VOGONS


First post, by Paadam

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Had this kind of build in the back of my mind for long time, finally got a suitable motherboard (Tyan S7002) locally at whopping 15 euros but obviously with a quirk: CPU0 socket had several bent pins and was not working. Got them straightened up with microscope and it POSTed up nicey with two X5550 CPU's I had around. After I got the board working I ordered two X5690's: 6 cores, 12 threads each, 130W TDP 😀

Board has one 16x PCIe and three 8x PCIe slots, no onboard sound so I grabbed some SoundBlaster card with PCIe interface.
Bad thing is that the 8x slots are quite close to 16x slot which means that SoundBlaster blocks off graphics cards fan. Since there is unpopulated PCIe 8x slot too I will sloder slot there and move sound card further that way.
Graphics is suitable monster from that period: MSI GTX 480 Lightning. Maybe I will replace it with something more modern, we'll see. At this time prices for anything more modern like GTX 1060/1070 are insane. I bought GTX 1060 6GB for 120 euros two years ago and thought I paid a bit much, now they are like 300 euros, ykes (n)
So, spec list:

*Tyan S7002 dual 1366
*2x Xeon X5550 CPU's (soon X5690)
*24 GB DDR3 ECC (6* 4GB)
*MSI GTX480 Lightning
*Chieftec fulltower case
*Chieftec 750W PSU

Pics and updates coming soon.. stay tuned!

Many 3Dfx and Pentium III-S stuff.
My amibay FS thread: www.amibay.com/showthread.php?88030-Man ... -370-dual)

Reply 2 of 6, by Paadam

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I will use regular SATA SSD as system drive, and since I have several SATA HDD's laying around will use those to store data.
USB 2.0 will be enough for me, my board is stripped down version, does not have SAS, sound or PS2 ports.

Many 3Dfx and Pentium III-S stuff.
My amibay FS thread: www.amibay.com/showthread.php?88030-Man ... -370-dual)

Reply 3 of 6, by Almoststew1990

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I would definitely drop in the 1060, those CPUs are capable of much more than what a 480 can handle! That's basically a pretty capable modern machine with the 1060 in it.

Reply 4 of 6, by Paadam

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Small update.
Since the Tyan board died two years ago I purchased Supermicro X8DTL, two Xeon X5690 CPU's and put GTX 1070Ti 8GB in there. Still 24 GB RAM, 1000W power supply.
Using it pretty much daily computer, with nice HSF with 6x heatpipes and it is quite silent too.
Occasional gaming etc.
Running Windows 10 and 12 cores/24 threads it has impressive computing power 😀

Many 3Dfx and Pentium III-S stuff.
My amibay FS thread: www.amibay.com/showthread.php?88030-Man ... -370-dual)

Reply 5 of 6, by Errius

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That board lacks a PCIe x16 slot, which will be a problem for gaming.

I'm running an X8DAL which is similar but does have x16.

And yes, these rigs are still competitive today (though power-hungry). I'm going to run mine until Windows 10 goes out of support.

Is this too much voodoo?

Reply 6 of 6, by Paadam

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No problem with gaming, the x8 slot is more than enough for 1070 Ti. Not sure if it is even measurable, my guesstimate would be somewhere in the region of few percent.

Many 3Dfx and Pentium III-S stuff.
My amibay FS thread: www.amibay.com/showthread.php?88030-Man ... -370-dual)