A couple of benchmarks:

Game versions used:

• FarCry v1.4 benchmarked using the "HardwareOC FarCry Benchmark" at the "Ultra Detail" preset
• Doom 3 v1.31 benchmarked at the "Ultra Quality" preset using the built-in "timedemo demo1 usecache" console command
• Splinter Cell Chaos Theory v1.05 benchmarked using the stock "Timedemo.bat" file. VSync and Anti Aliasing are turned off, all other settings have been fully maxed out.

Note: I only included the 800x600 benchmarks to showcase how CPU bottlenecked this build is. Basically, I'm getting the same frame rate at the lowest and highest resolution. 😁

That's a very nice Athlon 64 build. Those Nforce 4 DFI boards were fantastic they still are. I wish DFI still made motherboards for consumer PC's instead of just industrial PC stuff.

Yeah, it's too bad DFI doesn't make consumer grade boards anymore. Their stuff was top notch. In hindsight, it's a bit strange reading about people who had so much trouble with nForce4 motherboards while I only experienced smooth sailing with mine. Even weirder considering that it ran an overclocked Venice A64 3000+ @ 2.2GHz for years, with just stock air cooling.

My only pet peeve with this board is the placement of PCIe slots. Basically, if you use a GPU with a large heatsink, it will block out the two slots below it, leaving just the topmost PCIe x4 slot accessible. Not very upgrade friendly.

Same here I only ever used Nforce based boards in my builds. I have built a ton of systems based around all of the Nforce boards of the course of time for friends and family and never ever had issues with any of them. I also only used boards from Abit or DFI.

Hahaha that motherboard box definitely screams mid-2000's.

And is that a Thermaltake Xasyr on the boxart?

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2021-01-16, 15:29:

I also only used boards from Abit or DFI.

Abit boards always worked great for me as well. My KT7A is still alive and kicking today, and I bought it back in 2001. And the ZM6 which I got later is in excellent condition too. Never had any stability problems and none of the capacitors on either board ever needed replacement.

border collie21 wrote on 2021-01-16, 21:19:

Hahaha that motherboard box definitely screams mid-2000's.

Heh, yeah they really went for that "rad" aesthetic on the box cover. I remember chuckling at the design even back in 2005. 😁

The box has some nice goodies though, and I'm glad I kept it all this time. The rounded IDE and floppy cables are neat, and the jumper puller is a nifty little extra too.

i see a ton of what looks to be chemicon KZG capacitors here... assuming that's true and you care about that board long-term i would suggest to look into a recap, even if things are working fine now. it's a well-known defective series that has a tendency to leak through the bottom bung, even if the caps look fine from above. the issue can really just be spotted by looking at them from the side, on some typically the bung will be bulging out.

if you need more proof and pictures search the badcaps forum for that series.

auron wrote on 2021-01-17, 10:06:

i see a ton of what looks to be chemicon KZG capacitors here...

How does one identify those capacitors?

I went to the badcapps forums but I cannot view any photos there without registering. I can take a few close up shots of my board if it helps.

if you search for pictures of those caps, you should see where on the cap it should say KZG. note that there's many visually similar looking series like KY and those are all good to my knowledge, it's KZG and afaik probably also KZJ that should be replaced.

no need for a pic, actually the bottom bulging can be quite subtle from the ones i have seen a video card, if i wouldn't have read about this i probably wouldn't have given a second thought. well, apart from the electrolyte leaking out, but even that can be mistaken for dust at a glance. it doesn't matter anyway if they have already leaked or not, it's better to get rid of them sooner than later before that happens.

auron wrote on 2021-01-17, 10:43:

if you search for pictures of those caps, you should see where on the cap it should say KZG. note that there's many visually similar looking series like KY and those are all good to my knowledge, it's KZG and afaik probably also KZJ that should be replaced

I just took a closer look and I see a bunch of them with KY and a few with KZG marks as well. Visually, they look fine i.e. no bulging on the sides nor on the top.

However, if as you say the entire KZG series was bad, I will look into changing them.

it could be that the KZGs aren't placed in very stressful positions in the circuit or haven't seen excessive heat, which is said to accelerate the failure process a lot. electrolytic caps can definitely dry out without any signs whatsoever though and for KZG the evidence is certainly there to say it's a bad series.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2021-01-17, 06:56:

Abit boards always worked great for me as well. My KT7A is still alive and kicking today, and I bought it back in 2001. And the […]
Show full quote

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2021-01-16, 15:29:

I also only used boards from Abit or DFI.

Abit boards always worked great for me as well. My KT7A is still alive and kicking today, and I bought it back in 2001. And the ZM6 which I got later is in excellent condition too. Never had any stability problems and none of the capacitors on either board ever needed replacement.

border collie21 wrote on 2021-01-16, 21:19:

Hahaha that motherboard box definitely screams mid-2000's.

Heh, yeah they really went for that "rad" aesthetic on the box cover. I remember chuckling at the design even back in 2005. 😁

The box has some nice goodies though, and I'm glad I kept it all this time. The rounded IDE and floppy cables are neat, and the jumper puller is a nifty little extra too.

I have a Kt7a-raid my parents bought me new and 3 years ago I built a system around it for my son to play with and it See's a ton of use and its just rock solid reliable.

I'd choose sentimental link over outright performance every time.
Fire a game up on this and your back in the early 2000's, where as if you did the same thing on say a S775 PC your now just playing a game form 20 odd years ago.
Helps the hardware is really nice to start with.

I was also surprised how much difference the X-Fi made although I went the other way and temporally stole the card for another build. onboard sound was just flat and lifeless.

chinny22 wrote on 2021-01-18, 10:00:

I was also surprised how much difference the X-Fi made although I went the other way and temporally stole the card for another build. onboard sound was just flat and lifeless.

It really is amazing. Truth be told, experiencing proper hardware-accelerated EAX is one of my main reasons for replaying XP era games.

I recently completed Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory on this rig, and from the very first level I was blown away by the EAX effects. Specifically, when you exit the caves and enter the area with all the tents and it starts raining. When you enter one of those tents, you can really feel those raindrops bouncing off of the roof, especially when using headphones. Kudos to the developers!

looks great, I can't think of a 2006 game that wouldn't run on this

gerry wrote on 2021-01-18, 10:47:

looks great, I can't think of a 2006 game that wouldn't run on this

Oblivion struggles a bit in towns dropping to around 30 FPS. Most likely bottlenecked by the CPU since it happens in lower resolutions too.

It's still fairly playable though, and in dungeons the frame rate is usually in the 50-60 range.

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2021-01-15, 21:48:

That's a very nice Athlon 64 build. Those Nforce 4 DFI boards were fantastic they still are. I wish DFI still made motherboards for consumer PC's instead of just industrial PC stuff.

Same, that's basically why I picked up my X58 Lanparty board back in Sept.

2006 games would not run great on that CPU but any game up to 2005 would run perfectly fine with max settings! Also the GPU is from 2008 and is seriously better than anything in the Geforce 7 or Radeon X1K series. I tested FEAR on a 19 inch monitor with 1280*1024 resolution with 6800 ultra and it struggles at max settings; same with 7800gtx but with 8800ggtx it runs just fine!

Yup, the CPU is the main bottleneck.

That said, 2006 was somewhat of a transition year, with Vista coming into the picture and removing EAX hardware support. Fortunately, most games released from that point onward tend to work fine on newer systems, with EAX being handled through ALchemy / OpenAL, if applicable. So, anything that's too demanding for this rig, I can likely play on my modern PC.