I don't know how the hell they got a patent on that when PCjr had external plug in expansions, the Amiga 1000 had "sidecars" and I think Sirius or someone did it in the CP/M and S100 space by having stackable modules.

H3nrik V! wrote on 2026-06-24, 15:36:

H3nrik V! wrote on 2026-06-24, 12:57:

myne wrote on 2026-06-23, 06:06:

I highly doubt it. Qpi is only to the southbridge. Sli is likely marginal thanks to the Sli bridge, but crossfire might get a ti […]
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I highly doubt it.
Qpi is only to the southbridge.
Sli is likely marginal thanks to the Sli bridge, but crossfire might get a tiny boost.
Raid... Maybe but it seems unlikely that you would notice.

Haha,I was under the impression that the QPI link went to the chipset, who then "unfolded" to the PCI-express channels, as in I really thought that the CPU didn't have its own PCIe lanes onboard 🤣 I see I learn something new every day.

Did the Xeons then use QPI to inter-socket communication or is it really only to the south bridge? It seems like a horrible waste to have the increased speed on the 965 vs the 960 then?

Did a bit of reading. Looks like the i7-9xx (Nehalem based) doesn't have PCIe on board, but that it is on the chipset via QPI

Right you are.
My bad.
I guess they did the whole "move the northbridge on-die" in steps.

https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/ … sheet-vol-1.pdf

myne wrote on 2026-06-26, 07:31:

Right you are. My bad. I guess they did the whole "move the northbridge on-die" in steps. […]
Show full quote

H3nrik V! wrote on 2026-06-24, 15:36:

H3nrik V! wrote on 2026-06-24, 12:57:

Haha,I was under the impression that the QPI link went to the chipset, who then "unfolded" to the PCI-express channels, as in I really thought that the CPU didn't have its own PCIe lanes onboard 🤣 I see I learn something new every day.

Did the Xeons then use QPI to inter-socket communication or is it really only to the south bridge? It seems like a horrible waste to have the increased speed on the 965 vs the 960 then?

Did a bit of reading. Looks like the i7-9xx (Nehalem based) doesn't have PCIe on board, but that it is on the chipset via QPI

Right you are.
My bad.
I guess they did the whole "move the northbridge on-die" in steps.

https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/ … sheet-vol-1.pdf

Interesting document. Thanks!

Got working gen 2 XPS dimension for $35 today, good deal as 9800pro they shipped those with is worth more. What was my surprise when I got back home and discovered that there was no 9800 pro, just this bad boy...

cansting wrote on Yesterday, 02:07:

Got working gen 2 XPS dimension for $35 today, good deal as 9800pro they shipped those with is worth more. What was my surprise when I got back home and discovered that there was no 9800 pro, just this bad boy...

Holy smokes... an HD 4670 AGP is an insane find inside an old XPS. Congrats!

Right? After finding this out had a small hope the CPU will be P4EE, but was a regular Northwood 🤣

Ozzuneoj wrote on Yesterday, 02:39:

cansting wrote on Yesterday, 02:07:

Got working gen 2 XPS dimension for $35 today, good deal as 9800pro they shipped those with is worth more. What was my surprise when I got back home and discovered that there was no 9800 pro, just this bad boy...

Holy smokes... an HD 4670 AGP is an insane find inside an old XPS. Congrats!

IDK, I'd be more amazed to find one in a cheap case socket A, K7S5A board or something.

Decided to move my attention to nVIDIA side for a while... Having only experienced FX5200 of the infamous FX line I decided to look for their higher tier cousins.

At first I was aiming for an AOpen 5900XT with Hercules fan, it was very good condition but someone got to it before me... and than I found this baby, Leadtek Winfast A350XT. Visually look quite good and it was advertised as working. Can't wait to see what these "higher-end" FX cards can do. 🙃

BitWrangler wrote on Yesterday, 12:30:

Ozzuneoj wrote on Yesterday, 02:39:

cansting wrote on Yesterday, 02:07:

Got working gen 2 XPS dimension for $35 today, good deal as 9800pro they shipped those with is worth more. What was my surprise when I got back home and discovered that there was no 9800 pro, just this bad boy...

Holy smokes... an HD 4670 AGP is an insane find inside an old XPS. Congrats!

IDK, I'd be more amazed to find one in a cheap case socket A, K7S5A board or something.

Absolutely, that'd be even more crazy!

Still... opening up a Dell that was sold with a pretty well balanced high end video card + CPU combo from ~2003 and finding the last AGP card ever produced (from 2009) is pretty unexpected. Especially given the finicky nature of that card with regard to drivers (so I have heard). Someone apparently loved their XPS and wanted to keep using it as long as that old Northwood could hold out. Can't imagine running one of those for games in 2009 or later!

Ozzuneoj wrote on Yesterday, 23:40:

Someone apparently loved their XPS and wanted to keep using it as long as that old Northwood could hold out.

Exactly my thought, enjoyable moment tho - looking for 9800pro and getting one ot the top3 agp cards ever existed (if not the best one)

hi everyone,

I have been busy whit work issues but in my spare time I still search far and wide for odd vintage computer stuff.
From friends I had some donations , 2 systems, 5 motherboards a couple of cards, also in the lot came a bunch of miscellaneous flat cables, floppy an optical drives drives of little interest.

First a Compaq persario 5166. It has a odd motherboard with a K6-II @333mhz, and a ESS Solo1 onboard. Luckily the onboard vram for the 530 SIS is present. The interesting thing about this machine is that Compaq went overboard with the marketing stuff, because the front label mentions some technology that is a bit of a stretch, like Aureal A3D, XG Wavetable and the cherry on top, the AGP logo (no agp was found in this machine).

The second system is a locally assembled machine by a store that has long been out of business, HB Informática. Midtower case, Pentium II motherboard and SB 16 vibra.

...to be continued ..

3 Motherboard working, 2 of them slot 1, the other an LGA 775.

This Shuttle had a corrupted bios, and for some reason the retroweb had the info as if it was a VIA chipset, only that mine has an Intel Bx.... All the bios form retroweb failed. Managed to find a 128GB patched bios that did work from another source.

The other 2 had issues with shorts on power rails and failure to address the flashrom. Those are in the pipeline to be repaired.

Also 2 cards that may be useful, a nic from digital, and a SounBlaster Live!.

In the acquisition front, I managed to find 2 motherboards fro MSI, and they stand decades apart.

For some, not vintage, but in the days of disposable everything, I feel that it qualifies.

Next a raiser for a somewhat obscure ACER motherboard...

Xicor wrote on Today, 11:36:

hi everyone, […]
Show full quote

hi everyone,

I have been busy whit work issues but in my spare time I still search far and wide for odd vintage computer stuff.
From friends I had some donations , 2 systems, 5 motherboards a couple of cards, also in the lot came a bunch of miscellaneous flat cables, floppy an optical drives drives of little interest.

First a Compaq persario 5166. It has a odd motherboard with a K6-II @333mhz, and a ESS Solo1 onboard. Luckily the onboard vram for the 530 SIS is present. The interesting thing about this machine is that Compaq went overboard with the marketing stuff, because the front label mentions some technology that is a bit of a stretch, like Aureal A3D, XG Wavetable and the cherry on top, the AGP logo (no agp was found in this machine).

The attachment Compaq_5166_01.jpg is no longer available

The attachment Compaq_5166_02.jpg is no longer available

The attachment Compaq_5166_03.jpg is no longer available

The attachment Compaq_5166_04.jpg is no longer available

The second system is a locally assembled machine by a store that has long been out of business, HB Informática. Midtower case, Pentium II motherboard and SB 16 vibra.

The attachment HB_tower_01.jpg is no longer available

...to be continued ..

I think the Compaq probably touted AGP because of internal AGP bus to SiS 3xx onboard graphics. I believe that line of machines is the sole reason that odd speed K6-2s like the 380 exist.

Xicor wrote on Today, 12:14:

Also 2 cards that may be useful, a nic from digital, and a SounBlaster Live!.

I always liked DEC NICs, and found them nice to run back in the day. Digital Equipment Corp were "in at the birth" of Ethernet and had a decade in the game before these Johnny come latelys like 3Com and Intel got into it.

Xicor wrote on Today, 11:36:

hi everyone,

First a Compaq persario 5166. It has a odd motherboard with a K6-II @333mhz, and a ESS Solo1 onboard. Luckily the onboard vram for the 530 SIS is present. The interesting thing about this machine is that Compaq went overboard with the marketing stuff, because the front label mentions some technology that is a bit of a stretch, like Aureal A3D, XG Wavetable and the cherry on top, the AGP logo (no agp was found in this machine).

The integrated graphics chip in the SiS 530 is connected internally via the AGP bus, which is why the statement on the sticker is somewhat misleading—there is no external AGP slot, but technically, the PC does contain an AGP graphics.
The same may be true for audio—if a chip supports these standards even through software emulation alone, the marketing department is more than happy to highlight them in brochures and such. I have no idea if that’s the case with the ESS Solo mentioned here.

Edit: BitWrangler was faster 😀

Now the proper vintage and obscure hardware. One Acer 486 motherboard with a lot of integration an a eurocard interface for VGA. Cant find a single reference to the PC that this MB was part of.

It has 2 sockets for 486, maybe for DX or SX, and a co-processor for Weitek 4167.

Also an ECS FX-3000, a 386/486 motherboard with a nice cpu and co-processor combo:

Next a Late 486 motherboard from Mitac, the PH4500A, Isa+PCI+VLB:

Last but not the least, a beast of a motherboard from Fortron, the NetSet 486 EISA:

It is obscure as it gets. The only info to track the brand was the uncommon bios post, that refers the model as being "NetSet Computer". It was made by Fortron, and the company is still around, now making the good quality PSU, but from 1991, I can only find a few ads from magazines. It does boot, but I have noticed some instability that I have tracked to IC U91, it needs re-flow on a couple of pins.

Ydee wrote on Today, 12:32:

The integrated graphics chip in the SiS 530 is connected internally via the AGP bus, which is why the statement on the sticker i […]
Show full quote

Xicor wrote on Today, 11:36:

hi everyone,

First a Compaq persario 5166. It has a odd motherboard with a K6-II @333mhz, and a ESS Solo1 onboard. Luckily the onboard vram for the 530 SIS is present. The interesting thing about this machine is that Compaq went overboard with the marketing stuff, because the front label mentions some technology that is a bit of a stretch, like Aureal A3D, XG Wavetable and the cherry on top, the AGP logo (no agp was found in this machine).

The integrated graphics chip in the SiS 530 is connected internally via the AGP bus, which is why the statement on the sticker is somewhat misleading—there is no external AGP slot, but technically, the PC does contain an AGP graphics.
The same may be true for audio—if a chip supports these standards even through software emulation alone, the marketing department is more than happy to highlight them in brochures and such. I have no idea if that’s the case with the ESS Solo mentioned here.

Edit: BitWrangler was faster 😀

I do realize that the SIS 530 probably has a AGP capable core, but its implemented in silicon, there is no AGP bus outside the silicon. At least in Portugal it was common to see one of those machines running as a "demo" on stores, and obviously the sticker would induce the buyer to assume that an AGP slot would be available. Also the claim of XG wavetable, cant be from the ess Solo1, as I know it is only ESFM capable, and as far as I can understand it doesnt support A3D. So a sleazy deceptive tactic at best.