First post, by Srandista
- Rank
- Oldbie
Since my first "retro" PC was such a overkill and kinda pointless for Win 98 use (it was really geared mainly for XP use), I told myself, that this time I'll try to make actually 98 build, with reasonable specs for this OS.
So, which parts I used for this one?
MTB: ASRock K7S41GX
CPU: AMD Athlon XP 3000+ Barton
COOLER: Arctic Cooling Copper Silent 2 TC
RAM: 512MB (2x256MB) DDR-333
GPU: GeForce4 Ti4200 64MB
HDD: 4GB CF card
SC: Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 SB0100
DVD: LG GDR-8163B IDE DVD-ROM
FDD: Gotek + OLED display
PSU: Eurocase 400W (23A 5V rail)
CASE: Eurocase MC X203 EVO mATX
This time, I started from motherboard. I went with K7S41GX in mATX format (if I would knew back then...), because it's one of the few motherboards, which officially supports Geode NX CPU. I bought one quite some time ago, because I was planning Socket A build, but wasn't sure, if my PSU would be up to the task, and Geode really just sips the power. Board came with Sempron 2200+ and cooler. Then I took DDR1 RAM from my previous build, along with the PSU and DVD drive. For a GPU, I went with GeForce4 Ti, since it should be more compatible for this kind of build then ATI cards, and I finally want to use some Nvidia card (never had one before). I would have to do something with fan though, because man, that thing is LOUD! Then, I was pretty sure, that BIOS will have to be updated and since this is pretty old board, update from DOS is the only way for it. So I bought Gotek, and also swap the default display, which is next to useless, for OLED one. Good thing I've done that, since board came with initial BIOS, of course. Last, but not least, I got Sound Blaster Live! 5.1.
Once I got all the parts, I started to putting them into new mATX case and let me tell you, what a pain it was... I never build mATX machine before and now I know, that I'll never build another one again. Building in full ATX case it's just such a better experience, especially if you build older machine with IDE and floppy cables. I mean, I can't argue how compact this mATX PC is, even with optical drive installed, but man, I really didn't enjoy building this machine, especially the finish with connecting all cables to board and drives. Speaking of drives, since my recently bought SLC SSD hasn't arrived yet, I used one of my spare CF card, and was pleasantly surprised, how drama free it was. Installation of Win 98 on it went without a hitch.
Currently, I did test mainly Win 98, and everything works so far. Did some quick benchmarks, and machine was getting predictable scores. Next it some DOS testing, I'm curious, how will SB Live! fare in this matter.
As for the upgrades, as I said previously, SSD will definitely find a home in this machine, once I receive it. And also, I recently bought Athlon XP 3000+ with Barton core, I'm really curious, if PSU would be able to power it.
Once again, like in my another topic, I know that 1 picture speaks for 1000 words, so here you go, I present you my new Socket A machine :)
And as with previous build, I'll update this topic with any relevant upgrade.
Socket 775 - ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA, Pentium E6500K, 4GB RAM, Radeon 9800XT, ESS Solo-1, Win 98/XP
Socket A - Chaintech CT-7AIA, AMD Athlon XP 2400+, 1GB RAM, Radeon 9600XT, ESS ES1869F, Win 98