What's your main rig's CPU history?

[Ken g6]

Your and my current GPU are of similar performance (in games). How many ppd does it do in Folding?

Last year I think it did up to ~400kppd. This year, with the new CUDA app, who knows?

 

[Assimilator1]

Yea, your last years ppd matches my RX 580.
CUDA app?

 

[Icecold]

Yea, your last years ppd matches my RX 580.
CUDA app?

They released a new Folding program(core?) using CUDA instead of OpenCL a couple months back. it's only for Nvidia cards, but it gives a pretty substantial PPD boost on Nvidia.

 

[Assimilator1]

Ah ok, damn that's unfair!

 

[Icecold]

Ah ok, damn that's unfair!

No disagreement on my side I'm running an AMD Firepro S9300x2 and it's only getting about 600k PPD

 

[Assimilator1]

Damn! What retail card are those GPUs equivalent to? Wiki says their Capsaicin, but then I drew a blank there on it.

 

[Icecold]

Damn! What retail card are those GPUs equivalent to? Wiki says their Capsaicin, but then I drew a blank there on it.

I think it's 2 R9 Fury X's on one card. In FAH Control it shows 2 slots, each show Fiji XT (Radeon R9 Fury X).

 

[Rayman30]

Main rig history 2000-2020

Celeron 566
Pentium 4 2.0A
Athlon 64 3000+
Intel Core 2 Duo E6400
Intel i7 920
Intel i7 4790K
Intel i7 7700K
Intel i7 8700K
Intel i9 9900K
AMD Ryzen 5900X

Living Room rig history 2015-2020

Intel i5 4690K
AMD Ryzen 1700
AMD Ryzen 2700X
AMD Ryzen 3900X

 

[Fardringle]

OK, I'll join in, just for fun, even though I don't really upgrade/replace my computers very often.

The very first computer I remember having at home was a DEC PC that my Dad brought home from work so he could do extra work at home in the early 80's. I'm not sure the model but I think it was a DEC Rainbow 100 as that's about the right time frame and it looks pretty similar to what I remember.

The first one I actually used was a lovely TI-99/4A. Still have it in a box on a shelf, in fact. Ah, the fond memories of waiting for the next Electronic Fun with Computers & Games magazine to show up so we could find the new programs, spend hours typing them in, saving them on magnetic audio tape, and then have them not work...

Played lots of games on the 8086 clone that was the family computer for a really long time (anyone else remember the TURBO button?). I think it was upgraded to a 386 and eventually to a Pentium 60 in the mid 90's, but I wasn't at home at that point.

I started running the original Seti@Home project somewhere around 2000, so I guess my first personal cruncher would have been the Cyrix 686 that I had at the time, plus a room full of crappy old Pentium 133 and 166 machines at work that just sat there doing nothing most of the time so I (with permission) gave them something to do at night. Had to learn how to sneaker-net since none of them had Internet access.

Replaced that 686 with an AMD Sempron 2500+ some time around 2005 and overclocked the crap out of the thing. It lasted quite a long time, all things considered, eventually replaced with a Dell with a Core2Duo (don't recall which) that I got for free from my wife's work around 2010.

Went through a few other 2nd hand work machines until I bought an AMAZING new gaming machine from Dell's outlet store with an i5-4570, a 'hybrid' SSD drive (that sucked) and an ATI HD 5670 somewhere around 2015. Swapped the i5 out for an i7 and the HD 5670 for a GTX 1060 a couple of years ago and that blazing fast monster was my main system up until April of 2020 when I finally entered the real world of computing.

Current main system is a Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB of 3600Mhz CL16 RAM, multiple SSDs for OS and storage, and the GTX 1060, and an R9 280X with a death wish. Gonna retire the 280X soon as I can't keep it from constantly overheating, and will replace the 1060 when I find something worthy at a not insane price.

 

[Assimilator1]

Lol, very odd that 280X overheating, and you'd replaced the heatsink paste too, right? (something I've never bothered to do with any graphics card, including the HD 7870 XT, and it's temperatures are ok).

 

[Fardringle]

Lol, very odd that 280X overheating, and you'd replaced the heatsink paste too, right? (something I've never bothered to do with any graphics card, including the HD 7870 XT, and it's temperatures are ok).

Yes, that's part of what is really strange about it. If I put a thick layer of thermal paste on the GPU, it runs very nicely for a week or so, then starts to overheat again. And when I've opened it back up, there's only a thin layer of clear oily slime on the GPU core, almost like the core is getting so hot that it's melting/dissolving the paste. I've tried three different types of thermal paste and the same thing happens. I've been debating buying a thin thermal pad and putting that on the core instead of paste to see what happens. But I'm afraid that might end up with even worse results...

 

[Ken g6]

Yes, that's part of what is really strange about it. If I put a thick layer of thermal paste on the GPU, it runs very nicely for a week or so, then starts to overheat again. And when I've opened it back up, there's only a thin layer of clear oily slime on the GPU core, almost like the core is getting so hot that it's melting/dissolving the paste. I've tried three different types of thermal paste and the same thing happens. I've been debating buying a thin thermal pad and putting that on the core instead of paste to see what happens. But I'm afraid that might end up with even worse results...

Huh. I searched for high-temperature thermal paste and found this:

High Temperature, High Thermally Conductive Paste | Omega

High conductivity thermal grease is ideal for various temperature applications where removable adhesion of a sensor is necessary. Click to see more.

www.omega.com

Be sure to select the 1/2 oz size to get a halfway decent price ($16.36). I also don't know if it's intended for permanently bonding stuff together or not.

And if that doesn't work, there's this, but I don't even know if it's legal in the USA.

 

[Fardringle]

Thanks for the suggestions. The product descriptions don't really look like they are intended for processor cooling, but I guess they can't be any worse than what the card is doing now..

 

[voodoo5_6k]

I could've sworn we've done this before (but couldn't find it), although I think it was a long time ago anyway.

Anyhow, after talking to Voodoo5_6k via Rosetta PMs (he's not active here AFAIK), we started talking about old hardware and I listed my old CPUs.
Thought it would be fun to start a thread here about it.

Haha, just saw this by accident and thought: Well, why not finally register in the forums now? Great to see you here!

Also: Hi there, everybody! I joined the TeAm for the Covid-19 race against Tom's Hardware.

So, back to topic. I'll also add my list, as I had written it up anyhow during my conversation with @Assimilator1 I've just shortened it to the most relevant ones.

CPUs:
Pentium 100
Cyrix 686 PR166
K6 200
Pentium III 450
Pentium III 1000
Pentium 4 3.0 HT
Xeon X3358
Core i7-3930K
Core i7-4960X
Xeon E5-1680v2

GPUs:
ViRGE/DX + Voodoo Graphics
Voodoo3 2000
Voodoo5 5500
Voodoo5 6000
GeForce 3
GeForce FX 5900 Ultra
GeForce 6800 GT
GeForce 8800 GT
GeForce GTX 280
GeForce GTX 580
GeForce GTX 780
GeForce GTX TITAN X

 

[TennesseeTony]

Welcome! You started with a Pentium 100? Wow, you either started late or you are just a baby, not a day over 43!

 

[Assimilator1]

Lol

Welcome to the forum Voodoo5 6k, and good to finally see you here
Good list

 

[voodoo5_6k]

Welcome! You started with a Pentium 100? Wow, you either started late or you are just a baby, not a day over 43!

Thanks pops But yeah, the last part is almost spot on

I did use my father's 286, and later a 486 laptop, but these weren't really mine, so... excluded

Lol

Welcome to the forum Voodoo5 6k, and good to finally see you here
Good list

Thanks Yeah, I finally made it here... Thanks to your invitations! And you were absolutely right- I'm already having a lot of fun here

 

[Madpierre]

Hi Assimilator1 I remember you from ages ago. As me me right now I don't have a main rig. What I do have is a Raspberry Pi2 on RC5-72 ( Running on Solar power here in the UK ). that TBH the main rig as it's part off a solar project. List below if I wanted can run RC5-72

The list.

Gaming Rig - Core I5 10400F 2.9 Ghz. with a Geforce 2060
Laptop i'm using now - MSI-GL62M 7RDX - Core I5 7 gen cpu with Geforce 1050 GTX
Bro's laptop - Core I5 8 Gen Geforce 1050 TI
Dell R610 Server - Xeon L5640 X2
Dell R710 Server - Xeon L5630 X2
Dell R300 Server - Xeon X3363
Sun X4100 Server
2 old Apple laptop's
1 6 Year old LeNovo Laptop
1 10ish Year old Asus Laptop
Old 2007 Rig Core 2 duo. With one of the last Abit motherboard's
Bro's old Rig some of the same as above. made from random part's
Raspberry Pi 3 X2
Raspberry Pi 2 - Running RC5-72 on Solar
Raspberry Pi 1

And I still have my OLD 1GHZ AMD Athlon from 2000.

 

[cellarnoise]

This is fun and I posted a few years ago on AT about some of my puter history. I need to dig stuff out and relive it all. I am new to DC, but have had a lot of fun with "personal computers" since about the "buy it from a store" and not have to build it yourself, era. My first personal computer was a 16k Coco 1. I waited several months for the elusive 16k version to come out as the 4k version at the local Radio Shack and the magazine reviews at the time said and I observed, were more limited than the Apple 2?, we used at school at the time.... Lived without any storage for a few months, until as a kid I could afford a proper cassette tape deck to record programs and data (much more efficient to a tape counter!) Make the curser do stuff with LOGO?...

School and one of my friend's father that worked in printing at the time got us all into home puters... The first home "computer" I experienced not at school was a blue box with like 24 LEDs and 16 switches that I think had 1,024 bytes of storage? I don't have pictures and it was cool. It was I think a print-press controller, that you could program and it had some kind of limited storage. At my friends house we were able to flip physical switches (I remember they had three settings, like neutral, up and down from neutral, sorry like 40 years ago, 51 now.) enough to "enter" in a simple game from a printout from his father that he found? It was a flip switch game. You saw the red LED light up and you flipped the switch first and you "won" the round. I'll try to look up the puter. This got my local friend group into puters hard! I have an early pong game also, so we what was coming with home computers. Still have the pong console somewhere. I don't give up computer stuff easily...

More later. But I only started into D.C. recently with my 1st desktop computer in like 15 years in 2017. I watched the "seti" stuff from the beginning, but did not have the money or the time to spend on it.... It was AMD with the new Ryzen in 2017 with a 1700x (and starting to have more money to not feel guilty blowing on personal hobby stuff again, whatever). My last "desktop" was a full A.T. tower in like 2000? (stupid size case even back then...) with a AMD 1200 thunderbird (overclocked to 1333 immediately). I upgraded to a full copper finned heatsink and started building my own aluminum 80mm fan to 60mm heatsink adaptors. I built a few adapters for local friends over the next two years for AMD and Intel systems... O.k. back to work. I know I have the thunderbird and recently had to move a Pentium mid-tower 120 (overclocked to 133) to get to some camping gear... Think it was a "Gateway Computer" purchase...

I've got many old puters around in basement storage. The wife has never been happy about old puter boxes of whatever computers boxes of software or computer magazines. If I ever have to move again, I don't know if my back is up to dealing with it all either.

I missed out from building computers from 1994 to 2000 and from 2002? to 2017... Went to family home laptops for much of these eras. In these times it took more space and funds for desktop parts and building. Later.

 

[Markfw]

This is fun and I posted a few years ago on AT about some of my puter history. I need to dig stuff out and relive it all. I am new to DC, but have had a lot of fun with "personal computers" since about the "buy it from a store" and not have to build it yourself, era. My first personal computer was a 16k Coco 1. I waited several months for the elusive 16k version to come out as the 4k version at the local Radio Shack and the magazine reviews at the time said and I observed, were more limited than the Apple 2?, we used at school at the time.... Lived without any storage for a few months, until as a kid I could afford a proper cassette tape deck to record programs and data (much more efficient to a tape counter!) Make the curser do stuff with LOGO?...

School and one of my friend's father that worked in printing at the time got us all into home puters... The first home "computer" I experienced not at school was a blue box with like 24 LEDs and 16 switches that I think had 1,024 bytes of storage? I don't have pictures and it was cool. It was I think a print-press controller, that you could program and it had some kind of limited storage. At my friends house we were able to flip physical switches (I remember they had three settings, like neutral, up and down from neutral, sorry like 40 years ago, 51 now.) enough to "enter" in a simple game from a printout from his father that he found? It was a flip switch game. You saw the red LED light up and you flipped the switch first and you "won" the round. I'll try to look up the puter. This got my local friend group into puters hard! I have an early pong game also, so we what was coming with home computers. Still have the pong console somewhere. I don't give up computer stuff easily...

More later. But I only started into D.C. recently with my 1st desktop computer in like 15 years in 2017. I watched the "seti" stuff from the beginning, but did not have the money or the time to spend on it.... It was AMD with the new Ryzen in 2017 with a 1700x (and starting to have more money to not feel guilty blowing on personal hobby stuff again, whatever). My last "desktop" was a full A.T. tower in like 2000? (stupid size case even back then...) with a AMD 1200 thunderbird (overclocked to 1333 immediately). I upgraded to a full copper finned heatsink and started building my own aluminum 80mm fan to 60mm heatsink adaptors. I built a few adapters for local friends over the next two years for AMD and Intel systems... O.k. back to work. I know I have the thunderbird and recently had to move a Pentium mid-tower 120 (overclocked to 133) to get to some camping gear... Think it was a "Gateway Computer" purchase...

I've got many old puters around in basement storage. The wife has never been happy about old puter boxes of whatever computers boxes of software or computer magazines. If I ever have to move again, I don't know if my back is up to dealing with it all either.

I missed out from building computers from 1994 to 2000 and from 2002? to 2017... Went to family home laptops for much of these eras. In these times it took more space and funds for desktop parts and building. Later.

OK, thanks ! Now you have me in the mood to do more than hardware, like you did !.

So I started hacking computers in 1982 using a 9 mhz crystal on a 286 to overclock it. I started my own journey in about 1985 eith a 4.88 mhz "Leading edge" 8088 computer, and soon after added (I think this is rightZ) Vic 20 co-processor. It has one 1.2 mb floppy and a monochrome display. I upgraded it to a 5 MB hard drive for like $300.

So I added a computer, and a friend and I play lan games over it. Then I added another, and then the lan partys started at my house. Most notably on new years eve, all my sons friends came over and we had Warcraft 3 multiplayer games all night until 6 am, and with all the windows open and snowing outside it was still 75f in the house.

Well, then I kept upgrading, and in 2002, I spent $5000 on a dual 242 Opteron system with a one gig SCSI drive that I paid $1000 for. I added a few systems, and began DC (F@H) to keep the boxes busy. Back then it was 4 boxes to start. My dad died due to cancer in 2010, and my F@H and DC habit turned hardcore. In 2018 I got cancer myself. and then really became obsessed. As you can see at 18 boxes and over 1000 cores right now, I think obsessed is the minimal for me.

Oh, and you think I am kidding about the 1000 cores, here is about that number doing Rosetta and WCG

 

[cellarnoise]

Loving this, but I need to have some time to really contribute...

I have old magazine articles from the early 80's, that talk about the psychology of computers and how it was changing humans (actually the nerds / programmers) at the time. I think with the latest social media examples, that this continues to this day. I love hardware and software computer engineers, but they are a bit different. Though I am jealous, in my Ego, I had a chance or two to be a Microsoft proger back in the 80's. I'm not smart as I thought at the time and a few other times in my life that I had already "done that" and moved on as I like to learn. STUPID me!!!! Though I am very fortunate and can't complain. I continue to be a lucky bastard that likes puter technology... Though we can't by latest tech now... Life Sucks!!! haha

I go back to this and did not pursue software programming as I thought I had "done it" already for many years... for some dumb reason. Early Easter Eggs.... I go back to doing hexa programming with assembly language software... Forgot it all 4 x now. Trying to get a 6809 at .9 MHz to cut a cycle or two I lived for a few years. CoCo 1and 3 and all. The 6809 was a processor for CPU lovers from the late 70's. We never see this kind of efficacy focused silicon again. Not a bad thing, but back then it was like semi-human and focused compiler focus of today and soon to be all machine driven....

CoCo3 Easter Egg - CoCopedia - The Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer Wiki

www.cocopedia.com

.

I will add that I had lucky silicon back in 1981 or 82. As long as my CoCo 1 did not get too hot, it would overclock from .89 to double clock... 1.8 almost! back in whatever year, though before the forced case airflow mod, if it got too hot? it would restart and lose everything . I had to sell my "trials" 125cc motorcycle at the time as a kid (still miss the control of that motorcycle! - only did top end like 45 MPH but would climb a vertical wall! ), along with every penny I had at the time to get the first Coco1 (just looked it up and it's like $1,900 in 2021 dollars and I was like 10? - I mowed a LOT of lawn back then!!!!, and I HATE mowing lawns now.... ). My stepdad was very supportive, but he did not understand my new puter obsession, as I so loved ridding back then and was fairly good at it!!!!!!!! though he did not really get it, a home puter? WTF...

Sometimes the next gens, now myself and likely you all (you people....! ) need to support whatever these youngings are doing, though we don't understand it all. I'll stop before I get in more trouble.

I'm still trying to work here... Though I'd like some new silicon, but it's un-obbtanioum...

 

[Markfw]

I never mentioned my work. I started as a mini-computer programmer trainee in 1982. I then mastered Tektronix 4051 basic (tape storage) and then IBM PC basic. Then moved to VAX basic and COBOL, and IBM Fortran until 1995, when I started to migrate to Oracle SQL and unix. In 2002, I made the jump to 100% Oracle PL/sql, and supporting a 3rd party software that used citrix. I continued this until my retirement in 2016.

So I have a wide variety of computer languages, and customer support, I ended up as a senior systems analyst when I retired. I am sure this added to my PC habit.

 

[Assimilator1]

Madpierre
Hey good to hear from you , did you have to start a new account? I see your reg date is much later than your earlier forums days.

So I started hacking computers in 1982 using a 9 mhz crystal on a 296 to overclock it.

A 286?

Prior to getting my own 166MMX Intel PC in '98, I used my fathers BBC B micro when he got it in ~'82, it had a printer, tape drive, 32k RAM and plugged into a colour telly (colour was quite advanced then IIRC!), he later upgraded it to 64k and added a 5.25" floppy drive. That was amazingly fast compared to a tape drive! And more importantly to me allowed me to play a better version of Elite . I often used it for games up until the late 80s, and occasionally programing in games in BASIC. I last used it in '95! AFAIK my father still had it until a few years ago, not sure if he still has now.

 

[Madpierre]

Assimilator1

Yes a new account. Forgot password for old account, and it was also on a old e-mail.

 

[Assimilator1]

We've had other people here in the same situation and they have gained back control of their old accounts, (e.g Jay IIRC), have you asked a mod about it?