Excuse the state it's in.
The metal on the front is very obstructing. Luckily, you can remove the motherboard tray.
| Specs | |
|---|---|
| Mobo | Biostar U8668-D (Socket 478, ATX) |
| Chipset | VIA P4M266A |
| CPU | Intel Celeron D 320 (2.4GHz) |
| RAM | 512MB DDR1 RAM (1x512MB) |
| GPU | Onboard S3 ProSavage 8 (unused) Up to 32MB of system memory Asus 6200GE 128MB VRAM |
| Sound | Onboard C-Media CMI9739A |
| Storage | Western Digital WD800 80GB |
| Extras | Pretty cool looking Philips CD-RW drive + Strange HDD 5,25" mount w/ seized fans |
| Operating System | Windows XP 32-bit |
What's up with it?: I built this one kind of out of spite - I had a leftover CPU + motherboard combo, had a GPU and HDD laying around, and the rest came with the case. The latter was the spark that resulted in building the PC - I found a nice Socket 462 mobo (angry red-colored MSI KT4 Ultra) and an Athlon 1400- or something on the classifieds that I could use, all encased in the box you see on the pic - for 10 buckeroos. I called the guy, linked up with him, bought the PC as well as a few peripherals, got home, checked it, and cool mobo was dead as a doornail - its Super I/O chip had one leg rusted away and generally, the board would boot once, then complain about no RAM being inserted. Ehhhhhhhhhhh.
I've gone through a few Socket 462 boards and haven't been able to build a PC around it. No freakin' dice - every single motherboard either dies instantly, is dead on arrival or has some issue that makes it unusable long-term. I pray one day I will find the one. Socket 462, AGP 4x/8x, with a chipset fan, not random-branded and not green or Asus-piss-yellow - is that too much to ask for?
Alas, I can't let an empty PC case be empty, so I threw together a simple build. It's boring, so let me say a few words about the few interesting bits that this PC has. The CPU is the last stand of the 478 socket; that is, the last release of Celerons (and Pentium 4s for that matter because those revisions were released simultaneously on the same day) for the socket. It's not the fastest one, by far - simply put, a chip you'd find in a PC from a local OEM back in 2005. I already have an almost identical PC - the Vobis - but I've only gotten it recently and this beige box has been out of use for some time, stored away in the attic. The GPU is perhaps the most interesting part and it would be an alright card for a 2004 PC build. The Philips CDRW drive is cool too, but its place should be in a silver case in a sick LAN build, don't you agree? And if you're wondering about that top 5,25" bay, don't - it's a hard drive caddy that's super flimsy, and while one of the "cooling" (doubt that that tiny a fan would cool much) fans reduced to crumbly plastic, at least the other one is seized. The whole thing is here just to fill the empty space.
Then there's the onboard GPU - the S3 ProSavage 8. It is "an graphics" slug made during S3's death throes and a far cry from the once-great company (hold on, were any S3 products any great?) Honestly, I don't want to subscribe to all the hate the company gets nowadays. The early products were decent, if not unpolished, expectedly so - it was the dawn of 3D acceleration after all. Sure, if you compare the VIRGE to the Voodoos, it's like comparing a Ferrari to a Fiat - but what else was there if you couldn't cough up the cash back in the day? It was better than nothing, and it could perform well enough to pass the time during 3dfx's hegemony. Shame that S3D was a dud and only 20 games or so were released for the API. Poor chip yields for the later Savage cards decimated S3's chances in the already competitive graphics cards market, and people couldn't help but write them off as "crap GPU manufacturers" (p-izza Inc. can not confirm this statement as it does not possess any of S3's products later than S3 Trio3D, released in 1998, excluding the ProSavage 8.). All that time S3's products were a decent option for a part of the market that retro enthusiasts generally fail to acknowledge - casual users. You know, ones that don't care about playing Quake 3 Arena 2 days after it was released. Ones that use PCs to look at spreadsheets and respond "Thanks! I'll check it out later!" to emails which read "kindly check the attached loveletter from me". Hence, after VIA acquired the ailing company, S3's products were used far and wide as integrated motherboard graphics solutions. Such as the one you see here.
The ProSavage 8's performance is nothing to write home about. I need to get a S3 Chrome.
By the way, do you also notice that Pentium 4s and Celerons of right around this era are universally rejected and lambasted as a retro PC platform? This is weird, because they're' a great recipe for a cheap build for games from the turn of the millenium, or even older titles, if you don't care about having 1001% period-correct hardware.
All in all, that's the whole PC. It's chilling right now in the attic. I wanted to use it to aid me in managing games, drivers and files in my retro PC fleet through FileZilla and to play an occasional game (at least until I build a PC for this era), but it keeps throwing up errors left and right. I didn't try any hardware-demanding games on it, and standalone n (sick game btw) was slow to the point I felt I was cheating.
Future plans: If you get the impression that this PC is an unwanted result of a shotgun classifieds purchase, you're gravely mistaken. I cherish this PC. I'm looking forward to this PC. I plot nefarious plans for this PC.
The case is this odd mix of old style and new-ish, enthusiast-oriented structure and ergonomy. It just needs a little TLC. It's nice, but I don't know in what combination would it be a perfect fit. And the more I think, the less ideas I have! It's nicely beige, but it's ATX and it's a bit newer, but it's beige and looks old. How about a 1998-2003 build, but make it intentionally boring? And to one-up on this idea, how about something that will stand out from the rest of my PCs (after all, I don't want to repeat the same platform, same socket and same CPU). How about a Duron (i have some Duron stashed somewhere... some... somewhere) that's under 1 GHz? Or how about a faster Socket 370 P3/Celeron, or a slotket Slot 1? Maybe I'll turn this to a neat Pentium 2 350MHz when I upgrade my Pentium 3 and have a Slot 1 board lying around. Hm, maybe I'll build something weird such as a Cyrix MII, IDT WinChip, or Via C3 build. Or how about an early Socket 423 with a NetBurst Pentium 4 that's under 2GHz? Or a Sempron?The current motherboard + processor + memory combo was already used as a testbench, so it might as well retake this position? In contrast to the computer in a box, it lacks ISA, but it has AGP! :) We'll see; if not, then it'll wait for a better day - and better ideas.
I drew up some imaginary dream specs for a couple of potential options I could do with this PC.
| Local computer shop wet dream (1998-1999) | |
|---|---|
| Mobo | Some Super Socket 7 ATX motherboard |
| Chipset | VIA Apollo VP3, or something OEMs would love |
| CPU | Cyrix MII-366 (366MHz) |
| RAM | 64MB should be enough? Bonus points if it's in the motherboard's single SDRAM slot |
| GPU | S3 Savage or a Riva TNT Vanta (Hot new thing! >:D) |
| Sound | If it's not onboard, then an Ensoniq ES1370 |
| Storage | 40GB is ample parking space |
| Extras | None |
| Operating System | Windows 98 SE |
| The Year 2000 is here! (year 2000 PC parts) | |
|---|---|
| Mobo | Any 423 motherboard, one with Rambus - that'd be cool |
| Chipset | Intel i845 |
| CPU | Pentium 4 1.4GHz (Socket 423, Willamette) |
| RAM | 256MB (again, RDRAM would be nice) |
| GPU | Radeon 7000 series |
| Sound | Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 |
| Storage | 40 or 80 GB |
| Extras | Very good cooling |
| Operating System | ...Windows ME, because you bought into the marketing campaign |
| Frugal, but interesting late 2004 build | |
|---|---|
| Mobo | MSI KT4 Ultra. You had a Duron and want to upgrade |
| Chipset | VIA KT400 |
| CPU | Sempron 3000+ 2GHz (Socket 462, Barton) |
| RAM | 512MB DDR1 RAM (2x256MB) |
| GPU | Asus 6200GE (128MB VRAM), or go wild with a XGI Volari V8 |
| Sound | Sound Blaster Audigy 2 |
| Storage | 160GB |
| Extras | a TV tuner |
| Operating System | Windows XP Your friend gave you a CD with this whole Linux system... |
Decisions, decisions.
