One thing I've always appreciated is that you not only read the comments, but you help us if we're in the middle of a project and have questions. I really appreciate that.
I try my best! Sometimes though it gets out of hand, like I get an e-mail several pages with a detailed project and I don't know even where to start. Or if it's open ended like, can you make a list of best parts. So best to have a specific question with narrow focus that I can answer easily 😊
@@philscomputerlab you were certainly able to help me with my projects. The 98 rig is still under construction but that's because I'm still trying to figure out the gpu setup I'm going with. So many options though the compatibility issues were starting to funnel down into the "more newer is more better" bit xp finally was mostly on, if that made sense. But you definitely helped me enjoy all my old faves on XP, thank you for that. If it's of any interest, I found an old Raidmax Sagitta still new in the box. Built my first computer in the same make/model/color, was XP. I'm putting my 98se rig in this one, though. Found everything new, mobo, ram, sound blaster sb0100, drives, cables. Trying to hunt down a new Athlon XP 3200+ and hopefully the gpu, though I think I won't find it.
This is one of my favorite games of all time. The Enemy AI puts a lot of modern games to shame. They call for backup, flush you out of cover, flank you from multiple directions, form impromptu squads and more. It's great.
A lot of marketing for that game, all those actions (taking cover, throwing shelves, etc) were scripted, happened every single time you played the levels, the AI was good but wasn't used on other games because it kind of sucked, goal oriented action planning, I remember doing my own implementation of that, very little ai and lots of cheating the player.
That's actually quite cheap price. On US-eBay it sold easily for USD 350. But from AUS there was a sealed K6-III which also sold for cheap around AUS 350.
I have a love-hate relationship with VIA chipsets. They did much better than the SiS or ALi chipsets, but when there was Intel, nVidia or ATi available, those usually did were the better choice. Until the arrival of good nForce boards VIA was pretty much the only sane choice for K7
Nice work Phil! The game F.E.A.R. is indeed a good showcase for EAX. Maybe consider a video focused on similar games and showcasing what EAX brings to the table under WinXP compared to on-board audio?
Realtek on-board audio can support some EAX, though not at the same level as Creative Labs. I would also be interested in Phil's take on the difference.
This would be awesome!!! Esp. a comparison between original EAX and later ALchemy and OpenAL would be interesting. Esp. one game I loved with EAX was Jedi Outcast for sure, played on a SB Audigy 2 ZS. I lately saw a video where a guy played Jedi Outcast with DXVk, which doubled the FPS from like 500 to 1000 FPS, lol. It's amazing to see that we can play old games on newer API. And the more to preserve EAX as good as we can, for decades in which EAX hardware would not exist anymore. Maybe someone makes it perfect with OpenAL, but not yet it seems, still is a difference. In Hitman 2 there was a software patch to run a so-called "DieselPower 3D Audio" engine, which also made a huuuge difference. But I think I played that on a P III 700 before I had the SB Audigy 2 ZS, not sure. Sadly I never had A3D, but a former pal had and said it's awesome...before we know of EAX. So yeah, A3D and EAX are a thing like 3DFX, which we miss nowadays.
Every time I catch on of your videos with a retro focus I want to get my XP machine out and spend a week replaying FEAR, Freelancer, Hitman 2, Prey, and Max Payne 1&2 but then reality bites so I just can't.
I remember to have used on optional "DieselPower 3D Audio" engine in Hitman 2, which made a huuuge difference. But I dunno if I already had my SB Audigy 2 ZS or not and if H2 has native EAX support or not. haven't played it in 2 decades now.
ah yes, the Emergency Edition. i remember the begining of x86-64 computing. I remember MaxPC had a Tron 2.0 cover and inwanna say it also had an article advertised on the cover regarding Athlon64 stuff.
I almost went with the FX-57 but heard rumours there would be a dual-core version. I ended up getting the FX-60 on an Asus A8R32-MVP Deluxe, and F.E.A.R. was one of the first games I played on it. There's a special 64-bit version that adds some more details and physics, even comes with a unique AMD demo/test. It would mean running Windows XP Pro x64 which means X-Fi drivers and features are a bit rough but maybe it's better now. Windows Vista x64 was much better for 64-bit support, but you need to run 4GB of RAM to make it fly. Which means dropping to a command rate of 2. But that's what Mushkin Redline DDR500 at 2-3-2-8 is for and a base clock of 215+ is for. Still running the old system playing F.E.A.R., BF2, HL2 and other classics.
Recently got my Windows XP 32bit rig up and running with a CRT monitor and a GTX 980ti. Been playing all the old games turning AA and AF on in the nvidia panel, gotta say it really makes a difference. Will definitely have to give F.E.A.R a try! Thanks for another great video Phil!
Good day to you Phil! Back in the day, I built an Athlon 64 FX-55 system with a GeForce 7900 GTO, when these parts were on super clearance pricing with Newegg and Micro Center. It was after these parts were in their prime, but I remember being really happy with their performance for years afterwards. Been watching your videos for many years since all we ever saw was your hands in some of the videos. Thanks for all the work you've done for the retro/nostalgic PC community.
Wow great, FX's were something like gaming holy grail! I have back then in 2005-2008, desktop with mobile AMD Barton with unlocked multiplier @2.4GHz, 1,5GB RAM and 6600GT from inno3d. FEAR was somehow ok at 1024x768, but Crysis I finished in 640x480 lowest setting and it was really painfull experience, but sweet memories. Cheers Phil
Having gone through that era with a 7300 GT, I can feel your pain. performance is similar to a 6600 GT and I got a great oc on it and made it perform close to a 7600 SE Let's just say Crysis wasn't fun on it and DMC4 really tanked in the forest level. There was something about the lighting in the area that was really bad for the card.
Great video as always, Phil! I have very fond memories of the socket-939 era and remember being in awe of the FX-57 and the extreme overclocks people could get out of it. The price was way beyond what I could afford at the time. I was huge into overclocking though and really pushed my hardware. I had a DFI LanParty NF4 Ultra-D and pushed Winbond BH-5 and Samsung TCCD based memory as far as I could. I eventually got a Vapochill LS and ran an Opteron 148 at about 3.3GHz for 24/7 use and later upgraded to an X2 4200+. It was a fun time! Thanks for all that you do, Phil - wishing you all the best with Patreon and the next steps for your channel! 👍
Sadly 3.3 was about the limit for K8, there just wasn't much headroom, especially compared to what Intel had at the time. Getting your 2.4 Northwood to 3.6 or your E2180 from 2.0 to 2.5 GHz or your E6600 from 2.4 to 3.2 was absolutely possible and not a big deal. Sure, IPC is different, but a 30-50% overclock was possible, even on the high end chips. The FX-57 also hit the same 3.3 GHz limit, but it was already running at 2.8. A Friend at an Athlon 6000+, which ran 3.0 stock, so oc was pretty much not worth it. My E8400 at the same time hit 3.6 while undervolting and I got it to 4.2 recently.
I think 100 % of all C2D E8400 3 GHz CPUs ever made can run at 4.2 GHz w/o any problem. The silicon lot of C2D was very good. But frequency is not everything. Remember how inefficient the P4 was. I later had an AMD XP 2800+, after my P4 3200 mainboard died and I used the P4 3200 in a locked 2800 mainboard, the AMD CPU ran at only 2.0 Ghz, but was saving like 30 watts for the same performance and never did thermal throttling either. Tho my 2nd hand E8400 could run and did run at 4.0 or 4.2 GHz in a Gigabyte board, I reset it to 3.0 GHz, because I wanted a long living PC and the P35 chip on the mainboard already was so hot, I added a medium sized fan to it. In that late time I got it used the overclocking made no real sense, compared to i5-2400 and similar.
My retro pc build is based on the 939 agp Gigabyte GA-K8NSC-939, 4Gb of Ddr1 ram, Leadtek 6800GT and... FX-60, found that cpu by pure mistake locally for 10 euros :))
The one and only time I won a competition and I won this CPU with a motherboard and Ram back in 2005. Perfect for me as a 15 year old with a low paid part time job as all I had to get was a GPU really as I had some parts handed down from my dads friend.
@@philscomputerlab not entirely sure. My dad entered the competition for me from a PC magazine we had in the UK (can’t remember what it was called). Also I enjoyed your section on FEAR as I too love the game it was one of the first games I played when I got my FX57! I go back to FEAR from time to time.
@@philscomputerlab lol it could be. Any time I watch something about FEAR I always mention the FX57 as, for me, they’re both intertwined because after I got the FX57 it was the first game I played on it.
these were good days, the "secret" was to get an Opteron 165 on the cheap and with some tweaking on the NF4 you could run them at 2.7Ghz from the stock 1.8Ghz. I still have my Abit AN8-SLi and Opteron 165.
Think those was basically a fx55 but clocked lower for server markets. I know mine clocked as good as one as was just as fast an cost me 40odd quid versus almost 4 500. Ended up delididing it an it bairly went over 60c at insane clocks 2,4 push few more volt an it would do 2.589 almost 2.6ghz paired with a 8800gts it was a quick but cheap PC
The Socket 939 also came in PCIe variants. I had an "MSI K8N Diamond Plus" motherboard back then with the "n-Force 4 SLi X16" chipset, really good board which also had great integrated audio with the "Sound Blaster Audigy" chip. Paired with an AMD X2 4600+ dual-core CPU with 2 GB of DDR1-ram (550 MHz, CL 3-4-4-8) and a GeForce 7900GT (PCIe) graphic card, it was a fairly high-end PC for 2006 that could run most games (at the time) with maxed out settings at 1280x1024 resolution.
The FX57 was AMD's 'extreme edition' of the FX series. it was made mostly irrelevant by the opteron series that dropped in to the same sockets. Same silicon as the the FX chips, just clocked lower, overclocked the same and cost a LOT less. The opteron 148 was a beast of a cpu for it's era. 2.2ghz out of the box, mine overclocked to 3.1ghz and cost me around 1/4 the price of an fx57 at the time.
Great video, thank you. My first pc I built myself was a 939 system with an opteron single core cpu. After 2 years I found a 4800+ for cheap and put that in, huge boost in performance for the time and I had a 7800gt that soon was swapped out for a 8800gtx and I still have both gpu’s but not the cpu or board as they unfortunately died…. Great memories. Oh and I even had the ‘fear’ game but my go to was world of Warcraft
My first pc that I built entirely by myself was a 939 system too. I had an ABit motherboard, FX 3800+, a full gig of CL2 400MT/s memory and a 256MB video card. I played Star Trek: Starfleet Command III in the Dynaverse, online. I had the v534 patch and played on a heavily moded install, over 300 new ships. I played for hours on end. Then the fan on the cheap PSU stopped working. And when it blew up, it shot sparks all through the pc case and fried the mobo and cpu. Apparently the psu didn't have adequate safety features.
@@RANDOMNATION907 Those 939 CPUs didn't have protection built into them. They wouldn't underclock to protect the CPU if the temps got too hot, it would just keep running full speed until it killed itself. I tested this out one time by turning the system on without a CPU fan even attached, and within seconds the CPU turned red hot and then caught on fire.
@@kfox420 Wow! That's absolutely crazy. I honestly had assumed it was my psu fan that failed but , maybe not. I didn't know much at all about computers back then.
Socket 939 has a very special place in my heart. First real computer I played games on was a 939 based system. A Compaq Presario at the time. I still have it and recently recapped it and upgraded it. Opteron 175, 3GB DDR400, 8800GTS. I think 939 with PCIe is the way to go if you can find a good board with PCIe. You get way more options for video cards than a AGP based board.
Excellent video, Phil! Really like the new format, it's much more personal than the more "matter-of-fact approach" that you used to have. Keep it up! 🙂
Thank you for the video Phil! There’s no way now to score a 57 unless one is willing to spend thousands on it so I’m happy I could find a 55 a couple of years ago and it’s such a lovey CPU. Paired it with a HD3850 and a pair of DDR Corsair XMS Pro 3500. Will be waiting for more videos from you - thanks again as always!
Don't forget about the Opteron options for many of the socket 939 boards. An Opteron 180 is about an equivalent to the top end socket 939 dual cores and performs very well with a variety of memory. They can be more reasonably bought as well over FX and the top end dual cores. Check your BIOS first though for proper Opteron support.
Pretty much every 4000+ and most 3700+ I've tried will handle an OC to 2.8Ghz, it's not even hard, just set the multiplier to 14x, and add a bit of voltage if you're running into stability issues. The real MVP for single core Socket 939 was the Opteron, those often did 3.0Ghz or more without issues
I had one of those Opterons. There was a little bit of an overclocking contest going on at the time with them and they were a popular CPU on OCAU forums.
I habe testetd games with AMD AThlon 64 3700+ the performance is impressive, defintely better than Pentium D 820 3GHZ and also better than Pentium 4 560 (3,6GHZ) only few games there are an advantage of the HT Technology from intel.
Fantastic part for the collection, it's so awesome that you get to own this legendary unattainable hardware now ;) Love that old 6800GT, miss the artwork days.
Those FX chips were incredible back in the day. I wanted one so badly, but could never justify it. I was running a Venice core 3800+ on 939 back then, which was pretty great, but I could never justify the expense of a FX system. Great cpu to see in action again.
Great video as usual, Phil! This was always a Holy Grail CPU for me. Now a days I don't care to actually having one very much, as you mentioned, it is mostly a collectors item and plenty CPU can do what it does. But it's nice to see it in action, and interesting to hear about your story with the game. Cheers buddy
Looking forward to becoming a patron, I’ve been loyally following your videos for years now and I would be very happy to support you doing this full time. I don’t think anyone out there is responsible for more of the resources we all use to keep enjoying these old computers - I can’t tell you how often I download stuff from your website alone, for example. Glad you’re setting one up, and best of luck with everything!
Yeah, steam is no longer consumer friendly. Old system supports are removed, then that day I was trying to start a game on steam deck only to find out they don’t allow you to start a game without updating it. I couldn’t believe it and googled it. So many people got pissed on their flights because they got locked out of the game due to a pending update…
The debate back then was fast memory vs more memory. Some 939 and 754 boards will work with 4GB server modules. It does really extend the life of the platform for 64bit, especially Vista or 7.
That debate is still ongoing. In the end it depends on what you do. if your programs run out of memory, you benefit from more, but if they fit into what you have, the faster the better. I went with 16 GB back in 2013, and benefitted a lot from the size, but in turn I gave up on fast chips, because 8 GB DDR3-2133 were about the same price as 16 GB DDR3-1600. Not that my 16 GB can't do 2133 as well, but with much loser latencies. But the real debate during the time was fast memory vs low latencies. With Intel, Pentium 4 (and Core 2 to a degree), benefitted a lot from fast memory while K7 (and to a degree K8) benefitted much more from low latencies and CR1
My XP machine's running an X2 4400+ with a gtx 750ti. Overkill I know but I got it at a really good price and it supports xp fairly well. Runs games great but even a lot of games in the future that claim to require a dual core machine don't actually utilize the second core whatsoever like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. for one example.
Awesome! I was 939 back in the day, I dont remember much about the fx but always wanted a phenom and couldn't afford one. I remember having an athlon II x3 on AM2 and unlocking an extra core. I have a couple of 939 board but didnt really know what to do with them so thanks for the suggestions!
Oh yessss, the FX-57. I have in 2005 a FX-57 in hope to reach 3GHz. The CPU have i bought in ebay for around 500-600€. Very expensive for this time. My FX57 reaches 3150MHz (14x225MHz). Maybe, there must Screenshots from this time. :D This was the time, i'm not much good in OC. Much later in a Retrosystem, i clocked a 3700+ (San Diego Core A64, 939) above 3GHz. Am sad, i have selled my FX57. In a retrosystem, a very fast WinME-System with a 2,8GHz clocked 3700+, ASUS A8V and Quadro 980XGL the 939 Socket lives continues. :) Thank you for your work. :)
I'm glad someone like you covered that Athlon 64 FX thing, since I didn't hear much about it... I only heard about it from you and someone (I think it was Chris Pirillo mentioning it) at Flickr about the fact that Athlon 64 FX did in fact exist. I feel like something like A64 FX makes some people feel special about owning that "Collector's Item" sort of speak. Funfact: F.E.A.R. was made by the same guys (Monolith Productions) who made quite a challenging platforming game called Captain Claw back in 1997 - Something I grew up playing.
I still remember buying an FX-57 when it released. Shame that I just threw it in the trash in a complete PC since it was all "obsolete" by 2010. One thing I wish I could go back and undo.
When you started the video hinting at RAM settings I immediately thought back to command rate when I built my Socket 939 system when it was still king of the hill. A8N-SLI Premium with 7800GTX!
Phil. Been watching your videos for like a decade, always enjoy them. I get to watch you play with all the retro hardware so I can save money on other things. Good to see your face too! Have you thought about doing up a retro background and lighting for your studio showcasing some retro goodies?
I’m going with socket 939 for my XP pc because I view it as the last platform where most enthusiasts actually were installing XP on their PCs. Core 2 and AM2 both came out very close to Vista’s launch which kind of makes them less intriguing for a XP build. To me something like a 7800GTX/939 X2 build is about as new as you could have where you wouldn’t have been thinking about Vista.
Never owned a 939 system back in the day but 6800GT agp was my first high end video card and its really amazing how well it held up even on later titles, once tried to run GTA IV on it which it did launch but at a rather low framerate.
I almost managed to get hold of an FX-60 but the seller would not let it go without a broken faulty motherboard and a few other accessories. I just needed/wanted the CPU for a build that was practically complete. Settled for a S939 4800+ instead. That was bundled with a few components but at least they worked. The FX-57 was a chip that not many people could afford at the time.
Hi Phil, nice video once again! The Athlon FX was the natural enemy of the Pentium M, as far as I remember. 😉 Therefore some results in comparsion, whereas the graphics card in my system was a bit "beefier", being a 7800GS+ from Gainward with 24/8 shader units. The Pentium M is a 770 model running at 2,8GHz, FSB at 800MHz, on an Asus P4P800 with ct-479 adapter: 3DMark 2001: 33488 3DMark 2003: 19879 3DMark 05 : 9119 With a 7600GT: 3DMark2001 : 21328 @16bit / 20669 @32bit 3DMark2003 : 10008 @32bit 3DMark05 : 4479 @32bit Currently both the mainboard and the 7800GS+ are waiting for a recap. Would be interesting how the Pentium M compares to the FX with a similar graphics card...
Ι never tried an AMD 939 socket. I had a 754 socket and the CPU was an Athlon XP 3400+. Thank you bringing memories from FEAR as well. What a gane it was. And its sequels as well. Cheers.
I had and still have my AMD Athlon 64 3400+ socket 754 pc from that era, and what a fun time it was gaming with that cpu back then. The FX line was top dog for AMD back then and the FX-50 series were all single core until the FX-60 series, and FX-70 series which were dual cores. Then Intel released the Core 2 line in 2006 and AMD spent the next 11 years after trying to catch back up until Ryzen in 2017.
Greetings, Amazing video!! Phil, I have the same motherboard, I have three CPUs 939, Athlon 64 4200 x2, Athlon 64 3200 and Athlon 64 3000. Keep making this type of videos! Thank you. I really enjoyed it. Bye
Really enjoyed the story Phil! I was lucky enough to have the FX-55 back in the day, overclocked it to FX-57 speeds. For gaming when it came out it was a beast as many games didn't take advantage of dual cores, but a few years later it was very outdated as the X2 and later Intel Conroe chips wiped the floor with it, and games were taking advantage of dual cores. I had a 7800GTX at the time, the 256mb version, it was great but it ran out of steam at high resolutions on my huge Dell CRT monitor I had at the time (1600x1200 I think).
2005, The year of the pentium D's Must have a 930 socket 775 here somewhere clocked at 3,0 Ghz. The normal ones went up to 3,4 Ghz. The Pentium 4 Extreme Edition from 2005 ranged from 3,4-3,73 GHz
I had an Athlon 64 3700+ which I overclocked to 2.9ghz on a DFI Lanparty NF4 board. Really classic setup. I bought it in 2005 and used it until 2012! I remember I just couldn't hit 3ghz on it, needed alot of voltage and better cooling, probably better silicon lottery results also. I just kept upgrading the GPU, started with a Radeon x850 and finished with a Radeon HD4890 (with a few nVidia cards in between), everything else about the system I just kept the same, even the X-Fi I bought new in 2005. It was starting to struggle by then, and when I finally changed from XP to Windows 7 I bought a decent Phenom II system to replace it. What's really funny is I remember reading VOGONS in 2005, about the time I was building that pc. At the time, the argument was whether Pentium 3 should be considered 'retro'. lol. My personal conviction then was that 'retro' was Socket 7 or earlier. Funny how times change.
i loved that era of PC gaming, i was in a job where all i did was play FPS games on the LAN all day. In restrospect it was a dead end job and did nothing for my career but i was being paid and all i did was play games. my friend Anthony even bought a 6800GT to install in one of the work computers so he would have the edge, unfortunately for him it was faulty and he couldnt get a refund. the bizarre thing is it only seemed to work in one computer, mine 😂 My on the sly work setup was better than my home pc at the time. He sadly passed away a few years ago at a young age. i hope wherever he is, he's skiving from work playing network PC games on a working 6800GT.
Thanks for the video on this CPU Phil. I have one of these that I've been meaning to do a build with. Your video has inspired me to get researching some more parts to make a well rounded setup.
I was lucky enough to get a recent hand down from a gamer friend: Athlon X2 4200+ with nforce chipset motherboard, exactly like the one I used to run back in the day (and stupidly threw out), I remember the nforce was really popular at the time and was the go to chipset for gamers going the AMD CPU's. Im running dual boot windows 2000 and windows XP, the golden era of gaming as you say Phil!
I remember back in the day, i just couldnt justify an FX build and went the Athlon 64 route, might still have that system in the garage. But I think I do have some FX chips I later got from ewasted PCs at work, not sure I have a 57, might have to check in my old CPUs storage box.
I've been looking at getting a 939 system together for a few years actually, but I don't feel it's worth it honestly. Maybe a lower end spec would be good enough, but as you say these top-spec CPUs are really expensive (and I like to go for the top SKU, heh). I think I'm going to end up making a Phenom-system instead, they can still be found on the cheap. :) My standard XP-system otherwise is based on my trusty old E8600 that I bought back in the day. Still runs very well, though I've had two motherboards die on me over the years. Great showcase on F.E.A.R. too - it's an amazing game for sure! Quite scary, great story. I remember it fondly as well.
For XP gaming, yes, you will be amazed with the Phenom II! Nice AM3 boards shouldn't be hard to find, the chipsets are from AMD and very stable and with PCIe, you are spoilt for choice finding a nice graphics card. 8800 GT would work, but also newer cards. A Phenom II X2 would be perfect IMO, no need for X4.
@@philscomputerlab yeah, makes a lot of sense. :) I already have a nice 8800GT so I'm halfway there! This is exciting stuff for me - I never got to play with the AM2-3 stuff back in the day so it's all new stuff to me now. Will be on the lookout for an AM3 board, then! Cheers
Phil I i have been watching you since 2016 when i was 15 years old and i always liked the retro hardware especially the XP era because I grown up with XP computers (with P4 laptops). Anyway, I really like your videos and they are very satisfying watching them.
I had an old Dell 15 years ago that I modded the fan to help with the heat on this CPU. I gave it away and upgraded to a Core 2Quad. Can't believe it's worth something now
Core 2 Extreme Editions like QX9770 also are expensive nowadays, as always for the fastest models that's often 200+ bucks for the CPU. But you have to count in inflation also. So things get virtually more expensive also in the last 3 years maybe.
I always thought it was interesting that you could get a faster chip than the FX57 (2.8GHz) by going for an Opteron 156 (3.0GHz). They almost brought out an Opteron 190 (2.8GHz) to beat the FX60 (2.6GHz) on socket 939 as well. Additionally, the fastest socket 754 processor was actually the Mobile Athlon 64 4000+ which ran at 2.6GHz (200mhz faster than the desktop counterpart) with the full 1MB L2 cache and came without an IHS (which benefited some enthusiasts). Great video, Phil 👍
Your Sempron from back in the day sounds very similar to my first brand new machine that wasn't a "hand-me-down". I had a Sempron and a FX5500 graphics card in around 2003-2004.
Been watching you for years now esp on the older soundcard/video card reviews. Glad you're going pro... maybe one day I will too (LMAO). Keep it up, great content.
Ehy I just love the 939 socket, was my main system for a lot of years back in the day! And AGP in socket 939 is beautiful vintage classic! Great for Windows XP yes! Another nice video, and the AMD FX-57 was a dream back in the day! I would really love to take a fx-60 but it's so expensive too! I have the Opteron 180 on my socket 939 micro atx system overclocked to 2,8ghz!
It's really very rare. I've been looking for it for years. But nobody offers it. I noticed that the whole socket 939 and 754 mainboards are slowly being traded much more expensive in price. In particular, mainboards with 939 and Nforce 4 have become significantly more expensive. AM2 is the cheapest today.
Yes it happens slowly with prices. The sellers on eBay know what they are doing, the items sell slowly but at a high price, market skimming. Often it's not gamers but customers with old computers that need a replacement part for their old industrial PC running some obscure proprietary software. Focus on what is cheap at the moment: Core 2 and early Core stuff.
Very cool video! Awesome to see the best retro hardware in action, especially the AGP Cards!! I believe the actual fastest/highest clocked 939 Socket CPU was the Opteron 156 at 3.0Ghz, but that chip is beyond rare. Although that chip wasn't apart of the FX lineup. There was some rumors around that time (2005/2006) that they were going to produce a FX-59 to match the Opteron.
Interesting, your CPU setup back then is very close to me, yours must be 2600+ mine was Sempron 2500+ with very slow 1.4GHz but it can clocked to 2.4GHz without any voltage increase and using stock cooler to boot! It uses DFI NF4X motherboard and my very first PCIe card was Powercolor Radeon X550, and like you I always use Creative soundblaster cards, mine was Live! 5.1 at the time, I haven't used Audigy and jumped to X-Fi when it comes out. Man fond memories...
I think I still have an FX-55 in a parts grave yard somewhere.... Sadly I didnt get a lucky roll and the CPU I received was the CLAWHAMMER variant rather than the San Diego and wouldnt overclock. To put things into contrast. I later purchased an AMD 3000+ which I think was a Venice but could have been Newcastle.... That 1.8Ghz chip managed to clock as high as 2.9Ghz on air and I ran that chip at 2.8 daily just to be safe.
G'day Phil, While I may not play with Components this old I love relearning this stuff with you Phil, XP PC update i got a X-Fi Titanium for $40AUD of Ebay, so last things I need to do for the build are make the custom Modular Power Cables & Run the Custom Tubing for the Modded CoolerMaster AIO to include the 780Ti EK Block & extra 120mm Radiator.
That X-Fi is awesome for Windows XP games. Make sure to check EAX option in the games, often it's not activated by default or needs 2 buttons like hardware audio and then EAX.
These Socket 939 Athlon 64 FX are quite rare and expensive... Got lucky and got an FX-60 for 50€ years ago but nowadays it's impossible to find them...
I used my Opty 1210 (later swapped for a 1218 I found on eBay New In Box for 20 USD) for a very long time (2007-2013, then from 2021-2)...finally built a Zen 3 5600 system last December, retired the Opty system.
I found a seller on ebay that sells New DDR2 RAM Modules, any speed any size. No idea on the compatibility but I did send for 2 - 8Gb kits (2Gb modules) running at 800Mhz. If it works I will send for some 1066 speed & test that out. The RAM comes on a Purple PCB so kinda interesting.
I had athlon 64 3700+ Sandiego S939 1MB cache and i remember i OC it from 2.2ghz to 2930mhz stable!! So it was faster than stock FX57. It was on DFI Lanparty Nforce4 Ultra-D. Good old days. Edit:For GPU i used 7800GTX and later 8800GTS 640MB. I remeber crysis runs around 35fps in 1280x1024 max and it was still GPU bound with 8800GTS 640MB.
Its a shame I missed out on the socket 939 platform. I first put together a computer in June 2006 when I graduated high school. I went with the AM2 platform and went with Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Windsor core and an eVGA GeForce 7600GT 256MB GDDR3 (512MB DDR2 version was inferior to the 256MB GDDR3 card). I still can vividly remember the all green 7600GT with the black fan shroud with the E next to the blower. RIP eVGA. I had to skimp a bit on the GPU and case, since I was 18 years old and working part time that summer.
The first PC I built was a socket 939 system. That was definitely the thing to go with in 2005-2006 before Intel's Core 2 CPUs came along. I went with the X2 3800+ and a 7600GT and had a great experience. I didn't play FEAR or FarCry, though. Oblivion was the main game I played then.
I have fond memories of the Socket 939 platform. As suggested by others, the AMD Opteron CPUs are also an option if you're unable to find an Athlon FX single or dual core CPU. It seems that prices have gone up since the time I picked up a few high-end socket 939 CPUs, like my Athlon FX-60 and Opteron 185 (I was never able to obtain an Opteron 190). I kept a number of mainboards, mostly those with the NVIDIA NForce4 (SLI) chipset. My DFI boards is in need of a re-cap and my two ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe boards keep giving me trouble. But my Gigabyte mainboard is running just fine! You can even run the 32-bit version of WIndows 10 on these boards, though performance is anything but stellar 🙂 Anyway, I enjoyed your video Phil! A follow-up with a comparison to a high-end dual core Socket 939 CPU might be nice.
Hi there, for Socket 939 the Opterons should also be considered. Back in the day they were the better Deal. I had an ASRock 939DualVSTA. Because, at First I kept my 7800GS AGP coming from Socket A. There was also a Silverpaint Mod to increase CPU Voltage. I managed to run my Opteron 144 Dual at about 2800 MHz. Basically at the Level of the FX-57. Saved a Lot of Money.
Yes, only for the collector with deep pockets. That going price is nuts! I got a much better deal on a Windsor Athlon-X2 3.0GHz w/ 1MB L2 for my old AM2 Biostar system I built 20 years ago. I think it cost me $30 shipped from Korea about 6 years ago. I pushed it to its max for nostalgia sake. It still runs well and reliable and plan to convert it to a NAS as the motherboard has 2 NICs.
As much as I love my Ryzen 3 1300x that lets me play anything between Dos/win3x to XP/7 I'd love go have a Athlon 64 x2 or x4. Speaking of my "All in One" retro gaming pc, I finally found a period correct sound card. A X-Fi fatality edition, thanks FB market place
Such a high value channel. Clued me in to SDI. Godsend. Now cluing me in to re-useable thermal pads for CPUs. Pay attention to this guy, the tools he uses in his videos are key for any vintage hardware enthusiast!
Those 3DMark05 score look on the low side; for example, my oldest 3DMark05 score with a slightly overclocked AMD 64 3500+ (2.2GHz stock) and a 6800 Ultra I get just shy of 6000 points. My 4000+ (2.4GHz stock) using the same GPU was pretty much the same score but doubled when I upgraded to a 7800 GTX. Your 3DMark03 score looks like it's in the ballpark though. I never had a FX-57 but I did (and still do) own a FX-60. With my FX-60 bumped that '05 score another 2~3k points with the 7800 GTX depending on the overclock. The FX-60 remained bottlenecked using 7900GT's in SLI because I still increased the score 2k points using stock settings with a GTX 260. My highest overclock on the FX-60 was 3.34GHz stable (stock is 2.6GHz) and I think that was possible due in part to the board I was using, the mighty DFI LanParty NF-4 SLI-DR eXpert and I had it water cooled. That board, CPU and a GTX 295 are still in my test bench and I fire it up every so often for the nostalgia.
![[UA] Team Vitality проти NAVI | IEM Cologne 2024](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/wttO1zVRTC0/mqdefault.jpg)
With the videos and all the help you're given everyone on Vogons you deserve that Patron
Indeed
Thank you!
Yes, and your DOS Bench Suite ist already kind of a standard within the retro Community 😊
One thing I've always appreciated is that you not only read the comments, but you help us if we're in the middle of a project and have questions. I really appreciate that.
I try my best! Sometimes though it gets out of hand, like I get an e-mail several pages with a detailed project and I don't know even where to start. Or if it's open ended like, can you make a list of best parts. So best to have a specific question with narrow focus that I can answer easily 😊
@@philscomputerlab you were certainly able to help me with my projects. The 98 rig is still under construction but that's because I'm still trying to figure out the gpu setup I'm going with. So many options though the compatibility issues were starting to funnel down into the "more newer is more better" bit xp finally was mostly on, if that made sense. But you definitely helped me enjoy all my old faves on XP, thank you for that.
If it's of any interest, I found an old Raidmax Sagitta still new in the box. Built my first computer in the same make/model/color, was XP. I'm putting my 98se rig in this one, though. Found everything new, mobo, ram, sound blaster sb0100, drives, cables. Trying to hunt down a new Athlon XP 3200+ and hopefully the gpu, though I think I won't find it.
This is one of my favorite games of all time. The Enemy AI puts a lot of modern games to shame. They call for backup, flush you out of cover, flank you from multiple directions, form impromptu squads and more. It's great.
Yea in the video there is one who tilts a shelf in front of you, blocking you. Inside I was going, OMG that is so cool.
A lot of marketing for that game, all those actions (taking cover, throwing shelves, etc) were scripted, happened every single time you played the levels, the AI was good but wasn't used on other games because it kind of sucked, goal oriented action planning, I remember doing my own implementation of that, very little ai and lots of cheating the player.
Sold mine a few months ago Boxed sealed for just over $300AUD crazy how this one has gone up
Oh wow, that certainly is the case. I haven't been following prices, but some parts are just really hard to find these days.
That's amazing people still pay big money for old CPUs..
Yes but why? There are alot of other good CPUs for lower price 😊 like the Athlon 64 3800+ Venice ore the 4000+ San Diego 😊
you could literally buy zen 4 or i5 raptor lake for that kind of money lol.
That's actually quite cheap price. On US-eBay it sold easily for USD 350.
But from AUS there was a sealed K6-III which also sold for cheap around AUS 350.
A8V is a true classic motherboard. One of the rare good VIA based boards which was actually good.
I have a love-hate relationship with VIA chipsets. They did much better than the SiS or ALi chipsets, but when there was Intel, nVidia or ATi available, those usually did were the better choice. Until the arrival of good nForce boards VIA was pretty much the only sane choice for K7
Nice work Phil! The game F.E.A.R. is indeed a good showcase for EAX. Maybe consider a video focused on similar games and showcasing what EAX brings to the table under WinXP compared to on-board audio?
Noted!
Realtek on-board audio can support some EAX, though not at the same level as Creative Labs. I would also be interested in Phil's take on the difference.
This would be awesome!!!
Esp. a comparison between original EAX and later ALchemy and OpenAL would be interesting.
Esp. one game I loved with EAX was Jedi Outcast for sure, played on a SB Audigy 2 ZS.
I lately saw a video where a guy played Jedi Outcast with DXVk, which doubled the FPS from like 500 to 1000 FPS, lol.
It's amazing to see that we can play old games on newer API.
And the more to preserve EAX as good as we can, for decades in which EAX hardware would not exist anymore.
Maybe someone makes it perfect with OpenAL, but not yet it seems, still is a difference.
In Hitman 2 there was a software patch to run a so-called "DieselPower 3D Audio" engine, which also made a huuuge difference.
But I think I played that on a P III 700 before I had the SB Audigy 2 ZS, not sure.
Sadly I never had A3D, but a former pal had and said it's awesome...before we know of EAX.
So yeah, A3D and EAX are a thing like 3DFX, which we miss nowadays.
Every time I catch on of your videos with a retro focus I want to get my XP machine out and spend a week replaying FEAR, Freelancer, Hitman 2, Prey, and Max Payne 1&2 but then reality bites so I just can't.
I remember to have used on optional "DieselPower 3D Audio" engine in Hitman 2, which made a huuuge difference.
But I dunno if I already had my SB Audigy 2 ZS or not and if H2 has native EAX support or not. haven't played it in 2 decades now.
Woah! Massive throwback, Phil. It reminded me of the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition from that same era ✌️😅 comparable price, too! Cheers, mate.
ah yes, the Emergency Edition. i remember the begining of x86-64 computing. I remember MaxPC had a Tron 2.0 cover and inwanna say it also had an article advertised on the cover regarding Athlon64 stuff.
I almost went with the FX-57 but heard rumours there would be a dual-core version. I ended up getting the FX-60 on an Asus A8R32-MVP Deluxe, and F.E.A.R. was one of the first games I played on it. There's a special 64-bit version that adds some more details and physics, even comes with a unique AMD demo/test. It would mean running Windows XP Pro x64 which means X-Fi drivers and features are a bit rough but maybe it's better now. Windows Vista x64 was much better for 64-bit support, but you need to run 4GB of RAM to make it fly. Which means dropping to a command rate of 2. But that's what Mushkin Redline DDR500 at 2-3-2-8 is for and a base clock of 215+ is for. Still running the old system playing F.E.A.R., BF2, HL2 and other classics.
Recently got my Windows XP 32bit rig up and running with a CRT monitor and a GTX 980ti. Been playing all the old games turning AA and AF on in the nvidia panel, gotta say it really makes a difference. Will definitely have to give F.E.A.R a try! Thanks for another great video Phil!
cpu ? ram?
Good day to you Phil! Back in the day, I built an Athlon 64 FX-55 system with a GeForce 7900 GTO, when these parts were on super clearance pricing with Newegg and Micro Center. It was after these parts were in their prime, but I remember being really happy with their performance for years afterwards. Been watching your videos for many years since all we ever saw was your hands in some of the videos. Thanks for all the work you've done for the retro/nostalgic PC community.
Wow great, FX's were something like gaming holy grail! I have back then in 2005-2008, desktop with mobile AMD Barton with unlocked multiplier @2.4GHz, 1,5GB RAM and 6600GT from inno3d. FEAR was somehow ok at 1024x768, but Crysis I finished in 640x480 lowest setting and it was really painfull experience, but sweet memories. Cheers Phil
Having gone through that era with a 7300 GT, I can feel your pain. performance is similar to a 6600 GT and I got a great oc on it and made it perform close to a 7600 SE
Let's just say Crysis wasn't fun on it and DMC4 really tanked in the forest level. There was something about the lighting in the area that was really bad for the card.
Great video as always, Phil! I have very fond memories of the socket-939 era and remember being in awe of the FX-57 and the extreme overclocks people could get out of it. The price was way beyond what I could afford at the time. I was huge into overclocking though and really pushed my hardware. I had a DFI LanParty NF4 Ultra-D and pushed Winbond BH-5 and Samsung TCCD based memory as far as I could. I eventually got a Vapochill LS and ran an Opteron 148 at about 3.3GHz for 24/7 use and later upgraded to an X2 4200+. It was a fun time!
Thanks for all that you do, Phil - wishing you all the best with Patreon and the next steps for your channel! 👍
3.3 GHz 😮
Sadly 3.3 was about the limit for K8, there just wasn't much headroom, especially compared to what Intel had at the time. Getting your 2.4 Northwood to 3.6 or your E2180 from 2.0 to 2.5 GHz or your E6600 from 2.4 to 3.2 was absolutely possible and not a big deal. Sure, IPC is different, but a 30-50% overclock was possible, even on the high end chips.
The FX-57 also hit the same 3.3 GHz limit, but it was already running at 2.8. A Friend at an Athlon 6000+, which ran 3.0 stock, so oc was pretty much not worth it. My E8400 at the same time hit 3.6 while undervolting and I got it to 4.2 recently.
I think 100 % of all C2D E8400 3 GHz CPUs ever made can run at 4.2 GHz w/o any problem. The silicon lot of C2D was very good.
But frequency is not everything. Remember how inefficient the P4 was.
I later had an AMD XP 2800+, after my P4 3200 mainboard died and I used the P4 3200 in a locked 2800 mainboard, the AMD CPU ran at only 2.0 Ghz, but was saving like 30 watts for the same performance and never did thermal throttling either.
Tho my 2nd hand E8400 could run and did run at 4.0 or 4.2 GHz in a Gigabyte board, I reset it to 3.0 GHz, because I wanted a long living PC and the P35 chip on the mainboard already was so hot, I added a medium sized fan to it.
In that late time I got it used the overclocking made no real sense, compared to i5-2400 and similar.
My retro pc build is based on the 939 agp Gigabyte GA-K8NSC-939, 4Gb of Ddr1 ram, Leadtek 6800GT and... FX-60, found that cpu by pure mistake locally for 10 euros :))
The one and only time I won a competition and I won this CPU with a motherboard and Ram back in 2005. Perfect for me as a 15 year old with a low paid part time job as all I had to get was a GPU really as I had some parts handed down from my dads friend.
I swear I've read another comment online somewhere. Maybe AMD ran this competition worldwide?
@@philscomputerlab not entirely sure. My dad entered the competition for me from a PC magazine we had in the UK (can’t remember what it was called). Also I enjoyed your section on FEAR as I too love the game it was one of the first games I played when I got my FX57! I go back to FEAR from time to time.
@@fossilfern Yea I was doing online research about the CPU and read that someone won that CPU as a prize. Maybe it was you 😀
@@philscomputerlab lol it could be. Any time I watch something about FEAR I always mention the FX57 as, for me, they’re both intertwined because after I got the FX57 it was the first game I played on it.
Love F.E.A.R. One of the best games around, great storyline (some great 'extra' videos on the disc) and scared the crap out of me more than once lol.
my word! Best Shooter game all the time for me! making so much fun even Multiplayer really funny much better than Counterstrike.
It's really nice to hear these background stories. Such a welcome addition.
Glad you enjoy it!
these were good days, the "secret" was to get an Opteron 165 on the cheap and with some tweaking on the NF4 you could run them at 2.7Ghz from the stock 1.8Ghz. I still have my Abit AN8-SLi and Opteron 165.
Think those was basically a fx55 but clocked lower for server markets. I know mine clocked as good as one as was just as fast an cost me 40odd quid versus almost 4 500. Ended up delididing it an it bairly went over 60c at insane clocks 2,4 push few more volt an it would do 2.589 almost 2.6ghz paired with a 8800gts it was a quick but cheap PC
The Socket 939 also came in PCIe variants.
I had an "MSI K8N Diamond Plus" motherboard back then with the "n-Force 4 SLi X16" chipset,
really good board which also had great integrated audio with the "Sound Blaster Audigy" chip.
Paired with an AMD X2 4600+ dual-core CPU with 2 GB of DDR1-ram (550 MHz, CL 3-4-4-8) and a GeForce 7900GT (PCIe) graphic card,
it was a fairly high-end PC for 2006 that could run most games (at the time) with maxed out settings at 1280x1024 resolution.
The 939 board I have is an MSI "K8N Neo 4" which has a single 16x PCIe slot with the "nForce4 Ultra" chipset.
The FX57 was AMD's 'extreme edition' of the FX series. it was made mostly irrelevant by the opteron series that dropped in to the same sockets. Same silicon as the the FX chips, just clocked lower, overclocked the same and cost a LOT less.
The opteron 148 was a beast of a cpu for it's era. 2.2ghz out of the box, mine overclocked to 3.1ghz and cost me around 1/4 the price of an fx57 at the time.
Great video, thank you. My first pc I built myself was a 939 system with an opteron single core cpu. After 2 years I found a 4800+ for cheap and put that in, huge boost in performance for the time and I had a 7800gt that soon was swapped out for a 8800gtx and I still have both gpu’s but not the cpu or board as they unfortunately died…. Great memories. Oh and I even had the ‘fear’ game but my go to was world of Warcraft
My first pc that I built entirely by myself was a 939 system too. I had an ABit motherboard, FX 3800+, a full gig of CL2 400MT/s memory and a 256MB video card. I played Star Trek: Starfleet Command III in the Dynaverse, online. I had the v534 patch and played on a heavily moded install, over 300 new ships. I played for hours on end. Then the fan on the cheap PSU stopped working. And when it blew up, it shot sparks all through the pc case and fried the mobo and cpu. Apparently the psu didn't have adequate safety features.
@@RANDOMNATION907 Those 939 CPUs didn't have protection built into them. They wouldn't underclock to protect the CPU if the temps got too hot, it would just keep running full speed until it killed itself.
I tested this out one time by turning the system on without a CPU fan even attached, and within seconds the CPU turned red hot and then caught on fire.
@@kfox420 Wow! That's absolutely crazy. I honestly had assumed it was my psu fan that failed but , maybe not. I didn't know much at all about computers back then.
Socket 939 has a very special place in my heart. First real computer I played games on was a 939 based system. A Compaq Presario at the time. I still have it and recently recapped it and upgraded it. Opteron 175, 3GB DDR400, 8800GTS. I think 939 with PCIe is the way to go if you can find a good board with PCIe. You get way more options for video cards than a AGP based board.
This channel is quickly becoming my favorite. Hope you can do this full time! Keep up the awesome work Phil !
Glad you enjoy it!
Excellent video, Phil! Really like the new format, it's much more personal than the more "matter-of-fact approach" that you used to have. Keep it up! 🙂
Thank you for the video Phil! There’s no way now to score a 57 unless one is willing to spend thousands on it so I’m happy I could find a 55 a couple of years ago and it’s such a lovey CPU. Paired it with a HD3850 and a pair of DDR Corsair XMS Pro 3500. Will be waiting for more videos from you - thanks again as always!
Don't forget about the Opteron options for many of the socket 939 boards. An Opteron 180 is about an equivalent to the top end socket 939 dual cores and performs very well with a variety of memory. They can be more reasonably bought as well over FX and the top end dual cores. Check your BIOS first though for proper Opteron support.
Pretty much every 4000+ and most 3700+ I've tried will handle an OC to 2.8Ghz, it's not even hard, just set the multiplier to 14x, and add a bit of voltage if you're running into stability issues.
The real MVP for single core Socket 939 was the Opteron, those often did 3.0Ghz or more without issues
I had one of those Opterons. There was a little bit of an overclocking contest going on at the time with them and they were a popular CPU on OCAU forums.
You can't "just set the multiplier to 14x" since they have a locked multiplier. But yeah, with FSB OC they handle 2.8GHz quite easily.
Uhm, not sure about the Opterons, but the multiplier was capped on Athlon 64 cpus. You could go _down_ but not up.
I habe testetd games with AMD AThlon 64 3700+ the performance is impressive, defintely better than Pentium D 820 3GHZ and also better than Pentium 4 560 (3,6GHZ) only few games there are an advantage of the HT Technology from intel.
Fantastic part for the collection, it's so awesome that you get to own this legendary unattainable hardware now ;)
Love that old 6800GT, miss the artwork days.
Those FX chips were incredible back in the day. I wanted one so badly, but could never justify it. I was running a Venice core 3800+ on 939 back then, which was pretty great, but I could never justify the expense of a FX system. Great cpu to see in action again.
i still have the chip and ASUS Nvidia 350N soundstorm board, just give me a nice offer, i don't need it
Great video as usual, Phil! This was always a Holy Grail CPU for me. Now a days I don't care to actually having one very much, as you mentioned, it is mostly a collectors item and plenty CPU can do what it does. But it's nice to see it in action, and interesting to hear about your story with the game. Cheers buddy
Looking forward to becoming a patron, I’ve been loyally following your videos for years now and I would be very happy to support you doing this full time. I don’t think anyone out there is responsible for more of the resources we all use to keep enjoying these old computers - I can’t tell you how often I download stuff from your website alone, for example.
Glad you’re setting one up, and best of luck with everything!
Thank you 😊
Yeah, steam is no longer consumer friendly. Old system supports are removed, then that day I was trying to start a game on steam deck only to find out they don’t allow you to start a game without updating it. I couldn’t believe it and googled it. So many people got pissed on their flights because they got locked out of the game due to a pending update…
Hey Phil, big fan of your videos, keep it up!
Thanks, will do!
man socket 939 and FX series WOW bring back incredible memory , thanks for this video
The debate back then was fast memory vs more memory. Some 939 and 754 boards will work with 4GB server modules. It does really extend the life of the platform for 64bit, especially Vista or 7.
That debate is still ongoing. In the end it depends on what you do.
if your programs run out of memory, you benefit from more, but if they fit into what you have, the faster the better.
I went with 16 GB back in 2013, and benefitted a lot from the size, but in turn I gave up on fast chips, because 8 GB DDR3-2133 were about the same price as 16 GB DDR3-1600. Not that my 16 GB can't do 2133 as well, but with much loser latencies.
But the real debate during the time was fast memory vs low latencies. With Intel, Pentium 4 (and Core 2 to a degree), benefitted a lot from fast memory while K7 (and to a degree K8) benefitted much more from low latencies and CR1
My XP machine's running an X2 4400+ with a gtx 750ti. Overkill I know but I got it at a really good price and it supports xp fairly well. Runs games great but even a lot of games in the future that claim to require a dual core machine don't actually utilize the second core whatsoever like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. for one example.
Awesome! I was 939 back in the day, I dont remember much about the fx but always wanted a phenom and couldn't afford one. I remember having an athlon II x3 on AM2 and unlocking an extra core. I have a couple of 939 board but didnt really know what to do with them so thanks for the suggestions!
Oh yessss, the FX-57. I have in 2005 a FX-57 in hope to reach 3GHz. The CPU have i bought in ebay for around 500-600€. Very expensive for this time. My FX57 reaches 3150MHz (14x225MHz). Maybe, there must Screenshots from this time. :D
This was the time, i'm not much good in OC. Much later in a Retrosystem, i clocked a 3700+ (San Diego Core A64, 939) above 3GHz. Am sad, i have selled my FX57.
In a retrosystem, a very fast WinME-System with a 2,8GHz clocked 3700+, ASUS A8V and Quadro 980XGL the 939 Socket lives continues. :)
Thank you for your work. :)
I'm glad someone like you covered that Athlon 64 FX thing, since I didn't hear much about it... I only heard about it from you and someone (I think it was Chris Pirillo mentioning it) at Flickr about the fact that Athlon 64 FX did in fact exist. I feel like something like A64 FX makes some people feel special about owning that "Collector's Item" sort of speak.
Funfact: F.E.A.R. was made by the same guys (Monolith Productions) who made quite a challenging platforming game called Captain Claw back in 1997 - Something I grew up playing.
I still remember buying an FX-57 when it released. Shame that I just threw it in the trash in a complete PC since it was all "obsolete" by 2010. One thing I wish I could go back and undo.
I have same 939 motherboard with Athlon 64 3500+, Geforce 6600 GT, very good system for retro gaming. Thank you of your video, keep up the good work.
Interesting story, so that's where your love for socket 754 comes from!
But also VIA chipset and compatibility with PCI sound cards with DOS, it works really well.
When you started the video hinting at RAM settings I immediately thought back to command rate when I built my Socket 939 system when it was still king of the hill. A8N-SLI Premium with 7800GTX!
Wow, I actually have one of these chips in an old MSI skt 939 board. Will need to hunt it out to see if it still works after all these years
Back in the day i really would have loved to have one of these FX CPUs. But i couldn't afford it.
Phil. Been watching your videos for like a decade, always enjoy them. I get to watch you play with all the retro hardware so I can save money on other things. Good to see your face too! Have you thought about doing up a retro background and lighting for your studio showcasing some retro goodies?
Yes I have, but I really struggle at coming up with something nice. I'm just a very plain person 😂 But yes, it's something I do want to improve on.
I’m going with socket 939 for my XP pc because I view it as the last platform where most enthusiasts actually were installing XP on their PCs. Core 2 and AM2 both came out very close to Vista’s launch which kind of makes them less intriguing for a XP build. To me something like a 7800GTX/939 X2 build is about as new as you could have where you wouldn’t have been thinking about Vista.
Never owned a 939 system back in the day but 6800GT agp was my first high end video card and its really amazing how well it held up even on later titles, once tried to run GTA IV on it which it did launch but at a rather low framerate.
I still have a 6950GT lying around somewhere. It still works!
I almost managed to get hold of an FX-60 but the seller would not let it go without a broken faulty motherboard and a few other accessories. I just needed/wanted the CPU for a build that was practically complete. Settled for a S939 4800+ instead. That was bundled with a few components but at least they worked.
The FX-57 was a chip that not many people could afford at the time.
Hi Phil, nice video once again! The Athlon FX was the natural enemy of the Pentium M, as far as I remember. 😉 Therefore some results in comparsion, whereas the graphics card in my system was a bit "beefier", being a 7800GS+ from Gainward with 24/8 shader units. The Pentium M is a 770 model running at 2,8GHz, FSB at 800MHz, on an Asus P4P800 with ct-479 adapter:
3DMark 2001: 33488
3DMark 2003: 19879
3DMark 05 : 9119
With a 7600GT:
3DMark2001 : 21328 @16bit / 20669 @32bit
3DMark2003 : 10008 @32bit
3DMark05 : 4479 @32bit
Currently both the mainboard and the 7800GS+ are waiting for a recap. Would be interesting how the Pentium M compares to the FX with a similar graphics card...
so let's write down that a 100 watt athlon competed with a 24 watt laptop pentium m
Ι never tried an AMD 939 socket. I had a 754 socket and the CPU was an Athlon XP 3400+. Thank you bringing memories from FEAR as well. What a gane it was. And its sequels as well. Cheers.
Ohh my..... Now you have me motivated to build a retro AMD machine too 😊
You can do it!
@@philscomputerlab yeah I know, and I love to do it! It will need to get a place next to my Pentium 3, Pentium 4 and Core2Duo systems 🤗
I had and still have my AMD Athlon 64 3400+ socket 754 pc from that era, and what a fun time it was gaming with that cpu back then. The FX line was top dog for AMD back then and the FX-50 series were all single core until the FX-60 series, and FX-70 series which were dual cores. Then Intel released the Core 2 line in 2006 and AMD spent the next 11 years after trying to catch back up until Ryzen in 2017.
Greetings, Amazing video!! Phil, I have the same motherboard, I have three CPUs 939, Athlon 64 4200 x2, Athlon 64 3200 and Athlon 64 3000. Keep making this type of videos! Thank you. I really enjoyed it. Bye
F.E.A.R that brings back some good vibes . I loved playing that multiplayer with my mates in our lair.
Really enjoyed the story Phil! I was lucky enough to have the FX-55 back in the day, overclocked it to FX-57 speeds. For gaming when it came out it was a beast as many games didn't take advantage of dual cores, but a few years later it was very outdated as the X2 and later Intel Conroe chips wiped the floor with it, and games were taking advantage of dual cores. I had a 7800GTX at the time, the 256mb version, it was great but it ran out of steam at high resolutions on my huge Dell CRT monitor I had at the time (1600x1200 I think).
2005, The year of the pentium D's Must have a 930 socket 775 here somewhere clocked at 3,0 Ghz. The normal ones went up to 3,4 Ghz. The Pentium 4 Extreme Edition from 2005 ranged from 3,4-3,73 GHz
I had that exact 6800gt, Albatron - brings back memories thanks Phil. I got it for my 14th birthday!
Also I ran mine with a 2500+ Barton running at 3200+
I had an Athlon 64 3700+ which I overclocked to 2.9ghz on a DFI Lanparty NF4 board. Really classic setup. I bought it in 2005 and used it until 2012!
I remember I just couldn't hit 3ghz on it, needed alot of voltage and better cooling, probably better silicon lottery results also.
I just kept upgrading the GPU, started with a Radeon x850 and finished with a Radeon HD4890 (with a few nVidia cards in between), everything else about the system I just kept the same, even the X-Fi I bought new in 2005.
It was starting to struggle by then, and when I finally changed from XP to Windows 7 I bought a decent Phenom II system to replace it.
What's really funny is I remember reading VOGONS in 2005, about the time I was building that pc. At the time, the argument was whether Pentium 3 should be considered 'retro'. lol.
My personal conviction then was that 'retro' was Socket 7 or earlier.
Funny how times change.
i loved that era of PC gaming, i was in a job where all i did was play FPS games on the LAN all day. In restrospect it was a dead end job and did nothing for my career but i was being paid and all i did was play games. my friend Anthony even bought a 6800GT to install in one of the work computers so he would have the edge, unfortunately for him it was faulty and he couldnt get a refund. the bizarre thing is it only seemed to work in one computer, mine 😂 My on the sly work setup was better than my home pc at the time.
He sadly passed away a few years ago at a young age. i hope wherever he is, he's skiving from work playing network PC games on a working 6800GT.
Thanks for the video on this CPU Phil. I have one of these that I've been meaning to do a build with. Your video has inspired me to get researching some more parts to make a well rounded setup.
Go for it!
I was lucky enough to get a recent hand down from a gamer friend: Athlon X2 4200+ with nforce chipset motherboard, exactly like the one I used to run back in the day (and stupidly threw out), I remember the nforce was really popular at the time and was the go to chipset for gamers going the AMD CPU's. Im running dual boot windows 2000 and windows XP, the golden era of gaming as you say Phil!
I wish I could go back in time and stop myself from throwing away so many old PC parts. Hindsight is 20/20.
Interesting benchmarks, like!
I remember back in the day, i just couldnt justify an FX build and went the Athlon 64 route, might still have that system in the garage. But I think I do have some FX chips I later got from ewasted PCs at work, not sure I have a 57, might have to check in my old CPUs storage box.
I've been looking at getting a 939 system together for a few years actually, but I don't feel it's worth it honestly. Maybe a lower end spec would be good enough,
but as you say these top-spec CPUs are really expensive (and I like to go for the top SKU, heh). I think I'm going to end up making a Phenom-system instead, they can still be found on the cheap. :)
My standard XP-system otherwise is based on my trusty old E8600 that I bought back in the day. Still runs very well, though I've had two motherboards die on me over the years.
Great showcase on F.E.A.R. too - it's an amazing game for sure! Quite scary, great story. I remember it fondly as well.
For XP gaming, yes, you will be amazed with the Phenom II! Nice AM3 boards shouldn't be hard to find, the chipsets are from AMD and very stable and with PCIe, you are spoilt for choice finding a nice graphics card. 8800 GT would work, but also newer cards. A Phenom II X2 would be perfect IMO, no need for X4.
@@philscomputerlab yeah, makes a lot of sense. :) I already have a nice 8800GT so I'm halfway there!
This is exciting stuff for me - I never got to play with the AM2-3 stuff back in the day so it's all new stuff to me now. Will be on the lookout for an AM3 board, then! Cheers
Phil I i have been watching you since 2016 when i was 15 years old and i always liked the retro hardware especially the XP era because I grown up with XP computers (with P4 laptops). Anyway, I really like your videos and they are very satisfying watching them.
Thank you 😊
Oh WOW. Thanks for introducing me to Snappy Driver, looks like an awesome tool.
I had an old Dell 15 years ago that I modded the fan to help with the heat on this CPU. I gave it away and upgraded to a Core 2Quad. Can't believe it's worth something now
Core 2 Extreme Editions like QX9770 also are expensive nowadays, as always for the fastest models that's often 200+ bucks for the CPU.
But you have to count in inflation also. So things get virtually more expensive also in the last 3 years maybe.
Once again, Uncle Phil shows up with some rare shit and makes us jealous.
I always thought it was interesting that you could get a faster chip than the FX57 (2.8GHz) by going for an Opteron 156 (3.0GHz). They almost brought out an Opteron 190 (2.8GHz) to beat the FX60 (2.6GHz) on socket 939 as well. Additionally, the fastest socket 754 processor was actually the Mobile Athlon 64 4000+ which ran at 2.6GHz (200mhz faster than the desktop counterpart) with the full 1MB L2 cache and came without an IHS (which benefited some enthusiasts). Great video, Phil 👍
I've only recently discovered these Opterons. I'm puzzled why AMD launched them for consumer platform.
Your Sempron from back in the day sounds very similar to my first brand new machine that wasn't a "hand-me-down". I had a Sempron and a FX5500 graphics card in around 2003-2004.
FEAR!!! What a series
Been watching you for years now esp on the older soundcard/video card reviews. Glad you're going pro... maybe one day I will too (LMAO). Keep it up, great content.
Maybe one day!
I am so happy to have found one for my collection. I have a spare Opteron 154 which is the same unit, minus the unlocked multipliers. I may sell it
Ehy I just love the 939 socket, was my main system for a lot of years back in the day!
And AGP in socket 939 is beautiful vintage classic! Great for Windows XP yes! Another nice video, and the AMD FX-57 was a dream back in the day! I would really love to take a fx-60 but it's so expensive too! I have the Opteron 180 on my socket 939 micro atx system overclocked to 2,8ghz!
what an outstanding video, in my humble opinion one of your very best
Great info and good luck with your patreon! Fear is one of the all time best fps! I remember scaring myself to death playing late at night...
It's really very rare. I've been looking for it for years. But nobody offers it. I noticed that the whole socket 939 and 754 mainboards are slowly being traded much more expensive in price. In particular, mainboards with 939 and Nforce 4 have become significantly more expensive. AM2 is the cheapest today.
Yes it happens slowly with prices. The sellers on eBay know what they are doing, the items sell slowly but at a high price, market skimming. Often it's not gamers but customers with old computers that need a replacement part for their old industrial PC running some obscure proprietary software. Focus on what is cheap at the moment: Core 2 and early Core stuff.
Very cool video! Awesome to see the best retro hardware in action, especially the AGP Cards!! I believe the actual fastest/highest clocked 939 Socket CPU was the Opteron 156 at 3.0Ghz, but that chip is beyond rare. Although that chip wasn't apart of the FX lineup. There was some rumors around that time (2005/2006) that they were going to produce a FX-59 to match the Opteron.
Interesting, your CPU setup back then is very close to me, yours must be 2600+ mine was Sempron 2500+ with very slow 1.4GHz but it can clocked to 2.4GHz without any voltage increase and using stock cooler to boot! It uses DFI NF4X motherboard and my very first PCIe card was Powercolor Radeon X550, and like you I always use Creative soundblaster cards, mine was Live! 5.1 at the time, I haven't used Audigy and jumped to X-Fi when it comes out. Man fond memories...
I think I still have an FX-55 in a parts grave yard somewhere.... Sadly I didnt get a lucky roll and the CPU I received was the CLAWHAMMER variant rather than the San Diego and wouldnt overclock.
To put things into contrast. I later purchased an AMD 3000+ which I think was a Venice but could have been Newcastle.... That 1.8Ghz chip managed to clock as high as 2.9Ghz on air and I ran that chip at 2.8 daily just to be safe.
I had both the FX57 and FX60 in my old alienware laptops. Back in the day they were king.
Keep up the good work ! Good luck for you Patreon ! 🤞💪
Much appreciated!
G'day Phil,
While I may not play with Components this old I love relearning this stuff with you Phil,
XP PC update i got a X-Fi Titanium for $40AUD of Ebay, so last things I need to do for the build are make the custom Modular Power Cables & Run the Custom Tubing for the Modded CoolerMaster AIO to include the 780Ti EK Block & extra 120mm Radiator.
That X-Fi is awesome for Windows XP games. Make sure to check EAX option in the games, often it's not activated by default or needs 2 buttons like hardware audio and then EAX.
These Socket 939 Athlon 64 FX are quite rare and expensive... Got lucky and got an FX-60 for 50€ years ago but nowadays it's impossible to find them...
Nice, that one is dual core!
I wonder how the AGP ATI X1950 Pro would run in this system, keep up the great work Phil!!
I used my Opty 1210 (later swapped for a 1218 I found on eBay New In Box for 20 USD) for a very long time (2007-2013, then from 2021-2)...finally built a Zen 3 5600 system last December, retired the Opty system.
Great video, love the stories and good luck going full time.
Grüße aus Deutschland. 😊
I found a seller on ebay that sells New DDR2 RAM Modules, any speed any size. No idea on the compatibility but I did send for 2 - 8Gb kits (2Gb modules) running at 800Mhz. If it works I will send for some 1066 speed & test that out. The RAM comes on a Purple PCB so kinda interesting.
Its videos like these that make this channel fuckin AWESOME !
I had athlon 64 3700+ Sandiego S939 1MB cache and i remember i OC it from 2.2ghz to 2930mhz stable!! So it was faster than stock FX57. It was on DFI Lanparty Nforce4 Ultra-D. Good old days.
Edit:For GPU i used 7800GTX and later 8800GTS 640MB. I remeber crysis runs around 35fps in 1280x1024 max and it was still GPU bound with 8800GTS 640MB.
Its a shame I missed out on the socket 939 platform. I first put together a computer in June 2006 when I graduated high school. I went with the AM2 platform and went with Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Windsor core and an eVGA GeForce 7600GT 256MB GDDR3 (512MB DDR2 version was inferior to the 256MB GDDR3 card). I still can vividly remember the all green 7600GT with the black fan shroud with the E next to the blower. RIP eVGA.
I had to skimp a bit on the GPU and case, since I was 18 years old and working part time that summer.
I think a mate of mine had an FX 57. Beast for the day.
The first PC I built was a socket 939 system. That was definitely the thing to go with in 2005-2006 before Intel's Core 2 CPUs came along. I went with the X2 3800+ and a 7600GT and had a great experience. I didn't play FEAR or FarCry, though. Oblivion was the main game I played then.
I have fond memories of the Socket 939 platform. As suggested by others, the AMD Opteron CPUs are also an option if you're unable to find an Athlon FX single or dual core CPU. It seems that prices have gone up since the time I picked up a few high-end socket 939 CPUs, like my Athlon FX-60 and Opteron 185 (I was never able to obtain an Opteron 190).
I kept a number of mainboards, mostly those with the NVIDIA NForce4 (SLI) chipset. My DFI boards is in need of a re-cap and my two ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe boards keep giving me trouble. But my Gigabyte mainboard is running just fine!
You can even run the 32-bit version of WIndows 10 on these boards, though performance is anything but stellar 🙂
Anyway, I enjoyed your video Phil! A follow-up with a comparison to a high-end dual core Socket 939 CPU might be nice.
Hi there, for Socket 939 the Opterons should also be considered. Back in the day they were the better Deal. I had an ASRock 939DualVSTA. Because, at First I kept my 7800GS AGP coming from Socket A. There was also a Silverpaint Mod to increase CPU Voltage. I managed to run my Opteron 144 Dual at about 2800 MHz. Basically at the Level of the FX-57. Saved a Lot of Money.
Yes, only for the collector with deep pockets. That going price is nuts! I got a much better deal on a Windsor Athlon-X2 3.0GHz w/ 1MB L2 for my old AM2 Biostar system I built 20 years ago. I think it cost me $30 shipped from Korea about 6 years ago. I pushed it to its max for nostalgia sake. It still runs well and reliable and plan to convert it to a NAS as the motherboard has 2 NICs.
As much as I love my Ryzen 3 1300x that lets me play anything between Dos/win3x to XP/7 I'd love go have a Athlon 64 x2 or x4.
Speaking of my "All in One" retro gaming pc, I finally found a period correct sound card. A X-Fi fatality edition, thanks FB market place
How do you have that setup? Virtual machines? Multi boot? Both?
@@MrBonesawzall it's running windows 7 64bit as the host OS and has virtual machines for XP and 98SE, and DosBox for Dos/ windows 3x.
Holy Crap ALBATRON!
Such a high value channel. Clued me in to SDI. Godsend. Now cluing me in to re-useable thermal pads for CPUs. Pay attention to this guy, the tools he uses in his videos are key for any vintage hardware enthusiast!
Those 3DMark05 score look on the low side; for example, my oldest 3DMark05 score with a slightly overclocked AMD 64 3500+ (2.2GHz stock) and a 6800 Ultra I get just shy of 6000 points. My 4000+ (2.4GHz stock) using the same GPU was pretty much the same score but doubled when I upgraded to a 7800 GTX. Your 3DMark03 score looks like it's in the ballpark though.
I never had a FX-57 but I did (and still do) own a FX-60. With my FX-60 bumped that '05 score another 2~3k points with the 7800 GTX depending on the overclock. The FX-60 remained bottlenecked using 7900GT's in SLI because I still increased the score 2k points using stock settings with a GTX 260. My highest overclock on the FX-60 was 3.34GHz stable (stock is 2.6GHz) and I think that was possible due in part to the board I was using, the mighty DFI LanParty NF-4 SLI-DR eXpert and I had it water cooled. That board, CPU and a GTX 295 are still in my test bench and I fire it up every so often for the nostalgia.