A walk down Memory Lane! (2006/2007 Build)

[JayRad]

Hey all,

I became an avid gamer back in 2006 or so, and man do I have nostalgia surrounding old school hardware and applications from back then! For reference, back in 2007 I was rocking an AMD Athlon 64 3400+ CPU @ 2.2GHz, an Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe motherboard (with the SLI chip module onboard to enable to disable SLI), 3GB DDR2 800 memory, and two Gigabyte 7800GT's 256mb. I have always sold my PC builds through the years and continued to upgrade all the way to the point of my existing beast system. However, I recently got inspired to take a trip back in time and revisit the good days of 775 architecture, and build what would have been one of the "more powerful PC's" that we had back in the 2006/2007 era.

 

I would like to use this machine to play games no newer than late 2010, and that is of DX10 or less. (Crysis, Company of Heroes, Bioshock, COD4, Fallout 3 etc etc) It's essentially just going to be a piece of history that I have set to the side to pull out and to show off to nerdy friends; perhaps even run some real modern-day benchmark utilities to see how far old hardware can be pushed! I have already acquired majority of the hardware that I will be using, but I am open to ideas and suggestions from the rest of you PC veterans. Please find the new specs below!

 

 

CASE

I've decided to go with the Antec sx1030b full tower. This is one that I have had kicking around for the last while, and used to be a pretty popular and formidable performance case. It comes fully equipped with 5 x 80mm high CFM antec branded fans, which honestly push a very impressive amount of air. (High noise is the trade off)

 

CPU

I was originally going to settle for something in the Core 2 Quad family, until I came across an article depicting how some users have opted to ditch the 775 CPU, and jump into the Xeon family of intel processor by applying the "771 mod." By all accounts and through online benchmarks, the Xeon E5450 seems to be a damn close competitor to the high-end and considerably more expensive Core 2 Quad 9650. I managed to pick up the Xeon E5450 pre-modded (contact tape already applied to CPU) for a mere $35.00 Canadian. This CPU apparently overclocks quite well too, bearing in mind that you have the proper power and chipset.

 

MOTHERBOARD

This was a toughy. I was scouring all over the internet looking to find a good bang for buck motherboard that would A)be reliable, B)overclock well, C)feature SLI, and D)feature onboard RAID. I happened to come across the XFX NVIDIA 680i LT SLI being sold on Kijiji for $30.00 Canadian, and it came with the original heatsink, a Q6600 CPU, and 8GB Kingston 800MHz memory (2x2GB modules; low profile). This board looks to have mixed reviews, but with a simple "in person" test with the seller onsite, I was confident that this system would work very well with my configuration.

 

MEMORY

As stated earlier, the motherboard came with 8GB Kingston DDR2 800MHz. As the motherboard can only support a max of 8GB, we have no need to seek hardware in this area.

 

GPU

I was super excited to get a move on with this procurement! Looking back I remember the moment I first booted up my Fallout 3 save with my brand new PNY 8800GT. This flagship card completely changed my gaming experience with the PC gaming industry. I was very tempted to include the 8800GT in this build, but opted to aim a little higher since I am looking to milk as much performance as I possibly can with the Xeon E5450 and for the hardware that was available during this builds era. Ergo, in this build we will be dropping in two EVGA 9800GX2's (KO Edition) onto the chipset, giving us optional Quad-SLI capabilities. I always always wanted to try out these cards, but skipped to the 200-series after I was done with my 8-series.

 

PSU

Considering that we are going to be running two 9800GX2's which happen to require a very large amount of power, and plan to overclock, we will be using a much larger PSU than normal. I have lined up a very authentic Thermaltake toughpower 1000watt PSU for this build. It comes with the two rails, and even comes with dual 6-pin PCIe and dual 8-pin PCIe power cables. It is a hybrid modular model that should provide the power we need while harnessing the authentic looks of retro pc gaming power.

 

STORAGE

In the world of storage in 2006/2007, SSD's  were only just breaking onto the scene. Though they were very low capacity and also VERY expensive in these days, they were in fact available and thus will be used in our build for the boot system solely. I once owned a Dell XFR tough laptop that came with a first gen 120GB SSD dated "2006". I can't seem to find the model number on it right now, but can see that the NAND chips read "Samsung." I will document the actual model number later. With regards to the main storage for data and games on the system, well, what do you think we'll use? DUH! Only the WD Velociraptor 10K SATA drives! RAID 0 will be utilized on the chipset with two of these puppies, which theoretically should improve or game load times and general reads/writes. (I am aware that the 680i RAID controller was problematic due to a southbridge limitation, so we will keep this in mind and monitor results!)

 

COOLING

The overclocked Xeon CPU will be cooled using a very retro and awesome Zalman CNPS9500. These were iconic back in the day, and are still seen around from time to time. The original Antec case fans will be reused in this project, as they provide more than adequate airflow to the system components. (Will will change one of the fans to an LED model to emulate that authentic gaming look from back in the 2006/2007 era.)

 

 

 

Will update you again soon!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Inehmo]

19 hours ago, JayRad said:

AMD Athlon 64 3400+ CPU @ 2.2GHz, an Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe motherboard

Didn't know there was a 3400+ for S939. I had 3500+ which was 2,2GHz stock and I had it with eXtreme overclock of 2625MHz with that same Zalman cooler. 3200+ was 2GHz and 3000+ was 1,8GHz. Good 'ol Venice core. 3700+ was 2,2GHz as well but had twice the L2 Cache and used San Diego core. Then there was my dream 4000+ which had that bigger cache and 2,4GHz. 

 

I also had that motherboard. It had tiny chipset fan that would spin 6500rpm and make all the noise in the world. Funniest part? Disconnecting the power for that fan actually lowered my chipset temps! I suppose the fan itself was running so hot. It was my first desktop with X1800XL and 1GB of DDR which I later upgraded to 2GB and felt like I was bleeding edge.  

 

Good times were had with CS:S and CoD2..

 

Looking forward to seeing mor of this build. 

[JayRad]

On 2018-04-27 at 8:57 AM, Inehmo said:

Didn't know there was a 3400+ for S939. I had 3500+ which was 2,2GHz stock and I had it with eXtreme overclock of 2625MHz with that same Zalman cooler. 3200+ was 2GHz and 3000+ was 1,8GHz. Good 'ol Venice core. 3700+ was 2,2GHz as well but had twice the L2 Cache and used San Diego core. Then there was my dream 4000+ which had that bigger cache and 2,4GHz. 

 

I also had that motherboard. It had tiny chipset fan that would spin 6500rpm and make all the noise in the world. Funniest part? Disconnecting the power for that fan actually lowered my chipset temps! I suppose the fan itself was running so hot. It was my first desktop with X1800XL and 1GB of DDR which I later upgraded to 2GB and felt like I was bleeding edge.  

 

Good times were had with CS:S and CoD2..

 

Looking forward to seeing mor of this build. 

Such good times haha. Awe I remember getting the 4000+ on Kijiji way way back; it was a good upgrade. So when you talk about the chipset fan, are you referring to the Asus A8N-SLI? Or the XFX 680i?

 

Reason I ask is because I am starting to see that the 680i chipset fan/heatsink on the northbridge seemingly throws off more heat in the case than the cpu heatsink lol. This fan also runs at a mere 6000RPM, and I was debating on popping it off and applying some new paste. The northbridge heatsink is virtually impossible to touch.

 

UPDATE:

So I pulled out all of the old hardware from the Antec case that I had kicking around. Essentially the only parts that were kept in the case were the floppy drive, and the OEM 80mm fans.

 

 

I found a very cheap HDD cooler bay for sale on amazon awhile back, but never found a use for it; until now! This evercool 3-bay HDD cooling bay now houses the two-way Raptor RAID Array.

 

I've added a retro blue LED case fan from Rosewill to the build to give it some "pizazz." It's the only bling that we intend on using in the build, since we are dealing with a completely sealed and window-less computer case. (Not much else to show off)

 

The top mounted Tt Toughpower PSU worked very well. It's a bit odd working from the top down with cable management; seeing as nowadays the bottom mount seems to be the popular PSU mount design. As you can see I've cable managed as best as I can, and we have both the motherboard and new Zalman CPxxx model CPU cooler in place. Temps have dropped a good 10C+/- from the stock 775 heatsink. (Arctic silver 5 compound was used)

 

 

Just waiting Lastly on the dual 9800GX2's to arrive. Can't wait to put the system through the paces and begin some overclocking!

[HUSKER222]

i had a similiar build and i had that same exact case back in the day.

[JayRad]

Finally for the 9800GX2's installed, and boy... do they ever generate some heat!  I ended up removing the shrouds and repasting the cards to bring down the temps a tad. They were idling at about 67C initially, but have since dropped a good 10-12C after the cooling mod. I'll wrap up some benchmarks soon.

Cheers!

[ltguy]

2 hours ago, JayRad said:

Finally for the 9800GX2's installed, and boy... do they ever generate some heat!  I ended up removing the shrouds and repasting the cards to bring down the temps a tad. They were idling at about 67C initially, but have since dropped a good 10-12C after the cooling mod. I'll wrap up some benchmarks soon.

Cheers!

 

At least someone on this forum has taste in computers !!!!

[8uhbbhu8]

Oooooo I love this!!!

 

Have actually been looking at getting a sli capable 775 board and some 8800 or 9800 cards literally for the exact sort of thing you are doing  

 

A SLI capable 775 board for less then $80 cad?!!!!! What sorcery have you been using!!  Been looking for at least 2 years and have yet to fins anything at or near a decent price for the age. And yes thats using ebay and other sites. Quite lucky i'd say.

 

 

Great build and cant wait for the benchmarks  

[JayRad]

1 hour ago, 8uhbbhu8 said:

Oooooo I love this!!!

 

Have actually been looking at getting a sli capable 775 board and some 8800 or 9800 cards literally for the exact sort of thing you are doing  

 

A SLI capable 775 board for less then $80 cad?!!!!! What sorcery have you been using!!  Been looking for at least 2 years and have yet to fins anything at or near a decent price for the age. And yes thats using ebay and other sites. Quite lucky i'd say.

 

 

Great build and cant wait for the benchmarks  

I know right? lol It's really been such a fun project; one that I have meant to do for a long time now.

 

If you keep your eye on Kijiji in cities around your area, you are bound to find a good 775 board  My buddy just tagged me in a video that I think you might find interesting. This youtuber did damn near the same build that I did, and he has reported some modern day benchmarks too. Check it out!