best cheap/free scores 1.1

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I got almost no cables for anything other than the xbox, but as you can see, I got an xbox component adapter which go for big bucks but I'm going to keep it. I full refurbed the xbox and tsop modded already. I haven't gotten to the Wii or GC yet. No cables or controllers whatsoever.

Maybe you've done it already, but did you remove the clock cap? Anything older than a 1.6 is crucial to have its cap removed (or replaced, but I wouldn't the slightest recommend that, even if it's UCC/Rubycon/Panasonic/Nichicon) as these tend to bulge, spill their guts, eat up the traces, or even burn the PCB (I've seen one where it burnt the PCB.) if not removed.

Otherwise nice pick, I assume you have a SATA to IDE converter for it?

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Mid 80's I went into a retail "computer store" and found the techs browsing *photos* on a machine that was obviously in for repair. Learned, early on, never to expect folks to "resist temptation" to go poking around!

it could be just that they were trying to perform data recovery on the computer and were looking to see if the data was recovered correctly. how do u know that wasnt the case otherwise?

[Curious.George]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

it could be just that they were trying to perform data recovery on the computer and were looking to see if the data was recovered correctly. how do u know that wasnt the case otherwise?

If you want to convince yourself that the "photo files" have been recovered, you DON'T need to call all your buddies over (including the customer who just walked in the shop -- me!) to giggle and share the photos with them!

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Managed to find a ASUS RoG G70SG at the trash, pretty gutted sadly.

I managed to salvage a G84 based Geforce 8700M GT (which surprisingly works despite the crudely scribbled "DOES NOT POST - NO VIDEO" on the case) along with its respective heatsink, a rubber feet (which was missing on my nearly-working G70S) and all of these went in a G70S I bought at the beginning of August, which had two literally popcorned 8700M GT's in SLi. RIP for those two.

It runs fine now, although I should look for a new tube of Zalman STC-9 paste. That was some good stuff (you can imagine how good it was if it considerably cooled down a HP DV7 running a Turion II M520, which by default run hotter than the sun), and a RoG lappy with a 8700M GT should deserve it.

[jayjr1105]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Maybe you've done it already, but did you remove the clock cap? Anything older than a 1.6 is crucial to have its cap removed (or replaced, but I wouldn't the slightest recommend that, even if it's UCC/Rubycon/Panasonic/Nichicon) as these tend to bulge, spill their guts, eat up the traces, or even burn the PCB (I've seen one where it burnt the PCB.) if not removed.

Otherwise nice pick, I assume you have a SATA to IDE converter for it?

I have three OG xbox's all with various caps already replaced and clock cap's removed on all but the 1.6 which I replaced with a 2.7v 6F cap I got from an Intel Raid Controller.

[momaka]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I got these last month but forgot to post them:
3x MSI ATI Radeon HD3870 [RX3870-T2D512E-OC] PCI-E video cards for about $23 total shipped (about $7.50 per card)

Kind of irrelevant cards anymore and nowhere powerful enough for modern games, but I like them for some reason.

The MSI version is nothing more than a reference design with a stock reference cooler... but looking a bit more pretty



The above pictured card was actually one that I bought several months ago, and wasn't that cheap (almost paid $30 for it.) But I got it, because I wanted to match the red PCB and styling with an old MSI socket 939 motherboard. Not only did I pay quite a bit for that card, but it came with ripped SMD components and tracks/pads, along with steep bend in both rear corners - all likely from the seller mis-handling it.
I could return it, but didn't want to due to the looks I wanted. And that was the cheapest MSI HD3870 I could find for a long time (most sellers are still asking $40 to 50+.) So instead I repaired/re-poppulated the missing SMDs (2x 1-KOhm resistors, a VGA output filter bead, and a ripped trace) and got the card working.

One corner, after straightening it out:


Fast forward a few months later, and I see an auction for three of these same MSI cards and no bids. The price was a bit higher initially - around $20, excluding shipping... but then the seller dropped it to half of that. No one bid on the auction and neither did I, because I already had a working card. So the auction ended. But then the seller re-listed again, starting at half-price already. It was a good deal, so I waited to see if anyone else would take on it... but no one did, so I bid and won. So there we go, now I have FOUR of these MSI HD3870 cards. The 3x that I got all came in perfect condition too, BTW... and with original picture-matching HD3650 boxes. Again, for ~$7.50 a card, I think they are still a steal for older PCs.

As mentioned, they are pretty much reference HD3870 cards, but with a slight (25 MHz) core overclock and a pretty picture. Also, I think the fan profile is slightly more tweaked than the stock/reference one. Usually the reference cards run very quiet and wait until the core hits 70C, then slowly start cranking up the fans. These MSI cards have much more aggressive fan profile and tend to run a bit loud even. But the cooling is great, and I'm all about good cooling, so these are exactly what I wanted.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

And thus, "RX3800" isn't a "Navi", LOL!

(Radeon HD3800)

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Nice to see a HD3850 show up, the oldest card from the HD series that I have is a 4850 from ASUS. Haven't got around doing a build with it yet, but I do have an H55 based 1156 board that I should put to work.

[momaka]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Nice to see a HD3850 show up, the oldest card from the HD series that I have is a 4850 from ASUS. Haven't got around doing a build with it yet, but I do have an H55 based 1156 board that I should put to work.

Yeah, that be the one you posted a few pages back I presume?
ATI stepped up their game a lot with the 4800 series, coming from the 3870 which would in many cases perform worse than a 9600 GT. That said, if you had the 1 GB version of the 4850, you could probably even play GTA V decently well on it. With 512 MB VRAM though, it's going to be a step back to 2012 games or older, most likely. Fine card for CS:GO @ 1080p or lower, though. Or any Mirror's Edge fans? My nephews love that one.

And thus, "RX3800" isn't a "Navi", LOL!

(Radeon HD3800)

Ah, took me a while to get what you meant.

Yeah, ATI/AMD and their naming conventions.
First we had Rage (grrrr!!!! ), then it was in the high thousands range (Radeon 7000, 8000, 9000 etc.) then back in the hundreds with the X100 series, then back in the thousands with the X1000 series, then changed the X to HD, because everything was about HD back then (720p? Seriously?)... then back in the hundred range with the R7/R9 and RX series... until the RX got back into the thousands... and alongside a drop in numbering with the Vega 56 and 64. lololol Gotta love the marketing people.

Then again, the nVidia numbering doesn't make that much more senrse either.

I sense they are going to skip the GTX 4000 naming convention and certainly the GTX 5000 naming convention - after all, who wants to be reminded of the FX/5000 series again?

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

ATI stepped up their game a lot with the 4800 series, coming from the 3870 which would in many cases perform worse than a 9600 GT.

Almost like the GeForce 9500 GT? A GeForce 9600 GT would decimate them, IIRC! Those were very slow, but the eVGA version of the GeForce 9500 GT that I had, was super reliable!

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I also have the 9500GT in both the 512 and 1GB flavours, Leadtek and Gigabyte

momala - 512MB, don't exactly remember right now but it was either GDDR2 or DDR3. (or even GDDR3 if such thing exists)

[TechGeek]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I've got an HD5850 1GB from '09/'10 or thereabouts. Still in service today in my friend's spare gaming rig (which I pieced together from older computer parts that I used and then upgraded off of). Despite it's age, it's still a good performer for 720p60 CS:GO.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I also have the 9500GT in both the 512 and 1GB flavours, Leadtek and Gigabyte

momala - 512MB, don't exactly remember right now but it was either GDDR2 or DDR3. (or even GDDR3 if such thing exists)

I think it was 512 MB of GDDR2 or something similar on mine.

[momaka]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Almost like the GeForce 9500 GT? A GeForce 9600 GT would decimate them, IIRC! Those were very slow, but the eVGA version of the GeForce 9500 GT that I had, was super reliable!

9500 GT (G96) is just a shrunk down core of the 8600 GT / GTS (G84), so they perform similar. 9600 GT (G94) is a little different - it's not quite as good as the 8800 GT / 9800 GT, but a lot better than the 9500 GT, so it bridges the gap nicely between 9500 GT and 8800/9800 GT. There is also the 9600 GSO, which is based on the same G92 core as the 8800/9800 GT, but with some disabled ROPs, TMUs, and shaders, as well as only 192-bit bus instead of 256. Depending on the application, the 9600 GT and GSO are pretty close to each other... though at larger resolutions, the extra bus width of the GSO gives it a slight edge. And if that is not confusing enough, there is also the 9600 GSO 512, which is a 9600 GT variant again. (LOL nVidia.)

So where does the HD3870 fit in all this?
- It depends.
At lower resolutions, nVidia and their shader clocks on the Tesla arch running @ almost 2x the core speed, even low-end cards can beat many of the ATI/AMD higher-end cards. At higher resolutions, though, the table turns and the larger memory bus along with more ROPs on the HD3870 make it pull ahead of the nVidia mid-range cards. So depending on the resolution, HD3870 can be either a bit slower than a 9600 GT and more on par with 8600 GT / 9500 GT, or it could also beat the 9600 GT and get closer to the performance of the 9600 GSO / 8800 GT / 9800 GT.

I also have the 9500GT in both the 512 and 1GB flavours, Leadtek and Gigabyte

Which is kind of a shame, because the 9500 GT isn't really powerful enough to take advantage of that much memory. 256 MB with the original 8600 GT was a good match. I even monitored a few older games from that era with MSI Afterburner, and many were optimized to take less than 256 MB of VRAM. Even Mirror's Edge, which is slightly newer, when maxed out on the settings starts riding the VRAM right around the 256 MB limit but doesn't go over, even if I used a 512 MB card. Surprisingly, though, more updated games on the Source engine can sometimes use more than 256 MB (CS:GO for example). But in any case, for the 8600 GT / 9500 GT, less but faster DDR3 or gDDR3 RAM is better than more but slower DDR2.

or even GDDR3 if such thing exists

Yup, it does.

I've got an HD5850 1GB from '09/'10 or thereabouts. Still in service today in my friend's spare gaming rig (which I pieced together from older computer parts that I used and then upgraded off of). Despite it's age, it's still a good performer for 720p60 CS:GO.

Oh, 5850 is even is substantially better than the 4850/4870 and 3870 is not even worth the comparison to it.
In fact, the 5850 is even better than the 6850, lol.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I got these last month but forgot to post them:
3x MSI ATI Radeon HD3870 [RX3870-T2D512E-OC] PCI-E video cards for about $23 total shipped (about $7.50 per card)

Kind of irrelevant cards anymore and nowhere powerful enough for modern games, but I like them for some reason.

Not bad.

What I do with cards like that is put them in older 'budget boxes' that won't be used for stuff beyond web browsing/office purposes... They'll sure beat the Intel onboard graphics of the C2Q (~2010) era. A GPU tossed into a LGA775 system with a modified LGA771 quad core Xeon (usually e5450's) makes a darn fine work from home system, even today...

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Now you made me wonder what that "8700M GT" I have in my ASUS RoG G70S is capable of.

First off, card looks something like this:



Mine is the same card, except it isn't covered by that black shroud, but instead a factory square-sized Kapton-based tape is applied over the chip. Neat idea IMO, it isolates the die from the rest of the chip, so when you apply thermal paste, it doesn't turn into too much of a mess like on other cards I've dealt with

Anyways, the 8700M GT, according to NotebookCheck, is somewhat of a factory OC'd 8600M GT (higher shader and memory clocks) so I guess it should run DX10 games a bit better than the run-of-the-mill 8600M GT you'd find anywhere else? (like HP DV9000, those were the most popular machines you'd find the 8600M GT I think)

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

In fact, the 5850 is even better than the 6850, lol.

Like how a Radeon 9000 Pro often got beat by a Radeon 8500, LOL!

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

and then they also had 9200 se or 9250 se cards. the 9200 series of cards are just the 9000 series but with an agp 8x bus upgrade but the 92x0 se cards had a crippled 64-bit mem bus and ended up slower than the 9000 series! the confusing naming convention never ends! i wonder how many got suckered up and confused by that! not referring to you, momaka as one of them btw...

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Was given a ATI HD8760 2gb ddr5 today. Installed driver, card seems to work fine....but card shows as a HD7700.... yay for wonky ATI/AMD drivers....

[ratdude747]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Was given a ATI HD8760 2gb ddr5 today. Installed driver, card seems to work fine....but card shows as a HD7700.... yay for wonky ATI/AMD drivers....

Or the card is a Chinese counterfeit. they do that crap all the time...