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- Jul 11, 2001
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I'm putting together a system out of spare parts mainly for the purpose of playing older games that have issues or are a pain to get working on Windows7/8. I'm on the fence between two platforms I could base the rig off of, and I have a few different video-card choices as well.
I'm still on the fence if I want to just go with XP, or if I want to go even more retro and dual-boot XP/98se. I realize that Windows 9x only recognizes one CPU.
The first candidate is my old Dual-Xeon setup that I used as my main computer from 2003-2007 or so. CPUs are two 3.06Ghz Gallatin core Xeons. These have 1MB L3 cache in addition to the L2 cache, and are basically the Xeon equivalent of P4 northwood-based extreme editions. Each has hyper-threading so it shows up as 4 virtual CPUs in windows. The motherboard is an IWill DPI533 using E7505 chipset that is unique in that it was one of the few Xeon motherboards that allowed overclocking. I have the CPUs overclocked to 3.42Ghz. Ram is 2.5Gb Dual-Channel DDR@360Mhz. AGP8x slot.
The second candidate is an old Dual Athlon-MP setup that I used around that same time period. CPUs are two AthlonMP 2400+ which are clocked at 2.0Ghz. Motherboard is a Tyan Tiger MPX. Ram is maxed at 4GB (~3.5 usable) because it uses registered DDR266 that I have tons of with no other use for. Board has an AGP4x slot.
As far as Videocards, I have:
Geforce 6800 Ultra
Radeon X800XT-PE
Radeon X1550
FireGL X1 128
Storage is going to be SCSI using an Adaptec 39160 + Fujitsu MAU 15K SCSI drives. This is a slight advantage for the AMD platform since that motherboard has 64-bit/66Mhz PCI slots where the Xeon motherboard only has regular 32/33 PCI slots. The Adaptec 39160 is a 64-bit PCI card (but will still work in 32-bit slots).
Sound will be an X-Fi XtremeMusic so I can use EAX/Directsound hardware audio in these older games.
I'm leaning toward going with the Xeons + 6800 Ultra but would love to hear any thoughts.
I'm still on the fence if I want to just go with XP, or if I want to go even more retro and dual-boot XP/98se. I realize that Windows 9x only recognizes one CPU.
The first candidate is my old Dual-Xeon setup that I used as my main computer from 2003-2007 or so. CPUs are two 3.06Ghz Gallatin core Xeons. These have 1MB L3 cache in addition to the L2 cache, and are basically the Xeon equivalent of P4 northwood-based extreme editions. Each has hyper-threading so it shows up as 4 virtual CPUs in windows. The motherboard is an IWill DPI533 using E7505 chipset that is unique in that it was one of the few Xeon motherboards that allowed overclocking. I have the CPUs overclocked to 3.42Ghz. Ram is 2.5Gb Dual-Channel DDR@360Mhz. AGP8x slot.
The second candidate is an old Dual Athlon-MP setup that I used around that same time period. CPUs are two AthlonMP 2400+ which are clocked at 2.0Ghz. Motherboard is a Tyan Tiger MPX. Ram is maxed at 4GB (~3.5 usable) because it uses registered DDR266 that I have tons of with no other use for. Board has an AGP4x slot.
As far as Videocards, I have:
Geforce 6800 Ultra
Radeon X800XT-PE
Radeon X1550
FireGL X1 128
Storage is going to be SCSI using an Adaptec 39160 + Fujitsu MAU 15K SCSI drives. This is a slight advantage for the AMD platform since that motherboard has 64-bit/66Mhz PCI slots where the Xeon motherboard only has regular 32/33 PCI slots. The Adaptec 39160 is a 64-bit PCI card (but will still work in 32-bit slots).
Sound will be an X-Fi XtremeMusic so I can use EAX/Directsound hardware audio in these older games.
I'm leaning toward going with the Xeons + 6800 Ultra but would love to hear any thoughts.
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