Tech Ambrosia
#CheapPCChallenge2023 Announcement Video
updated
The Cheap PC Challenge closes at the end of October! Get your builds in ASAP!
This year, I built around an incredible GPU deal, and decided to try and push an office PC to its absolute limit. Let's see what I made!
Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
00:25 - The Parts
01:09 - The Twist
01:49 - Getting To Know Your Optiplex 7050 MT
03:19 - Expansion Slots
04:53 - Initial Tests and Benchmarks (Intel UHD 630 integrated graphics)
06:19 - Fitting the new GPU
07:47 - Success
08:58 - Failure
11:40 - Success
13:00 - Failure
14:36 - Success
15:03 - Benchmarks with new GPU
20:51 - Results
21:07 - Gaming Footage
25:12 - Failure
25:28 - Success
26:42 - Outro & Thanks
Trina of @trinastechnobabble sent me a GPU.
Let's see if it works!
Let's see if any of the Sega Saturns I was gifted last December are functional!
Also, can we capture some gameplay using a vintage Matrox capture card?
This is it! Join me as I build my Haiku daily-driver live on-stream!
Taking another periodic look back at AMD's desktop platform launched in 2010: Bulldozer! aka "Construction Cores" or "AMD FX"
This architecture was infamous for being slower than the K10-derived CPUs it replaced, and for getting AMD sued over calling the CPU modules "cores"
So how is it holding up in 2024?
The iconic Quadra 700 was one of the longest-running mid-90s Mac models, and because of that, it garnered a large number of customizations.
Let's take a look at a few, including a PC-compatibility card, a handful of video cards, and a 64MB RAM kit.
A viewer asked if I could check out Windows 95. I'm more than happy to -- in fact, Win95 was the start of my PC computing odyssey, and was the operating system I experienced the early Internet on.
Let's dive in to my old stomping grounds!
Supposedly, this RTL8169S-based PCI gigabit ethernet card works in MacOS 9 with a generic driver. Let's find out!
Let's try getting Carrizo working on my FM2+ motherboard(s) and then try installing Haiku on it!
Installing and testing a 3D accelerator, maxxing out the RAM, and even throwing a G3 upgrade card in the Power Mac 8500 workhorse!
Turning back the clock to 1991 with Apple's premier mid-tower workstation offering, the classic and beloved Quadra 700!
With the Ender 3 stuck here until after Sunday, let's chat and try to install BeOS on my PowerMac 8500/120 with a 604e/233 upgrade card!
Amber! What's going on??? Where have you been??????
Rebuilding my heavily-modded Ender 3 V1 (including a Creality Spider hotend upgrade) so I can gift it to my friend's kiddo. Come along for the ride!
Extra-long stream since I get the feeling this will take a while...
The cooling ducts featured in this rebuild:
- Satsana V2 REMIX for Dual 5015 Blowers: thingiverse.com/thing:4639882
- whistleblower REMIX for Spider V2 hotend: thingiverse.com/thing:6537484
Rebuilding my heavily-modded Ender 3 V1 (including a Creality Spider hotend upgrade) so I can gift it to my friend's kiddo. Come along for the ride!
Extra-long stream since I get the feeling this will take a while...
Unfortunately, Comcast conked out about an hour into the stream and estimated 2.5 hours to repair the outage. So we chatted in text chat for a bit and then I stopped the stream early.
The Centris 610 returns from its harrowing repair journey at @BigBadBench ! Let's put it through its paces, and see why the Motorola 68040 is considered so magical...
Testing the Voodoo5 on my Super Socket 7 board with the fastest CPU available for the platform!
Testing the GeForce 4 MX 440 vs the Matrox G550 in a slow race!!
Testing three former budget kings: Matrox G200, S3 Savage3D, and 3dfx Voodoo Banshee!
Making some bangin' oldschool tunes in Fast Tracker II on mostly period-appropriate hardware!
Pentium 133 non-MMX CPU
PicoGUS sound card - Gravis Ultrasound emulation
Matrox Millenium video card
Snag a PicoGUS of your own: picog.us
Downloads!
Fast Tracker II: archive.org/details/demoscene_Fasttracker2-Triton
FT2-clone (FastTracker for modern computers: 16-bits.org/ft2.php
Sound Tracker Sample Packs: archive.org/details/AmigaSoundtrackerSamplePacksst-xx
Cards in the lineup:
- S3 Savage4 Pro
- Matrox G550
- Riva 128 (Diamond Viper V330)
- Rendition Verite V2100
- Cirrus Logic Laguna3D
- Matrox Mystique 220
- 3DLabs Permedia 2 (Diamond FireGL 1000 Pro AGP)
- SiS 305
PC 3D gaming starts here! The first wildly-successful 3D accelerator was a multi-chip monster from a completely unknown company, and it took the world by storm.
Just how important WAS the Voodoo, and how did it completely upset the PC gaming landscape when it launched at the end of 1996?
Let's dive in!
@ComputerHistory 's Oral History of 3dfx panel: youtube.com/watch?v=3MghYhf-GhU
The Banshee was 3dfx's first product to use the AGP bus, their first single-chip integrated 2D/3D solution, and the rumored video chipset for the canceled Sega Blackbelt project.
Let's see what it can do when strapped to my overpowered AGP Testbench!
Kool Smoky's Banshee Control on Internet Archive: archive.org/details/ks-banshee-control
Kool Smoky's 2002 website stub on 3dfxzone.it: https://www.3dfxzone.it/koolsmoky/
This is a clever bit of engineering on Joe's part, and I ordered one as soon as I heard about it.
Also included is a high-quality 3D printed bracket for holding a BlueSCSI V2 where an internal hard drive should've gone!
Let's dig into my old Mac Plus and try it out!
This episode is about the Quadro GP100, a workstation #videocard which I was going to tease as a GTX 1090, but its lack of overclockability and artificially limited power draw means it's never going to eclipse the Titan Xp or 1080 Ti in gaming performance.
But that's not what the GP100 was made for, and that's not why I bought it in the first place, so let's explore this workstation heavyweight!
Do you have what it takes to build a cheap, useful computer and daily-drive it?
Want to test your mettle against other PC builders the world over?
Want to see how bad that laptop you've been keeping in the attic really is?
The Cheap PC Challenge is for you!
From now until October 30th, build your best $50 or $100 PC and run benchmarks on it to rank your build amongst other builders!
Tools and links:
- Cinebench R10: guru3d.com/download/cinebench-10
- 3DMark03: guru3d.com/download/3dmark03-build-3-6
- Unlock 3DMark03: benchmarks.ul.com/legacy-benchmarks
- Browservice: github.com/ttalvitie/browservice/releases
Test System Specs:
Motherboard: Asus P5PE-VM (Intel 865G chipset)
CPU: Intel Core2 Extreme X6800 @ 2.93GHz
RAM: 2GB Kingston DDR-400 CL3
OS: Windows XP SP3
Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction / Cold Open
01:20 - The Terascale Story
03:19 - A Tale of Two Performance Levels
05:22 - Game Showcase
09:14 - BENCHMARKS
11:43 - Conclusion
Sonic kicking sprite by TaymenTheHedgehog on DeviantArt: deviantart.com/taymenthehedgehog/art/Custom-Sonic-Sprite-Sheet-272825137
Let's play some MacQuake, baybeeee!
The GeForce 6 and 7 series were a return to form for nVidia in the early 2000s, after the disastrous launch of the GeForce FX series in 2003.
Competing with the Radeon X800 series and X1000 series, Curie was nVidia's last GPU architecture to used separate, dedicated fixed-function hardware for vertex and pixel shading functions.
Let's have a look at my favorite example of this architecture, the GeForce 6800 GS AGP in this inaugural episode of The Department Of Rendering.
Test System Specs:
Motherboard: Asus P5PE-VM (Intel 865G chipset)
CPU: Intel Core2 Extreme X6800 @ 2.93GHz
RAM: 2GB Kingston DDR-400 CL3
OS: Windows XP SP3
00:00 - Introduction
01:20 - Curie in relation to its peers
03:14 - Game showcase
06:21 - Benchmarks: Test System Specs
07:52 - The Benchmark Results
10:48 - Conclusion
Let's see how much faster it is now!
10 builders. 13 builds. 3 podium finishers.
And one Exploding Wrenchie award.
What cursed budget computing hardware did the challenge unleash this year? Let's find out!
YouTubers in the challenge this year:
- David Starbuck - youtube.com/watch?v=1cP87z9rQ8U
- Eric's Edge - youtube.com/watch?v=wpH3QpqKBEY
- BigBadBiologist - youtube.com/watch?v=xKy2NJgZOFw & youtube.com/watch?v=2ersTPlyCeM
- PC Sound Legacy - youtube.com/watch?v=IjQ6QQ6gTck
- Justin D Morgan - youtube.com/watch?v=zYQRMmq3AZw
- Dave's Vintage Apple Tech - youtube.com/watch?v=TmsK1L5kqFY
- Everything is Broken Garage - youtube.com/watch?v=YITLcn8Quhk
- Retro Mac UK - youtube.com/watch?v=fbeDKeVoqq8
Huge thanks to @cincomma and Yoshark for help with the intro music and animation! 💜
Sound effects used:
"Horror Ambient W Chorus & Verb.wav" sound effect by co3
freesound.org
"Evil Laugh Demon.wav"
by: PaladinVII
License: Attribution 4.0
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Source: freesound.org
I've got stats on what worked and what didn't for the channel this year, and some insights into why I'm going to need to make some substantial channel format changes for 2024.
Grab some eggnog, pull up a chair, and let's talk 2023.
00:00 - Start of the video!
13:48 - The Stats!
15:21 - Not a real chapter marker, just here so that YouTube parses these!
This is my official entry into my Cheap PC Challenge for 2023.
This system is built around an AMD Athlon II X3 420e CPU and an nVidia GeForce GT 420 2GB GPU.
My original plans for this machine fell through, so I decided to see how many versions of Windows I could get this machine to boot and run with full driver support. Turns out, a lot!
My 3D-printable testbench cases: printables.com/model/439834-versatile-pc-testbench-case
Windows Vienna: youtube.com/watch?v=_eGmt8-EI7g
It's time for Slot 1 fun!
Now's the time to get your build completed and submitted for scoring and the January roundup video!
Links to the benchmarks mentioned in the "requirements" section:
- Passmark version 9 (halfway down the page): passmark.com/products/performancetest/download.php
- Frozen Planet demo: guru3d.com/download/lost-planet-directx-10-game-demo
- Google Octane 2.0: chromium.github.io/octane
This is an ALi Aladdin chipset for Socket 370 with an integrated nVidia Riva TNT2 core in the northbridge, using system RAM as VRAM.
Let's clean it up and give it a look!
Board voltage settings: pastebin.com/WbgKyXq5
CPU multiplier settings: pchardwarelinks.com/cpuspeed.htm
Let's drop it into my AGP Testbench and play some games like it's June 2000!