Why do you have hardware on carpet like that? That's a big nono! Static discharge destroys ROM and other components haha. Don't know why I've seen people do this so often (reminds me how Xbox 360 RROD get repaired by folks)... You probably don't even wear anti-static gear...? BTW those are some serious looking HDD's; even today those are fast. That cooler looks similar to mine.

Holering wrote:

Why do you have hardware on carpet like that? That's a big nono! Static discharge destroys ROM and other components haha. Don't know why I've seen people do this so often (reminds me how Xbox 360 RROD get repaired by folks)... You probably don't even wear anti-static gear...? BTW those are some serious looking HDD's; even today those are fast. That cooler looks similar to mine.

It's not carpet, it's a hand towel and it's perfectly fine, there's no static. It's done for photography reasons, I have a white desk and a white wall, if I hit it with flash then the whole thing will white-out and there's no way to get any resolution of the actual items without some sort of back-drop behind it.

And no I don't wear anti-static gear when working with my components, it's totally not needed. Keep the power cord connected to the power supply (and thus ground to the chassis inside of it) but the master switch on the power supply switched off, and then the bare parts of the chassis is connected to earth-ground. Just tap it every so often with my hands, and usually brush my wrists against it when reaching inside. It's really not an issue at all.

I've been working inside computers since I was like.. 13 years old (31 now) and I've never to this date fried anything from static yet.

That's a sweet system you got there. what games are you going to run on it?
Also be kind enough to post some benchmark scores if you don't mind 😀

Btw a electrostatic discharge most likely won't be noticed by you and won't kill your hardware right away, it just may decrease it's life span. Most people say they never had a problem with electrostatic discharge because they won't keep their hardware for long enough to notice, but nevermind this now. We can see that you know what you're doing and it's not like your rubbing yourself nor your hardware on carpets. Plus that procedure of yours about discharging yourself on the chassis from time to time even though it isn't perfect it's pretty much okay, i do that myself as well.

Ironic that you're using a Geforce 6800 Ultra as i just started a thread about what would be a fair price for one.

Very nice looking machine, and I dig the attention to details for the "era" (like not putting a Radeon 3850 in there). Out of curiosity did the board not have a retention mechanism for the CPU, or did you have to remove it for compatibility? (I vaguely remember 754 having a similar plastic "bracket" like 939 does)

Also, what case is that? (it looks simple; simple is good)

rick6 wrote:

That's a sweet system you got there. what games are you going to run on it? Also be kind enough to post some benchmark scores if […]
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That's a sweet system you got there. what games are you going to run on it?
Also be kind enough to post some benchmark scores if you don't mind 😀

Btw a electrostatic discharge most likely won't be noticed by you and won't kill your hardware right away, it just may decrease it's life span. Most people say they never had a problem with electrostatic discharge because they won't keep their hardware for long enough to notice, but nevermind this now. We can see that you know what you're doing and it's not like your rubbing yourself nor your hardware on carpets. Plus that procedure of yours about discharging yourself on the chassis from time to time even though it isn't perfect it's pretty much okay, i do that myself as well.

Ironic that you're using a Geforce 6800 Ultra as i just started a thread about what would be a fair price for one.

I don't know what a fair price would be today, but I scored mine for $35 on ebay last summer, 2013. There was a seller on ebay selling them as new-old-stock and had a lot of them, but it's long gone and all sold out now. Mine being the BFG's "OC Edition", takes a minor software overclock to run at the "6800 Ultra Extreme" speeds of the slightly higher GPU just fine. The "extreme" version of the 6800 ultra is essentially 100% the exact same as the 6800 ultra, it's just clocked a little higher. See over here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Nv … 86xxx.29_Series

If you like I can try and get some benchmark scores out of it a little later tonight or tomorrow and I'll post here. One benchmark score I do have on record already is over here: http://hwbot.org/submission/2548469_kithylin_ … agp_26083_marks That benchmark was run in windows XP though, scored 26k and I've since then found out that Windows 2000 runs faster, and then I've loaded Omega Drivers in windows 2000 and pulled out 30k instead last night.. I didn't record it though. I have a lot on my plate today and I might get to it tomorrow and do some more tests for you.

obobskivich wrote:

Very nice looking machine, and I dig the attention to details for the "era" (like not putting a Radeon 3850 in there). Out of curiosity did the board not have a retention mechanism for the CPU, or did you have to remove it for compatibility? (I vaguely remember 754 having a similar plastic "bracket" like 939 does)

Also, what case is that? (it looks simple; simple is good)

Aye, I know there are faster AGP cards, but I wanted it to be "the fastest ever for 2005" sort of.. so I stuck with a 6800 ultra, which was mostly period-appropriate. The board did have a retention mechanism for the CPU, however that is designed for the normal desktop CPU's for this platform, that have the IHS / Heat Spreader metal cap on top. Which adds about.. 5mm or 10mm of height to the top of the silicon for the heat-sink to mount on. This chip, while technically being the fastest ever produced for socket 754, was originally designed for laptops, so has no IHS / Heat Spreader on top. And as such, if I stuck with the original heat-sink mounting design, the heat-sinks would of sat 10mm off the top of the chip and not even made contact. So I had to come up with my own mounting design, and once I figured it out.. I thought I'd share how I worked it out so others might get an idea how to do the same thing.

For comparison, here's what a "normal" desktop chip for this socket looks like, compare it to the photos of my 4000+ chip above (This is a random image I found in google):

Also as to the case, this is an Antec Three Hundred.

On the IHS thing - the pic was the "aha!" moment; didn't think about the extra height it would bring along with it. Now your mounting pictures make sense...very cool.

Nice, man! I forgot there was 4000+ for S754.

I like how you handled the mobile CPU's exposed die. Far more elegant than the redneck method I inflicted upon my poor unsuspecting Pentium M: I just ripped the IHS off of a Tualatin Celeron, attached it to the PM with thermal paste and super glue, then mounted a regular S478 heatsink over it. 😜

Can't say I've ever had trouble with ESD either. Like most folks I just periodically touch the chassis. I once tried to kill a worthless old eMachine with ESD and it took a surprising amount of abuse before it finally called it quits. Like rick6 said, you probably won't notice the effect of accidental discharge.

Yep! there's a 4000+ for socket 754 and I love mine <3

Here's the listing I got mine from: http://www.ebay.com/itm/261347197893

There's still some left, $16.93 each with shipping if you're in the USA.

As requested, some benchmarks. At first I wasn't sure yesterday why they were so low, then I suddenly realized that the last Omega Drivers were based on an old driver revision, 60.XX, and then today I re-upgraded it to the latest 93.81 for Windows 2000, and it's A lot faster. The images are resized for the forums, but I'm posting a link to the full size if you want to view it, below each image.

3Dmark 2000

http://www.outfoxed.net/athlon-754/Athlon64-4 … k2000_maxed.jpg

And 3dMark 2001se

http://www.outfoxed.net/athlon-754/Athlon64-4 … 001se_maxed.jpg

That's an excellent score for an S754/GF6 setup. Interested in adding it to the Mega Thread?

Standard Def Steve wrote:

That's an excellent score for an S754/GF6 setup. Interested in adding it to the Mega Thread?

I think I'll go do that, after dinner, thanks for reminding me. 😀

Very nice build and very ingenious heatsink mount!

I love Aopen boards, they are rock solid and built very well, and the Aopen AK89-MAX nforce3-150 motherboard you are using is no exception.

I was wondering - Does the AMD Athlon64 Socket-754 CPU 4000+ - Mobile CPU you are using produce less heat than comparable 'regular' AMD desktop CPU's? (excuse my ignorance as I have little or no experience with almost any modern AMD CPU's).

retrofanatic wrote:

Very nice build and very ingenious heatsink mount!

I love Aopen boards, they are rock solid and built very well, and the Aopen AK89-MAX nforce3-150 motherboard you are using is no exception.

I was wondering - Does the AMD Athlon64 Socket-754 CPU 4000+ - Mobile CPU you are using produce less heat than comparable 'regular' AMD desktop CPU's? (excuse my ignorance as I have little or no experience with almost any modern AMD CPU's).

I don't know if it's accurate, but Everest Ultimate version 5.00 and CoreTemp programs are both reporting idle temps with this big heat-sink on it of about 11c-15c, and load temps when I start crunching on like.. a rar file or something of around 25c then it quickly drops back to 10c right away.

It might very well be accurate.. and the exposed DIE being in direct contact to the heat-sink might be offering vastly superior cooling.

I'm also using Arctic Silver 5 on the this build between the heat-sink and chip, and cleaned both chip and heat-sink with a little bit of carb-and-choke cleaner before installing.

If y'all haven't found this stuff to clean your cpu's and heat-sinks with, get it! A can of generic "carb and choke cleaner" from Walmart is like $0.98 a can and it has a mixture of acetone and other ingredients in it to dissolve grease (thermal compound too), and it air dries clear with no residue. Just a little spurt on a heat-sink, let it sit for about 15 seconds to dissolve, and wipe it off and it comes off spotless.

Those are impressive numbers. I can totally see the direct contact helping with cooling and of course using arctic silver on clean surfaces helps.

I didn't know to use carb cleaner....good idea...I have a couple cans for an older car I used to have...good to know...thanks.

I may use some carb cleaner to get some of the old gunk off all my cpu s one day and re-apply thermal compound using arctic silver 5 because I think most of my cpus have that white silicone looking stuff that doesn't conduct heat very well...I'm sure I'll notice a difference. Anyone know where to get genuine arctic silver 5 cheap?...The cheapest I could find online is about $16 shipped for the one small tube.

retrofanatic wrote:

Those are impressive numbers. I can totally see the direct contact helping with cooling and of course using arctic silver on clean surfaces helps.

I didn't know to use carb cleaner....good idea...I have a couple cans for an older car I used to have...good to know...thanks.

I may use some carb cleaner to get some of the old gunk off all my cpu s one day and re-apply thermal compound using arctic silver 5 because I think most of my cpus have that white silicone looking stuff that doesn't conduct heat very well...I'm sure I'll notice a difference. Anyone know where to get genuine arctic silver 5 cheap?...The cheapest I could find online is about $16 shipped for the one small tube.

$8.99 with free shipping from newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?It … N82E16835100007

I'm going to get a 6800 Ultra AGP this monday, i can't wait to try it!
I could never beat your scores though. The best 754 system i got is an really old Athlon 64 3200+ at stock speeds. Thanks for sharing your scores.

kithylin wrote:

I don't know if it's accurate, but Everest Ultimate version 5.00 and CoreTemp programs are both reporting idle temps with this b […]
Show full quote

retrofanatic wrote:

Very nice build and very ingenious heatsink mount!

I love Aopen boards, they are rock solid and built very well, and the Aopen AK89-MAX nforce3-150 motherboard you are using is no exception.

I was wondering - Does the AMD Athlon64 Socket-754 CPU 4000+ - Mobile CPU you are using produce less heat than comparable 'regular' AMD desktop CPU's? (excuse my ignorance as I have little or no experience with almost any modern AMD CPU's).

I don't know if it's accurate, but Everest Ultimate version 5.00 and CoreTemp programs are both reporting idle temps with this big heat-sink on it of about 11c-15c, and load temps when I start crunching on like.. a rar file or something of around 25c then it quickly drops back to 10c right away.

It might very well be accurate.. and the exposed DIE being in direct contact to the heat-sink might be offering vastly superior cooling.

I'm also using Arctic Silver 5 on the this build between the heat-sink and chip, and cleaned both chip and heat-sink with a little bit of carb-and-choke cleaner before installing.

If y'all haven't found this stuff to clean your cpu's and heat-sinks with, get it! A can of generic "carb and choke cleaner" from Walmart is like $0.98 a can and it has a mixture of acetone and other ingredients in it to dissolve grease (thermal compound too), and it air dries clear with no residue. Just a little spurt on a heat-sink, let it sit for about 15 seconds to dissolve, and wipe it off and it comes off spotless.

I'll have to remember that. I used to just use rubbing alcohol.

rick6 wrote:

I'm going to get a 6800 Ultra AGP this monday, i can't wait to try it!
I could never beat your scores though. The best 754 system i got is an really old Athlon 64 3200+ at stock speeds. Thanks for sharing your scores.

They're about $16 in ebay, there's still some left in the listing I posted upwards in this thread, pick one up. Just good luck figuring out how to get the heat-sink on it 😀

Oh mine is already on the way, but i've payed more than that. You don't get good deals from ebay over to Portugal without high shipping costs. Or even worse, the seller won't send to any other country that not his own.

Note: Never mind!! You were talking about the CPU right? Fail on me. I plan to put my 6800 Ultra on a Athlon XP for a ultimate Windows 98 retro gaming machine.