MB 128Bit Rev.A 4399 + Soltek Bronze Orb
Gainward Dragon 3000 PCI 12MB Rev.A 9846 (Voodoo2)
Terratec Promedia EWS64 XL Audio System Rev. 1.2 3397 + Full Gold Nichicon Recap & Stereo sound reworks done by Backfire from Voodoo Alert, Germany
1x Maxtor DiamondMax 9+ 30GBB 7200 rpm HDD (Main drive)
1x Western Digital WD1200BB 120GB 7200 rpm HDD (Game drive)
1x Creative Labs 12x DVD-Rom Drive
1x Mitsumi Electric 3.5" FD Drive
FKI FK-6043 Midi Tower
Enermax EG351P-V PSU recapped with Japan made Panasonic capacitors by Backfire

Win98 SE USA + Un-Official Service Pack 3 Version 3.66
Latest G400 Max drivers from 2002
3dfxzone.it's FastVoodoo2 Driver kit Version 4.6

And here with PSU applied:

A second Gainward V2 is being recapped by backfire from the Voodoo Alert Forums Germany with the same KEMET Capacitors as the one I have now, once that card is here I will add it in the system for a matched pauiir of Gainward Dragon 3000 PCI 12MB's, took me quite some time to find a matched pair, even that one card came from Finland and the other from Germany, all worth it in the end.

And here my main retro gaming/workstation PC:

Sveta 2002

AMD AthlonXP 2200+ Thoroughbred-A, 1 Core @ 1.8Ghz
EPox EP-8K7A+ AMD 761 Chipset with Via 686B SB
2x 1GB PC-2700 Kingston @ PC-2100 266Mhz DDR
Matrox Parhelia AGP Universal 256MB 256Bit DDR Rev.A 5103
3dfx Voodoo5 5500 PCI Macintosh 64MB Rev.A1 2900 + PC Bios 1.18_DVI
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS Platinum Pro Rev.A 2703
Mitsubishi Electronics LS-120 F200 Super Floppy Drive
1x Seagate Barracuda V 80GB 7200 RPM Main disk
1x Seagate Barracuda V 120GB 7200 RPM Game Disk
Belkin 5 port NEC USB 2.0 PCI Card
3-Com 3C905C-TX-M PCI Ethernet Adapter 10/100Mbit
LH HD-DVD Drive 16x / 40x
BTO Plusdeck 2c Cassette Tape Convertor/Player/Recorder Drive
Enermax EG465P-VE 365 Watt PSU
Addtronics 6896A Entry Level Server Tower
Compaq S710 17" Blackshade CRT from 2001
Reso @ 1024x768x32 @ 85Hz | 0.22.5 Dot Pitch

WinXP Pro USA + SP3
Matrox PowerDesk-HF 1.13.0.158 WDM Driver from May 2007
With Matrox PowerDesk 1.5.0.107 Control Panel from September 2003 for Parhelia AGP
SFFT Alpha 41 Modified by ps47 & myself from 2008 for V5 PCI Mac

Gold Leader-B747 wrote on 2025-09-30, 15:54:

Well I have three main Retro PC's at the moment, always hooping to build more, but making more room for that is always a challen […]
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Well I have three main Retro PC's at the moment, always hooping to build more, but making more room for that is always a challenge I am sure many are familiar with.
Nighthawk
AMD Athlon Thunderbird 700Mhz Slot A
3x 256MB PC-133 Legend / Hynix @ PC-100
MSI MS-6195 AMD Irongate AM751 Chipset
3dfx Voodoo3 3500 TV AGP 16MB Rev.A 3199 (Eur PAL variant, mint in box)

Nice! These are some seriously impressive builds! The Nighthawk makes me want to do an early Slot A build.

Lodge_ wrote on 2025-10-01, 04:14:

Gold Leader-B747 wrote on 2025-09-30, 15:54:

Well I have three main Retro PC's at the moment, always hooping to build more, but making more room for that is always a challen […]
Show full quote

Well I have three main Retro PC's at the moment, always hooping to build more, but making more room for that is always a challenge I am sure many are familiar with.
Nighthawk
AMD Athlon Thunderbird 700Mhz Slot A
3x 256MB PC-133 Legend / Hynix @ PC-100
MSI MS-6195 AMD Irongate AM751 Chipset
3dfx Voodoo3 3500 TV AGP 16MB Rev.A 3199 (Eur PAL variant, mint in box)

Nice! These are some seriously impressive builds! The Nighthawk makes me want to do an early Slot A build.

Hey many thanks lots of years of love and dedication went in to them, I recently bought a mint Western Digital WD400EB PATA 133 7200 Rpm HDD with 8MB Cache for the K7, because it's old Seagate Barracuda V 40GB had a broken boot record, but hey for 25 years of service not too shabby for that part, it could of been worse haha ;D
There will be a time many of us will need to perform certain replacements, nothing will ever be perfect hardware wise, even when you give the best of treatments which I let my friend backfire perform, SWZSSR also hellped me out on several recaps like the V5 PCI Mac went through these reworks just to get the card ready for optimal use again:

3dfx Voodoo5 5500 PCI Macintosh 64MB Rev.A1 2900 + PC Bios 1.18_DVI
------------------------------------------------
SWZSSR's friend's Recap & Modifications:
01. Full Polymer Recap
02. Burnt Copper Heatsinks for the VSA's rear side
------------------------------------------------
Backfire's Repairs & Reworks:
01. Renewed Ceramic SMD's on the rear
02. 6ns Hynix VRAM renewal for the main VSA-100 Graphics Chip
03. Renewed Heatsinks & Fans for the VSA's topside
04. Renewed Power Supply Controller Chips
05. Fixed the IC U510 Chip's pins
06. Replaced 4x TSOP-86
07. 6ns Hynix VRAM renewal for the slave VSA-100 Graphics Chip
------------------------------------------------

As you see it has the same Enzotech Burnt copper heatsinks as the Voodoo5 6000 AGP 128MB rev.A 3700 that SWZSSR had 😀

I have known SWZSSR for a good 7 or 8 years now, we have helped each other a lot when finding parts for our 3dfx collections or retro PC's in general, never a bad thing if you can help each other out finding that one needed part.

Gold Leader-B747 wrote on 2025-09-30, 15:54:

Hey all!

Well I have three main Retro PC's at the moment, always hooping to build more, but making more room for that is always a challenge I am sure many are familiar with.

I love those crazy paint jobs! Great specs too.