Thought I would share my 2006 FX-60 build.
Posted by Spadebrigade@reddit | retrobattlestations | View on Reddit | 51 comments
Original era : Peak 2006 build, last of the golden AMD era before Conroe/8800 GTX came along and changed the game forever...
Specification:
Case : Antec P160
Case fans : Akasa 120mm Vegas Green LED
PSU : Corsair TX-650M Gold (with Akasa 120mm dual bearing green LED fan)
CPU : Athlon FX-60 dual core 2.6Ghz (January 2006)
CPU Cooler : Zalman CNPS 9700 NVIDIA SLI Edition
Motherboard : A8N32-SLI Deluxe Socket 939 nforce4 SLI (Late 2005)
Memory : 2X1GB DDR 400 Corsair XMS Pro
GPU: SLI NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTO 512MB (October 2006)
Sound Card : Creative X-Fi Titanium
Boot Drive : 1TB Samsung 860 Evo SSD
Storage Drive : 2TB WD Black 7200rpm SATA HDD
Software : Windows XP Pro SP3 32bit - NVIDIA drivers 175.19
Other : Samsung DVD drive, Sony floppy drive, Akasa fan controller, green cable wrap, green illuminated molex extensions, green round floppy cable.
Benchmarks:
3DMark 2001 Score: 31762
3DMark 2003 Score: 33125
3DMark 2005 Score: 13331
3DMark 2006 Score: 8872
Mitchell_90@reddit
Love it. I had a similar rig back then but was rocking an Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Toledo and Radeon X1800XT. Dual booted XP Pro and Vista during its beta development before going to RTM in late 2006.
Have you considered overclocking that FX-60? Pretty sure you can get ~3GHz out of it.
Spadebrigade@reddit (OP)
Awesome system back then man! I have considered it but to be honest I don’t really have a need, if I want anything faster in XP I have multiple quicker XP systems, and these FX-60 are becoming too valuable and rare for me to damage it :)
bassemann87@reddit
Thats amazing!
rarcusmeich@reddit
amazing build. I have an FX-53/ATi X800XT PE AGP in an Alienware case. The FX series rocks.
Spadebrigade@reddit (OP)
Oh very nice man! I’ve never seen a 53 come up for sale in the UK, super rare!
johnklos@reddit
I want to believe that those DIMMs have price tags on them, and that each DIMM cost $48.247.
Spadebrigade@reddit (OP)
That’s exactly what they say :)
CraftedKittens@reddit
holy shit this is one of my favorite cases ever, needs the acrylic side panel though
Spadebrigade@reddit (OP)
I would love to find an original one
Cbreezeeey@reddit
That is so rad!
Clownbabies69@reddit
high speed low drag
ligma-code@reddit
That is stunning, nicely done mate. And I’m envious whenever I see GeForce 7 series cards with thicc coolers that avoid the bumpgate issues.
Meanderthaller@reddit
Absolute peak
Spadebrigade@reddit (OP)
🥹
emuboy85@reddit
10/10 no notes.
Top-Ad3936@reddit
thats a sweet ass rig.....
I've been thinking of trying to build a dedicated 90's rig myself. I wanna play all my classic 90's games... Dune 2000, Need for Speed III and IV, Blade Runner, Pandora's Box... I mean I have them all in CD form and playing them on modern hardware just isn't the same.
Spadebrigade@reddit (OP)
With that era in mind you could put something quite capable together and probably quite reasonable price wise if you aren’t too fussed about having specific parts. Of course to be period correct it should be AGP, but something like a Pentium 4 would be both cheap and overkill.
Top-Ad3936@reddit
I was thinking the same, im just scared to pull the trigger due to the age of some of the components I will need and the reliability... But every day looking at builds like yours inches me closer to doing it regardless LOL
Spadebrigade@reddit (OP)
The big problem back then was capacitors, they weren’t good quality and many of them haven’t aged well. If you buy a motherboard try to ensure that visibly the capacitors all look OK.
Veddermandenis@reddit
I love a period correct build. Very clean and also Nice photography. Like you said, for me the fun is mostly building these machines, the play part is secondary.
Spadebrigade@reddit (OP)
Thank you I appreciate it. I just love to own these things, sourcing the parts, building and lightly refurbishing…sometimes it takes a long time to find all the correct parts. It’s just the fun of it all :)
Veddermandenis@reddit
Couldn't agree more. I assembled a P166 and a Dual P-II233 with period correct parts and was fun even if expensive at times. I also built three reverse sleeper machines with top of the line hardware, one from 2003/4 other from 2007/8 and other from 2009/10 and sourcing some extravagant stuff I couldn't afford back in the day was really rewarding. I have them all documented on this sub if you're patient enough to take a look.
Spadebrigade@reddit (OP)
I will check it out :D
No-Succotash-9576@reddit
100x more beautiful than any modern build I have seen
Spadebrigade@reddit (OP)
There’s something about that era for sure :D
SergeantRegular@reddit
Fun fact, that Antec P160 was the very first case that I actually, purposefully shopped for and bought. I had been building since the early 90s, but all my cases were computer show discount beige boxes, or recycle bin scrap, or just older cases re-used.
The P160 was the first case I looked at that had everything I wanted enough to actually seek it out.
You've built a lovely machine, and it can still bring a lot of joy.
Spadebrigade@reddit (OP)
Thank you very much! It’s a nice case for sure, lightweight, beautiful looks. It was fun to build in. I was lucky to find this brand new boxed and unused in the UK a couple years ago. I doubt there is another new one left here.
Jdspoel@reddit
It’s beautiful. What are you going to play?
Spadebrigade@reddit (OP)
It’s the building not the playing with me, silly really.
Jdspoel@reddit
Not that silly. It’s a 50/50 with me too
dkonigs@reddit
I have that exact case! (And according to my Email archives, I bought in January 2007.)
Though I don't think the innards of mine looked anywhere near that cool.
Spadebrigade@reddit (OP)
Oh you’ve owned it this whole time? Amazing mate
brandmeist3r@reddit
I have the same case. It is beautiful.
dkonigs@reddit
Its sitting under a table on the other side of this very room, next to a bunch of boxes :-)
Haven't powered it on in years, might be partially parted out from a previous PC upgrade. I also think its missing a few cover panels at this point.
Spadebrigade@reddit (OP)
I really would love the window side panel, pretty much impossible to find in the UK now. Maybe there is one out there…
le_idris@reddit
Awesome Build!
interfluxdeux@reddit
JFC this is beautiful. The parts are mostly period-accurate, too (with the drives being a notable exception).
My friends and I built gaming PCs in the '00s and your build brings back a lot of memories. As you said, mid-2006 was the peak of AMD's long-running dominance over NetBurst before Core 2 was released and began Intel's stomping on AMD until Ryzen, and a few months later G80 came out and changed everything on the GPU front.
That GeForce 7900 GTO was a great deal back in the day - basically the same as the mighty 7900 GTX but with slightly slower VRAM. I had a 7950 GT at the time, and I couldn't hit 650 MHz on the core to match the 7900 GTX/GTO until I added a Zalman VF900-Cu.
Spadebrigade@reddit (OP)
Exactly that man! I picked the parts for this very reason, sort of peak DX9. I didn’t go period correct with the storage or the PSU mainly because those are the two weak points of 20 odd year old machines and I’m happy to run slightly better parts in those areas. I don’t think it distracts too much. Thanks a lot for your comment I really appreciate it.
DeepDayze@reddit
A modern SATA SSD does do wonders for this 20 year old build no doubt and bet it boots quite fast especially if you carefully partition the SSD.
Spadebrigade@reddit (OP)
Sometimes I do stick to original hard drives on a build but this time I just thought what the heck. It makes it feel surprisingly fast…
gen_angry@reddit
Monster of a build.
I had the Opteron 180 which is essentially the same chip (200mhz less clock), epox NF4 board, and a x1950 Pro. Lots of good times with that thing and took me right to Phenom II.
Spadebrigade@reddit (OP)
Thanks dude, that was a cool setup you had. Those opteron’s were good chips, I’ve still got a 185.
gen_angry@reddit
Just wondering, did you align your partition on the SSD before installing WinXP? It's a bit of a 'gotcha' since XP's installer is not SSD aware.
DeepDayze@reddit
Vista's and Win7's installer are also not quite SSD aware either but there were later updates that added that support.
Spadebrigade@reddit (OP)
I did, but thanks for the heads up. I actually did it after installing XP, put the disk in another machine and used minitool partition wizard. In hindsight it’s probably easier doing it first but my understanding is the net result is the same.
DeepDayze@reddit
This would still make a nice gaming rig and that case ought to be useful for even a modern build with say an AMD Ryzen based mobo.
FrenchDipsBeDrippin@reddit
Holy shit man. What an absolute unit.
datsmydrpepper@reddit
Super clean internals man and the green color scheme is sweet.
Spadebrigade@reddit (OP)
Thank you!!
Divergent5623@reddit
https://imgflip.com/i/apjf19
Spadebrigade@reddit (OP)
Hahaha thanks man love it