An EPIC Socket 8 Build!

Irinikus

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Neat aftermarket adapter for the AWE64 memory!
It's pretty cool, but unfortunately serves no purpose in Windows XP, as the driver that's available for XP doesn't support MIDI fonts!!!!

I managed to get Windows 98 onto the system, by using the SCSI/SoundBlaster mediabus card from my dual Pentium Pro motherboard, but what a mess it was, as there were multiple hardware conflicts, as the Matrox card was conflicting with the SCSI controller, as well as the AWE64 Sound card! And there was a problem getting the network card installed as well!

So I'm currently re-installing XP as I write this, as it's far more intuitive and sorts all of this mess out automatically!

It also allows me to run the ATTO disk benchmark, Blender, and Maya, so I'm definitely better off with XP!
 
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Irinikus

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Here's a comparison between the drive performance of an IDE drive (on the left-hand side) and a 10K RPM SCSI drive (on the right-hand side) in this system:



what's interesting to note is that the IDE drive outperforms the SCSI drive slightly in some cases, when dealing with smaller files (the first three rows), but the SCSI drive then dominates from there!

Another interesting thing to note is that the IDE drives's read speeds seem to be much faster than it's write speeds and in the SCSI drive's case, its write speeds are slightly better than its read speeds!

I can't wait to see how the U160 SCSI RAID card performs with two 15K RPM drives in a RAID 0 configuration!!!
 
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Irinikus

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The RAID card and drives have arrived in country, but still need to be delivered to me (The snail-mail is taking forever!), and I'm in the process of purchasing this brand new Pentium II Overdrive chip for this system: (So I'll have a proper sticker to stick onto the front of the system! :) )



 
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Irinikus

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The RAID card and drives arrived today, and I've just finished installing WindowsXP!

Here's what the system currently looks like internally:



Here's the ATTO disk benchmark result:



Not quite as fast as I'd hoped for, but still twice as fast as the previous drive configuration!

Here's the current system configuration:

 
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Irinikus

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Do any of you know if this type of RAM will work in this machine? (It would allow me to load the machine up with 1.5GB of memory!)





They are 256MB EDO ECC server modules, and the Pentium Pro motherboard does support ECC.
 

Irinikus

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At the request of @red-ray, a member on VOGONS, I pulled my SGI VW320 out today! And while it was up and running I decided to test its drive speed using the ATTO Disk Benchmark and here are the results:





It has a single 15K RPM SCSI drive installed.

Interesting how it compares to the Pentium Pro system!



 
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Irinikus

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The Pentium II Overdrive arrived today and it works in this motherboard!











The machine was getting 13.6 FPS in Quake III with these settings, with the Pentium Pro installed:



The machine is now getting 19.2 FPS with the same settings: (Overdrive installed)



This is a 29.1% improvement!!!

Next it's a Voodoo5 PCI and 768MB of ECC EDO RAM! (My aim here is to try and hit 30 FPS with these settings!) That will make me happy!

This is what it hit's at 800x600 with MAX settings :



 
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Irinikus

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Here's the system's current 3DMark 2000 score: (I needed the Pentium II Overdrive's MMX feature to run this on this socket 8 system!)



Here's the Blender Test result: (Pentium II Overdrive installed)



Here's the original result with the Pentium Pro installed:



It's now 47,2% faster!!!
 
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Irinikus

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I've neatened up the wiring in the system a bit, but I still beed to fit two more drives, so this will change a bit in the future.



I've also removed the SIMMconn from the AWE64 Gold, as it serves no purpose in Windows XP. (Makes space for the routing of the SCSI cables!)



I will get back on this system next year after the festive season!

The first thing that I'll do next year is order the 768MB of EDO RAM for the system!
 

Irinikus

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I've been corrected in that you can indeed load sound fonts in XP, by running the NT4 driver for the AWE64 in NT4 compatibility mode!

So I'll give this a look in the future!

So the SIMMconn's back in the system!!!

 
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bitpak

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Here's the Blender Test result: (Pentium II Overdrive installed)
It is comparable to the O2 R10k@150. Nice result, but still makes you appreciate R10K's performance more, considering it was released 1.5 years earlier than PII Overdrive. Although, late 90's gaming PCs were very interesting. Great build, Irinikus!
 

Irinikus

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It’s amazing how you scale to what you’re working on! When building a machine such as this, 768MB of RAM seems like more than you’d ever need!!! It takes me straight back to the 90’s!!! :)
 

trixster1979

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Great thread, I’ve really enjoyed reading this. Liking the Voodoo5 as well - I have one in my PIII 933 system (which is in the same case as the one you’re using here), it’s a beast of a card.
 

Irinikus

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Thanks! :)

PC hardware from this era has great character!

The system’s current bottle neck (with the Matrix G450 installed) is definitely RAM, so I’m going to have to get 768MB into this machine as soon as possible! (The Voodoo5 will arrive before the RAM though!)

If I run Quake III in a windowed mode @ 800x600 with max settings and bring up the system performance window on the outside, I notice a periodic drop in frame rate every time the page file is read. (The page file sits in the 240MB region when Quake III is running)

I need to get the system’s page file usage down to a minimum, in order to free up the PCI bus as much as possible!

With all this being said, even though the Voodoo5 5500 wont be running nearly as optimally in this machine as yours in your PIII 933, it will be interesting to see what I can get out of it in this system! :)
 
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