How bad is this $5000 PC from 10 years ago?

[agent_x007]

On 8/6/2019 at 10:37 PM, RobbinM said:

Some suggestions.

The CPU's that were made for this board have much less cache memory than the later 771 chips. They are not the last generation of 771/775 chips to be produced. I suggest you take the highest spec X54xx chips you can find.

BUT, choose ones with 533Mhz FSB. NOT the 800Mhz FSB ones. All the non-core extreme, normal server Xeons were locked. You cannot change multiplier on these CPU's. The ONLY way to overclock, is upping the FSB for those chips. And that's why you need the 533Mhz FSB CPU's. Because, even though it is mentioned on the web, the RAM bus divider settings have never shown in the BIOS for me. So your FSB and RAM speeds are locked to eachother. With 533Mhz FSB CPU and 800Mhz RAM, you can overclock the CPU to at least 800Mhz FSB providing your CPU's can actually keep up. Mine are running 24/7 stable at 3.6Ghz, at almost stock voltage on hot days, and stock voltage in winter.

Upping Vcore hits deminishing returns very quickly for me, almost right above stock, I still have to figure out why. They are pre-core2duo quadcores so I don't blame them so much.

 

...

- This platform was created in a time very similar to today actually. Intel felt AMD breathing down their necks. AMD beat them with the first TRUE dual core CPU's (Athlon 64 X2 series) and intel just edged AMD in the race for a true quadcore, with the Q6600. AMD had to respond with a non-true quadcore, the same way Intel had to respond with a non-true Dual core (remember the Pentium D?). Intel was not waiting for AMD to hit them with their true 8-core CPU but threw this Skulltrail platform together by modifying existing server hardware. 

 

Pull in Anthony, to showcase how you can add an EFI emulation layer on the BIOS, which enables you to boot Windows off a SATA3 or even PCI-e device. Booting Windows 10 off an Optane drive with this old crap? No problem...Keep in mind, that using PCI-e 1.0 limits bandwith for a lot of controllers, especially if they don't have a lot of physical lanes connected.

I better comment this, before someone thinks it's all true...
1) Max. L2 cache you can get for LGA 771/LGA 775 is 12MB (in 2x 6MB slice), there are no Xeon CPUs on this platform that have more than 12MB.
2) There are no X54xx series CPUs with 12MB of cache and FSB slower than 1066MHz (effective) :
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Xeon/TYPE-Xeon 5400.html
3) Highest multiplier for E0 revision chip has X5470 (x11 at 1333MHz FSB). Not sure if you will be able to clock it that much higher on FSB side, considering Dual CPU configuration nature of this platform. Also, QX9775 have both base FSB set at 1600MHz.
4) Pre-Core 2 CPUs are NOT Quad Cores. They only have two cores with enabled Hyper Threading (codename: Presler).
5) AMD never made "non-true quadcore". Phenom I is monolithic Quad Core design from 2007 (B2 revision). 
You can even argue it's more true quad core than Core 2 Quad ever was (monolithic die, IMC).
Q6600 is two Conroe dies in one package (Xeon 54xx are two Wolfdale dies in one package).
6) Intel did Skulltrail for enthusiasts, but I highly doubt it was made to counter AMD at any point.
AMD had 4x4 Quad FX platform that was made from 2x Opteron Dual Core CPUs (Four cores/Threads).
So, one OC'ed Q6600 was capable to compete with it (but not with ALL tasks, since IMC gives really nice boosts to some server stuff).
7) You don't need all the EFI stuff to boot from SATA3 (LOL)
PS. @Krisalex
Like everyone else said : There are no DDR3 boards for Skulltrail (or server stuff, FB-DIMM is the reason). Standard DDR3 is "a thing" that LGA 775 can support via P35/P45/X38/X48 and few cheap chipsets (actually, it's not THAT rare).
However max. DRAM frequency is limited by effective FSB speed of procesor (1333MHz FSB CPU can only set 1333MHz as max. DRAM Frequency).
Also, more than frequency itself, tweaking NB is MUCH MORE valuable for latency and effective bandwidth (strap/perf. level/etc.), assuming BIOS has the options for it.

[Ossprey]

I had this board, never used it though as I could never find the matched CPU's so it landed up in storage then went missing.  Shame that. Brings back memory of the days I was earning too much, but because of the learning experience I rarely have single processor gaming rigs. Intel wasn't the only motherboard company that was trying out this type of thing for sli/crossfire

[RedeyeAce]

Here's mine getting a clean January this year. I hadn't actually fired this up for 9 years, which makes me genuinely want to cry, sounds silly but I doubt I'll ever get rid of it, such an amazing feat of engineering. So without further ado.

 

From the very first oc'able Intel board... 

 

To the large wait for Intel's second... 

 

I truly wanted to upgrade the gfx hardware on the original Skully (yes in my opinion the Nuc "Skulltrail" had the wrong name and the "Hades Canyon" is the true "Skulltrail" mk2.. 

 

The costs on decent Gfx hardware and the additional rareness of the Ram (weighing up the risks on non functional old mac ram) with possibly a new PSU for running said gfx, then working out the running cost on power was the final nail in the coffin as the total combined cost meant that she just wouldn't be realistically feasible.

 

Don't get me wrong, it was a two week wrestle with my conscious vs but it's my baby lol. Oh how sensibility of life choices change when you have a family. 

 

Anyways, really great to see the Danger Den one in the post earlier.. I truly wanted the kit when it was out 10 years ago. If I remember correctly it was the only water cooling solution for it back in the day and I drooled over the speeds on the forums as did all of us back then.. Iirc I also remember a vapor chilled one in the same forum. 

 

I can confirm that mine runs stable @4.2 on air. The Antec P190 (incorporating a 22cm side fan) with the Zalmans obviously were a win.

 

The Cpu's in general were hit and miss with OC capability, the clocks ranged from between 3.8 and 4.2 on air. 

 

1.  Iirc, there's an issue with those nvidia chipsets where one channel has a higher bus throughput in reality.. So sli'ing was 1& 3 or 2&4.. Staring at my picture in wondering now if I put the gfx in the wrong slot.. I think I went on autopilot and put it in slot 1 and I'm now thinking that it should have been 2. 

 

2. There was a modified Bios adapted by one of the actual engineers that worked on the board, which would be worth finding, I came across it again Dec last year, but flattened that particular drive for the "Hades" *cough* "Skully 2".

 

Looking forward to seeing more and additionally being green with envy over what your going to do with it

 

Jay

 

 

[caincha]

Way too much out-of-focus footage… Very annoying…

[ChocolateJollis]

I'd definitely trick it out! Even throw some RTX Titans in there, if you can. I'm now searching for one of these on eBay...

[godsarmy]

On 8/6/2019 at 11:35 AM, Combat tweek said:

My step dad still has the old Danger Den shop computer (he was one of the founders). It's fully water-cooled (CPU's, north bridge, south bridge, and GPU). It only has 4gb or RAM in it but you can play the HELL out of windows desktop experience (win7 at least). Just joined the forms to see if LTT wants it. If anyone can make sure the the LTT crew see this, that would be awesome. Thanks everyone and have an awesome day!

dope im such a huge danger den fan! would be sick to see LTT check it out.

[amdorintel]

zip ties is a nice touch lol

you should have upped your pc building game with green zip ties lol

[Animal901]

On 8/13/2019 at 7:25 PM, lysyjacek666 said:

And I thought that I was the only one still using this system.

Actually I have three of these boards now, It used to run like this when it was still kind of relevant in terms of performance, with different cards and cases over years:

I definately wouldn't recommend this, all of this weight on the chipset caused a NB failure.

 

I found another one with broken PCB but functional NB, so after some reballing it lives to this day in this rather ascetic form.

I use it very rarely but thanks to this board I'm stuck with dual socket systems ever since.

I still have one thats fully original and functional, with original box and most of what it came with. I'm keeping it as a piece of history, because honestly I think it's one of the most interesting pc components ever made.

I think I learned a lot about these boards over the years, so if you have any problems feel free to ask me.

 

BTW I think that after Linus's review prices might spike up a little bit, there's already one on ebay for ~1700$

I was lucky enough to buy all of my boards for no more than 170PLN which is about 50$.

 

Cheers!

 

Ive still got 2 of those cheiftec dragon cases. They're both haswells right now.

[mr mans]

Bringing this thread back to ask a question. I recently got a hold of one of these D5400XS boards and have been tinkering. Intel, in all their wisdom, has removed ALL legacy BIOS and driver files for the older boards and GPUs from their downloads site last November. That means pretty much the only way to get bios files for these older boards is by scrounging them up from forums and such. So here I am: I am looking for Bios 1353, which is file XS54010J.86A.1353.EB.EXE

 

If anyone has this, I would be grateful. I need it specifically to resolve some PCIE card issues I am having

 

EDIT: I managed to get ahold of the Bios 1353 so  yay

[danwat1234]

Surely the reason why CPU usage when playing a 4K Youtube video is only 20% is because the GPU is doing most of the decoding work?

 

I really enjoyed this video. My main rig still uses a similar architecture, a 3.3GHZ X9100 Penryn laptop. Runs dang hot but reasonably fast for what i use it for. But it can barely play a 1080p 60FPS Youtube video without maxxing out a core and stuttering. In VLC player it is much more efficient.

 

That DangerDen system is awesome.

[hgpot]

In the original video, Linus mentioned a few ideas he had with this setup that will take some time/work. Like overclocking, dual RTX cards, sourcing higher-density RAM, etc. Was there ever a follow up? That plus custom watercooling and perhaps an PCIe/NVMe SSD (not for boot of course, but for storage and to see the 10Gbps networking really work) would be nice to see how much one can truly get out of this old hardware. I wonder if the upgrades can make it run Photoshop smooth-ish. 

 

I imagine that, if LMG was around in 2008 with the (equivalent) income that it has in 2021, this would be the platform the editors would use, no? Another video: outfit it with the best  of the best components that would have been available at the time of the CPU/motherboard itself. PSU, GPU, RAM, cooling, etc.

[sl1pkn07]

On 8/5/2019 at 8:44 PM, Overl0rd said:

-Despite the fact that the drivers of the Nforce 100 chips are troublesome in Windows 10, SLI should work fine using PCIe 2 and 4 (I have tested this personally). The problems are less under Windows 7, but still present.

 

Hi. where can find more information about this? why is not possible use slots 1 and 3?. have the same problem with crossfire?

 

greetings

[cmndr]

One interesting bit...

Skulltrail was something I SALIVATED over back in the day.

1 year or so after its release you could get a $250 x58 board + $300ish i7 920, OC the thing to ~4GHz and generally have better performance (~20% faster ST, ~20% lower MT, though faster for anything memory bandwidth starved) for applications that people were using at the time, at a much lower power draw and with much less hassle. I think DDR3 RAM was cheaper than FB-DIMM based DDR2 as well but my memory might be off.

Also you could later swap the i7 920 to something like a $30 for a nice upgrade at the 5-7ish year mark which made it a lot more useful as a secondary system.