First time poster! (and my rig)

[Donut Dan]

Hey, it's me, Donut Dan! Not like you would know who I am, since I just joined haha. Well, it's been a long time coming, but I can finally count myself as one of the Illustrious PC master race! I don't really have the resources to devote to a properly high end gaming PC like many enthusiasts, but along the same vein as the YouTuber RandomGaminginHD, sometimes you just have to make do, and be satisfied with good enough. Therefore, the specifications are as follows:

 

CPU: Xeon L5506.

Motherboard: HP Z400 workstation motherboard.

GPU: Gigabyte RX 570 4GB (more on that later).

RAM: 3x2GB DDR3 1333, two ECC and one regular.

PSU: Corsair TX650.

SSD: Fattydove Racing 240GB (thanks Linus).

Case: Original DELL® Cardboard box™

 

Ladies and gentlemen, I present: the Trash Beauty...

 

 

 

 

Now a few things may jump out at you first. One of the biggest eyesores, depending on how you look at it, would be the 24 pin extension. Now if you've ever worked with one of these motherboards, you may know that the 24 pin is actually a proprietary connector. The physical layout is identical, but the wiring is not the same, and you WILL kill something with a standard PSU. The adapter I found is super cheap and seems to work quite nice, while also not looking too terrible. The ram, of course, is all mismatched. The center stick (which has to be there, because otherwise the motherboard will say it fails to function and deactivates it) is some random DDR3 I found in some E-waste, and the two sticks accompanying i are the cheapest DDR3 I could find on eBay, and they are both ECC, which I don't think matters because I believe the lack of ECC on the center stick deactivates that feature.

 

In addition to that, you'll see that the PCIe 6+2 connector has conspicuously been left as a mere 6 pin connector. Well, a friend of mine purchased this RX 570 off eBay, and whaddya know, the thing's busted. Any load at the default settings will have the PC immediately blackscreen, and it has to be restarted. The warranty was attached to a non-US serial number, so Gigabyte won't service it. Therefore, I've turned the power limits and voltage way down, which has actually made this GPU able to render 3D scenes once more.

 

All in all, this build was an absolute steal. The CPU and cooler were from a friend recycling an old server, the PSU was being replaced, so I got all that for free, the SSD was a delightful cheap chinesium treat, and the motherboard was an absolute bargain at about $30, which is really something for an old 1366 board. But enough about that, how does she game?

 

 

 

 

 

First things first, obviously the issues won't go away immediately. Before nuking the sliders in radeon settings all the way to minimum, I tried a partial downclock. No dice, as you can see something from the video memory to the graphics chip is dead as a doornail. With some more direct tuning, I can get actual renders to work!  Behold, the beautiful experience of Halo: Reach, anywhere from 15 to 60 fps! Overwatch is somehow a lot more comfortable, ruinning close to 60 consistently with occasional drops to the low 40s, which is fine by me. All in all, hard to complain with a PC that cost less than $100.

[Fasauceome]

She's gorgeous

 

Edit: you should check this out

 

[DarkSilentSC]

This is first time for me to see a computer booting up and playing games with both ECC and non-ECC memory installed to a motherboard!

[Donut Dan]

12 minutes ago, DarkSilentSC said:

This is first time for me to see a computer booting up and playing games with both ECC and non-ECC memory installed to a motherboard!

looks I made a bit of a blunder, the eBay listing says that it's ECC but apparently it is not

 

otherwise totalwidth would be larger. Either way, not gonna complain, too late for a refund but ECC is not important to me

[Donut Dan]

She has found her forever home, and she's stunning