Linus' First Gaming PC Build

[PCgamer324]

My first system had a PowerPC @500mhz with 64mb ram and and ATI Rage 128 16mb... Played Deus Ex, Unreal Tournament and Doom 2 on that system; good times... Back when Macs had games

[RocketTheHedgehog]

How did you get drivers for windows xp?

[NumLock21]

I still remember those cpu cooler mounts. pain in the butt to install as well as to take out. Many have damage their boards because of this and the other problem is the plastic clip on the socket is so weak, they easily break off. A reason why some AMD fan clip have 3 holes, is when the middle clip on the socket breaks off, at least you will have the one on the left and right. Later boards, they actually put a plastic tape over that area so boards won't get scratched by the fan clips.

 

Intel's Pentium 3's 1GHz fan mount was much worse. Their plastic clip are like 1 time use. Don't do it carefully and what you get is a broken fan clip along with a damage socket.

[SansVarnic]

Love this, takes me back....

[B16CXHatch]

Very similar to my first build, though mine was a little stouter. The original incarnation of mine was an AMD Athlon XP 3000+ (400 MHz FSB version) on a Gigabyte GA-7N400-L motherboard (nForce 2 400) with 512MB of PQI RAM, a Jetway GeForce 2 MX400, SoundBlaster Live! 5.1, some absolute crap Maxtor 160GB HDD, a beige CD-ROM drive of some kind (reused from parents old PC), a beige CD burner of some kind (ditto), and some beige floppy drive (ditto again) all wrapped up in an MGE Sidewinder case that came with a crap 400W power supply. I also had a crap cooler. Mine used a traditional motor but naturally had blue LEDs. Didn't cool for crap.

 

It went through several upgrades including multiple video cards but it finally ended up with the case, power supply, motherboard, CPU, and boot drive remaining the same but it got a second stick of 512MB PQI RAM, an EVGA GeForce 6600GT, a SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS, a black Lite-On DVD-ROM, a black Lite-On DVD Burner, a different but now black floppy drive, a second hard drive (80GB Samsung) and some cheap but effective Cooler Master cooler with no lights.

 

I had some 17" CTX CRT monitor at first, then a 19" Dell CRT. I had a 19" Acer LCD for about 2 weeks and then blew up the motherboard. I think I still had a Logitech Elite Keyboard, a Logitech MX 510 mouse, and Logitech Z-640 speakers.

 

After blowing up the motherboard, I took every part from that computer other than the CPU and the motherboard (obviously) and crammed it all into the old Compaq I had bought off an ex-girlfriend for next to nothing. It had an Athlon XP 2600+ (266MHz FSB version) on some VIA chipset. The processor was definitely a little slower but it still played CS:Source like a champ with all the other goodies crammed into it.

[givegomezthegun]

14 hours ago, JPotze said:

But can it run crysis. haha. ah. the term cable management didn't exist back in the day when we crammed IDE cables in the back of the hard drives.

Not entirely true, I spent a LOT of time separating those IDE cables with a razor blade so that I could wrap them, or used some very creative folding to tuck them out of the way  

[ltguy]

Seriously this a pretty new pc for Linus's first gaming pc. Guess Linus is younger than i thought. My first gaming pc was based around a Cryix 6x86. Even after that i had a amd k62 450 mhz with a voodoo banshee, still older than this build.

[Jer45]

15 hours ago, gonvres said:

Great video. Probably my favourite LTT video in a while.

 

Almost identical to my first system too, except it was a XP1800. But very similar era.

I completely forgotten about setting the hard drives to master and slave, man, that brings back memories of trying to work out what to do.

 

15 hours ago, Ellen_orangecloud said:

So that's why my dad was like:
"It's really hard to build a computer! You need a master and slave drive, optical drive *other things I didn't hear or see from Techquickie etc." 

After seeing this, old computers look really cool imo XDDD 

at 15 i find those ide cables and jumpers really easy, i have a ibm pc 350 and a pentium 3 gateway tucked away in the closet that i occasionally take out, but damn those old drives are loud

[PianoPlayer88Key]

Wow, this brings back memories for me too!

 

I'm currently on my 2nd PC (3rd if you count my concurrently-owned laptop), so my first isn't all that special.  It had an Athlon 64 X2 4000+ CPU, 4GB of DDR2-800 (2GB originally), Gigabyte GA-MA69G-S3H board, Xion XON-303 case, OCZ 500-watt StealthXStream PSU, and either 80+250GB IDE or 750GB SATA HDDs (or maybe all above, I forget), etc.  I bought the parts in Feb 2008 (except for some hard drives & RAM) and put it together myself.

 

My dad got his first PC when I was 7, almost 8, back in January 1989.   We still have the invoice for it...

 

 

I wonder how good of a computer he could get for that price now?   (I'm thinking Socket 2011-3 wouldn't be out of reach at that price.  Btw that would include peripherals and software.)

 

And here's a few-picture collage of that system.

 

I still remember playing games like sopwith2, Captain Comic, alleycat, etc. on that computer.   Also there was Gapper - that was one of quite a few games that tied the game speed to the CPU clock speed.  It was quite playable on that computer (although considerably easier on an 8088-4.77 of course!), but goes too fast on newer PCs.  I'd like to see someone try it on a Xeon E5-2699 v4, or an i7-6950X.  Or, would single core performance affect it more, considering it's an old game that came out before multi-core CPUs?  In that case, maybe an i7-6700K overclocked to 6 GHz (referencing one of the 3DMark Steam achievements - 50% overclock) would be more appropriate?  (Or would the 50% overclock be in reference to turbo boost?  On the 6700K that'd make it 6.3 GHz, and on the 4790K it'd be 6.6 GHz.)

 

For more mainstream/production (non-gaming)software, we used MS-DOS 3.3, Menu Works (forget who it's by), PC Tools, PFS First Choice, PC-Write, Dr Halo, etc.   IIRC, the printer was a Panasonic KX-P1080i or something like that - a 9-pin dot matrix tractor feed printer.  That thing lasted a long time, we kept it probably longer than we should have.   Mouse I think was a Genius mouse or something.   (I remember my older brother changed the driver to say Junius mouse driver - my cousin (2 years younger than me) used to like to call him that when she was little.)

[xnamkcor]

My first PC:

Had a steel case(My research says it was very close to the Cheiftec/Antec SX1000). I still have it to this day. Still works. It's a case, made of steel. You can kill a horse with it.

AMD 2000 XP Single core 32-bit

I forget how much RAM or the speed. Probably 512MB

My first GPU was the ATI All-In-Wonder VE. A PCI GPU with not only TV/Video input/output, but with a video delay short enough to use my computer to play PS2 games. Later I upgraded to an ATI All-In-Wonder 2006 AGP Edition for Direct X 9 hardware support for my newly purchased copy of Garry's Mod(I owned HL2 for a long time before that, but it took until Garry's Mod went paid that I felt I needed those awesome light refraction graphics).

Sound Card was whatever was built in, but later I upgraded to a DiamondMM 5.1 card for the higher sample rate and bit depth.

I forget what Optical drive I started with, but eventually my aunt bought me a Sony DRU-720 for 99 USD.

My grandma paid way too much(300 USD) for a Viewsonic flatscreen that was 19" and 1024x768. Thing died on my faster than any of my LCDs have.

I don't remember much of anything about the motherboard, but I probably still have it, but I have so many it would be hard for me to identify it. It got replaced by an ASUS with an "8" and and "X" and "Deluxe" in the name. Then that went bad and I went for half a year without a computer until I found a motherboard, with RAM and an AMD 3000+ pre-installed for 40 USD at a second-store. All my old hardware worked with it.

 

When I went to college I got a Sony Vaio with an AMD A10-5475 mobile and 4GB of RAM. I almost immediately bought a 4GB stick at a second-hand store for 15 USD. Later I would buy an 8GB stick for 25 USD, then another when it went on sale again. Add an LG 22EA53 on articulating arm, a Sony Bluetooth soundbar, a Sony KD-34XBR960 and some Logitech leopards and mice and you have my current setup.

 

I'd say I've owned 2 computers in my life and one "lasted" for about 10 years. Though, it went through about 3-5 Motherboard changes and a major GPU upgrade.

[PianoPlayer88Key]

@xnamkcor One of my dad's PCs had an ATI All-In-Wonder GPU.  (Not the one I mentioned in my above post, though - I think it was either the 486 he bought in 1995, or the 1.4 GHz Athlon he bought in 2002.)  I remember the video inputs on those, and I remember hooking up our old VHS VCR to do video capture.  I also remember hooking something up wrong one time, and frying the video card.

 

I wish I could still get something like that today - a graphics card with video input capability so I could hook up an older VHS or 8mm analog VCR and do video capture.   I wonder if anyone will put that capability on one of their GTX 1070 or R9 490 cards?  I'd prefer EVGA, ASUS, Gigabyte, but would consider other good quality brands.  Or to keep within my $300-350 GPU budget, would I have to settle for a GTX 1060 or R9 480X, or budget extra for the capture capability?  If I had to go with a $500-550 solution, I'd like GTX 1080 or R9 490X performance or whatever the next Fury would be.

[SteveGrabowski0]

I love those old Athlon XP chips. I had an 1800+ with a Radeon 8500 and my friends would go nuts seeing GTA 3 at 1600x1200 when they were all playing it 640x480 on PS2.

[Headshot_]

My first PC was a Pentium 4 with integrated graphics. I forget how much RAM and HDD storage it had. Shit ran Underground 1 at like single digits to below 20 FPS. On the lowest settings. It was so bad the game wouldn't let me change my settings.

 

My next PC was a C2D, GeForce 9400GT from Zotac and 4 gigs of RAM. A HUGE upgrade from whatever I had before.

 

Then an iMac with an i5 2500S, 6750M 512MB GPU, 500GB of storage and 4 gigs of ram.

 

And now my laptop. There's always something that prevents me from building a new PC. The latest reason why I can't build a new PC is because of school fees and IGCSE fees. Goddamnit

[Zodiark1593]

Parents are still running an old HP with an Athlon XP 3000+. I'd be willing to bet they paid big on it too. No dGPU sadly. That Unichrome IGP is a dog... a one legged chihuahua with no teeth to be exact.

[Praxis727]

Linus I would seriously have thought your first gaming pc was older then that.  Hellz even the one I used to have was older then that.  Used to be all amd back in the day tho.  Was never a fan of celeron and good pentium chips were expensive.  Amd CPU's were just as fast back then but also more stable in my opinion.  My amd build lasted years without cleaning.  was like an old k6 I think.  

[xnamkcor]

49 minutes ago, SteveGrabowski0 said:

I love those old Athlon XP chips. I had an 1800+ with a Radeon 8500 and my friends would go nuts seeing GTA 3 at 1600x1200 when they were all playing it 640x480 on PS2.

How did you overcome the VRAM limitation and get it to go above 640x960? Did you run the game at half speed?

[SteveGrabowski0]

7 minutes ago, xnamkcor said:

How did you overcome the VRAM limitation and get it to go above 640x960? Did you run the game at half speed?

On GTA 3? It ran at the same speed the PS2 did, though my framerates were mostly high 20s to low 30s if I remember right. I mostly played at 1280x1024 to always keep above 30 fps. Even Vice City and San Andreas were easily playable at 1280x1024 on 30+ fps on that card. I think I maxed out Vice City and played at medium-high on SA. Hell, even with mods like the Odie Stunt Park GTA 3 ran great on that card. Though I think I turned off trails, I hated the effect and that seemed a real performance killer.

[shdowhunt60]

19 minutes ago, Praxis727 said:

Linus I would seriously have thought your first gaming pc was older then that.  Hellz even the one I used to have was older then that.  Used to be all amd back in the day tho.  Was never a fan of celeron and good pentium chips were expensive.  Amd CPU's were just as fast back then but also more stable in my opinion.  My amd build lasted years without cleaning.  was like an old k6 I think.  

AMD CPU's were faster. The only reason why the Pentium 4 won in some benchmarks was because of Intel rigging them. In real world gaming tests, they were blown out of the way by Athlon 64's.

 

Netburst was a horrible family of CPU's.

[Rammix]

4 hours ago, DEcobra11 said:

Do you mean FX53/FX55/FX60 ?

PLEASE tell me you didn't get rid of it

 

TBH I can't remember the exact chip and I most definitely don't still have it. It would have been lost in the great computer component cull of 2009 when my wife made me get rid of it all. I've always had a problem getting rid of pc stuff because "I might need it one day" I came home one day with it all in a pile and "that look"

[7850OC]

i love the case

 

throw a AM1 machine with an Athlon 5150 (4 cores at 1.6 ghz)

and DDR3 ram in there and keep the other components

and you can start do some cool old OS review in that machine friend 

[dragoon20005]

Here is the link of my AMD Athlon 1GHz Tbird and the Abit VIA KT7A mainboard

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VIA_Technologies

 

Intel based chipset boards are pretty expensive and back then VIA was the maker from Taiwan to reverse engineer Intel chipset and BIOS and modify it so that their VIA chipset also accept Intel CPUs.

 

now these day they have since focus on different products and Intel and AMD dominated the mobo market.

 

 

www.anandtech.com/show/557/8

 

http://www.anandtech.com/show/706

 

it served me well and I was able to play the so called graphics intensive game known as Mechwarrior 4 Vengence.

 

shooting lasers, autocannons and LRMs on enemy battlemechs.

 

 

[mariushm]

My first PC was done with a K6-2 333 Mhz and a PC Chips Elpina M577 motherboard and (I think) 128 MB of memory. I made the PC back in the times when I had no access to Internet (we still had only dial up and parents didn't want to pay huge phone bills) so I relied on information from IT magazines, and this motherboard was top motherboard reviewed in a computer magazine called CHIP (basically a mix of articles translated from the German editions of the magazine and articles written by Romanian authors). This board was on top of that chart for months, best performance for price.

There was also a 3.2 GB Maxtor hard drive, a cheap Samsung CD-RW drive and for video card, my parents (financing the build) could only afford an S3 Trio 64+ something which was acceptable.

In a few months I gathered enough money to buy an S3 Savage 3D card which failed within a month with some kind of vga bios corruption and was replaced by the company with a S3 Savage 4 but this one also failed within a few weeks with the same issue/fault, so the owner of that IT company just got tired and replaced it at no extra cost with a nVidia Vanta video card which was much more expensive at that time, compared to the S3 cards. Finally, I was able to play Half-Life at 800x600 or higher with decent fps .. the S3 Trio could only do 400x300 in Software mode.

I had a 14" Aoc CRT monitor capable of 1024x768 75 Hz , that's all my parents could afford, it was nice.

 

Back then my favourite games were Transport Tycoon Deluxe, Supaplex, Heretic and Half-Life .. the system played them just fine.

[agent_x007]

14 hours ago, DEcobra11 said:

Do you mean FX53/FX55/FX60 ?

PLEASE tell me you didn't get rid of it

 

Lucky for U - U don't have to buy it to see it in action
I own a FX-55 [130nm] and FX-60 and Pentium Extreme Edition (3,46GHz), and yes - they all Can run Crysis  :

FX-55 : 

FX-60 : 

Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3,46GHz :

PS. My first PC :
Celeron 733MHz (180nm/Socket 370)
128MB 100MHz SDRAM
GeForce 2 MX200 (32MB)
Soltek MB (dk. exact model :()
20GB HDD
Sound Blaster 128 (PCI)
Modem 56k

[angelwolf71885]

this video is what got me to join the forums love seeing your first build Linus

my first build was a shuttle MN31N Athlon XP 1700+ and 512 Mb of ram

 

brought back many memory's..

 

im kinda surprised you didn't max out this PC after you got done with memory lane

throw in 3 Gb of ram a 3200+ a top of the line maxed out AGP video card and show the world what almost no one got to see back in the day

 

a pimped out Athlon system...ive been doing some research since this video

and noticed that ALL nForce2 Socket A motherboards only had 3 Ram slots while

VIA motherboards for Socket A notably the KT400 and KT880 had 4 Ram slots supporting 4Gb of ram

[famine]

• AMD K5 100mhz w/ 3dfx Voodoo1 (Canopus Pure3d) w/ 2mb cirrus logic 2d card). (Later put in a Pentium 166mhz o/c to 200mhz because of the terrible FPU on the K5. My Quake2 timedemo FPS increased HUGE)
• Celeron 300a o/c to 450mhz w/ 3dfx Voodoo 2 SLI w/ 2mb cirrus logic 2d card ()
• Pentium 3 650mhz w/ GeForce 2 Ultra. (also had the Voodoo 2s in there for GLIDE games)
• AMD Thunderbird 1200mhz w/ ATI 9700 Pro.
• AMD Athalon 64 3200+ w/ GeForce 8800GTX.  Used this system for a good 4-5 years.

Then I moved to laptops and pretty much stopped gaming since I was a big MMO fan, and all MMOs have sucked since Ultima Online, Asheron's Call, EVE, and to a lesser extent Darkfall. Had a few laptops with mid to low range GPUs that allowed gaming at lower res:

• AMD 3-Core Turion w/ ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2600 XT.
• Intel Core 2 DUO w/ NVIDIA 240M. (Forget the cpu model)

 

Current machine is a laptop with and i7-4702mq with a NVIDIA 760M.
It can play any game out there, tho new games require running at a lower then native res if I wanna get 45+ fps. This will be my last laptop. Its only left my house to bring to my girlfriends, and at home it sits perma connected to a large monitor, mouse, keyboard, speakers, etc