Whom is still rocking an Athlon / Phenom II (even X6), or a Core2Duo/Quad? X58 users too.

[Oyeve]

The oldest PC in my arsenal is a Q9500 on a Gigabyte P35-DS3R with 8GB DDR2 ram and an AMD 290X. Still plays modern games at decent levels. The USB ports are shot tho so its just laying about on my work desk. I recently tossed my AMD 3800+ x2 system with 4GB DDR1 ram. Back in the day I OCed the crap out of that and ran GTA: San Andreas in SLI with 2 Nvidea 9800GT cards. Ah, the good old days. Years ago (decades really) I gave an aunt of mine an old Compaq Deskpro 386/33 running Windows 3.11 and I believe it still had an STB video card and a Voodoo 1 card. I am asking her for it back so I can run Tombraider 1 in 3DFX Glide!

 

[Fanatical Meat]

The oldest PC in my arsenal is a Q9500 on a Gigabyte P35-DS3R with 8GB DDR2 ram and an AMD 290X. Still plays modern games at decent levels. The USB ports are shot tho so its just laying about on my work desk. I recently tossed my AMD 3800+ x2 system with 4GB DDR1 ram. Back in the day I OCed the crap out of that and ran GTA: San Andreas in SLI with 2 Nvidea 9800GT cards. Ah, the good old days. Years ago (decades really) I gave an aunt of mine an old Compaq Deskpro 386/33 running Windows 3.11 and I believe it still had an STB video card and a Voodoo 1 card. I am asking her for it back so I can run Tombraider 1 in 3DFX Glide!

Sounds similar to my Q9650. Plays modern games reasonably with lowered setting and accepting 30fps is good enough.
The absolute apex for my machine appears to be Conan exiles, it works and is generally smooth but it does freeze and crash occasionally.
My machine is near death so maybe it that.

 

[Oyeve]

Sounds similar to my Q9650. Plays modern games reasonably with lowered setting and accepting 30fps is good enough.
The absolute apex for my machine appears to be Conan exiles, it works and is generally smooth but it does freeze and crash occasionally.
My machine is near death so maybe it that.

Yea, my Q9500 and the Gigabyte MB lasted over 12 years. Hell, its still going at work as a goof around system but highly unreliable as the USB port barely get powered anymore and I have to use PS2 port for KB.

 

[JASTECH]

Hmm, I can't remember all the specs on my rig, I was electrocuted in 2007, been in ICU and now on oxygen 24/7. But, still alive. Everything still in boxes from then so should be OK except maybe caps might be leaking by now w/o any power all these years. I do remember my ultra SCSI drives at 10k and 15k spinning up like jets. Moved to another house so movers broke so many things. I'll be unboxing this month to get computer room done and will post what I have here if interested. Long time sense I've been able to do anything. Hi to old and new a like.

 

[A Hitman]

Reading CES news this year really made me realise how far behind I have become..

Primary gaming machine still running an AMD x6 1100T (with a Radeon rx480
My office computer is a factory water cooled HP Z400 with a six core Xeon x5650 I stole from an old IBM blade server..
Primary laptop is a 2011 macbook with a i5-2415m.

SSD and RAM upgrades have kept them going far longer than I expected.

 

[Atari2600]

Fan died on 1100T there a couple of weeks ago.

Don't think I'll repair it. Might reuse the chassis for another X399, but not in any rush.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I had a fan (OCZ Vendetta, 92mm heatpipe HSF) die on me, while my 1045T (OCed to 3.51Ghz) was doing DC work. Crazy thing is, it didn't crash. Kept on holding on. HWMonitor reported max temps for CPU cores around 85-90C. Which is pretty crazy, for AMD CPUs. Intel CPUs can handle that, but AMD CPUs are known to error and crash above 70C. Guess I was lucky? Or that the Thuban CPUs are tough old (CPUs).

 

[Shmee]

I recently got an X58 system up and running which I may try to sell soon. I used an Asus P6X58D Premium motherboard which I grabbed from work after someone threw it away. I cleared CMOS, updated the bios, and now it works fine. I put in a $20 X5660, put on a hyper 212 evo I had, and put it in my old corsair 300R with a CX850M PSU. Put in an R9 Fury Nitro and a 240GB corsair neutron XT SSD. RAM is an old kit of kingston HyperX DDR3 2000 1.65V, 3x2GB.

I was lucky, someone had upgraded to Windows 10 Pro on it in the past, so when I installed Windows 10 pro it just activated and I did not need a key. I then overclocked the CPU to 23x175 or about 4 GHz. Will probably be able to push farther if I want to. I will likely be able to sell it as a cheaper, old but good gaming PC.

 

[lakedude]

Nothing like that for a daily driver.

At one point had a dozen or so computers all running Folding@Home or BOINC. When I got married we got rid of a single core Pentium 4, a 1055t, an i5-2500k, and various dual and triple core systems but I kept the C2D system and a early i5 Lynnfield system (both older than the 2500k) because those systems had been rock solid. So I do still have the C2D system but it hasen't run in years.

My oldest system is a Centrino Pentium M 1.5 GHz laptop with a 9600 pro turbo graphics card. This system was working perfectly until a windows XP update was installed and now it will not boot in normal mode.

I need to get rid of most all this stuff. Heck I really don't need a desktop at all.

 

[Hans Gruber]

I still have a working Q6600 on a Thermalright ultra 120mm with 8GB of ram and a 8800GT graphics card. It's in the garage and somewhat parted out.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Heck I really don't need a desktop at all.

That makes me very sad, but the truth is, you are not alone. Many people, these days, feel the same way. (People from outside this forum, mostly.)

Desktops are somewhat of a dying breed, among the non-enthusiast / non-gamer crowd.

There's always a DeskMini, though, that could be used as a bona-fide desktop, minus the large space heater, minus the dGPU in most cases, but still as powerful as a desktop, as they take desktop CPUs. (So, IMHO, they still qualify as a desktop.)

Looking forward to the A300 DeskMini series for AM4 APUs. Have actually switched my main rig from a Ryzen R5 1600 to a 2200G last night, been re-building my rig collection. When the DeskMini arrives at Newegg, and I pick one up, I'll be able to transfer the APU and this SSD to it. (And swap in my existing DeskMini SO-DIMM DD4 DIMMs into it.)

 

[Spartak]

Until recently an Athlon II X3 415e 2.5GHz. w/ Asus mini-ITX. If anyone is interested: have the system available for sale incl. Nvidia Geforce GT710 and 5GB DDR3.

 

[lakedude]

That makes me very sad, but the truth is, you are not alone. Many people, these days, feel the same way. (People from outside this forum, mostly.)

Desktops are somewhat of a dying breed, among the non-enthusiast / non-gamer crowd.

What has happened has been a 2 step process. My laptop is arguably the most powerful system in the house so for a while it became the primary system. After saying goodbye to land based internet the phones (on DeX) have taken over as daily drivers.

It is amazing how well the phones work. I mean they have some bugs/quirks but they are incredible. I'm not sad to see the power sucking desktop behemoths go at all. I love new technology. Got LED filament bulbs sipping power, phones taking the place of desktops and just sipping power, and a 208 HP car that gets 50 MPG. Awesome, just awesome!

 

[pmv]

What has happened has been a 2 step process. My laptop is arguably the most powerful system in the house so for a while it became the primary system. After saying goodbye to land based internet the phones (on DeX) have taken over as daily drivers.

It is amazing how well the phones work. I mean they have some bugs/quirks but they are incredible. I'm not sad to see the power sucking desktop behemoths go at all. I love new technology. Got LED filament bulbs sipping power, phones taking the place of desktops and just sipping power, and a 208 HP car that gets 50 MPG. Awesome, just awesome!

Fair point (and you could also mention the physical space desktops take up), but still, I think what is being lost is the degree of involvement and technical learning that comes with being able to upgrade, self-build, and tinker with desktops. Everything now is a closed, proprietary, non-user-repairable, box, that you just use and chuck away entirely when it gets outdated or goes wrong.

I feel like there's a dumbing-down about it all, one is becoming more of a passive consumer.

 

[DrMrLordX]

I would be more interested in phones if they were all linked to walled app gardens. You really have to work to get the same degree of software freedom on a phone as you can a desktop.

 

[lakedude]

I feel like there's a dumbing-down about it all, one is becoming more of a passive consumer

Agreed but overall I don't miss the older harder ways. Back in the day you had to know all about your hard drive (sectors, cylinders, platters, etc.), sound cards were a similar pain. Those settings are all automatic now, which is a good thing.

 

[soundforbjt]

Still have a desktop with a Q6600 and 8gigs of DDR2 with an Samsung 830 SSD OS drive and and 1TB storage drive that still runs fine. Doesn't get turned on much anymore.

 

[pmv]

I have a dual-core Athlon as a second computer. Dual boots in XP and Linux. Hardly use it, admittedly, but for a few things that require one of those O/Ss. Doesn't go on-line in XP mode.

It's great though that if you forget technology has moved on (and you are old, so time seems to be moving much faster), you can feel amazed at how cheap things are that not long ago you couldn't afford. The second PC uses a 22" TFT monitor that I found dumped in the street. Doesn't feel that long ago I felt I couldn't justify the cost of an upgrade to a TFT from a CRT, now I find flat panels available for free (and only bought this one back because it was the first over 17" I found).

 

[Rollcage]

x58, Xeon X5670 @ 4.15, SSDs ... runs every new game I want. unstoppable.

 

[Indus]

Still have an E8500 Core 2 Duo as my living room netflix/ youtube/ home theater pc.

 

[pauldun170]

Q9550@3400 + Gigabyte EP45-UD3P still running quite nicely after a decade of service.
Just moved my old GTX780 and Earthwats 650 over to it to replace the Antec ECO 520 and GTX570 that was in it. (Got tired of old Nvidia drivers and the GTX780 was quieter)

 

[scannall]

While I still have my X58 Xeon 6 core, I'll likely be selling it soon.

 

[Johnny Ringo]

I am still rocking a Phenom II 720 x3 with 8 GB of DDR2 overclocked to 3.2 ghz as a daily computer. I have a Samsung 830 SSD for the OS, and several hard drives for 10 TB of storage.

It unlocks to a quad core at 3.2 ghz, but I don't really need that extra core for anything I am doing as I don't game, and the computer mostly runs at 800mhz 99% of the time with cool n quiet enabled.

I never notice a slowdown on anything that I use the PC for. I run a Plex server that streams media throughout the house, virtual machines for work related aspects, and nothing bogs this machine down. As a general purpose, light office related PC, it is still very adequate.

I have a i5 4570 at work (that is several years old) with a 512 GB SSD that on synthetic benchmarks wipes the floor with my Phenom II x3, but I can't tell the difference in daily use.

The only thing that is possibly holding me back is the 8 GB of RAM. DDR2 is price prohibitive, so the only reason I will upgrade is something dies, or I eventually need more than 8 GB of RAM.

 

[escrow4]

I am still rocking a Phenom II 720 x3 with 8 GB of DDR2 overclocked to 3.2 ghz as a daily computer. I have a Samsung 830 SSD for the OS, and several hard drives for 10 TB of storage.

It unlocks to a quad core at 3.2 ghz, but I don't really need that extra core for anything I am doing as I don't game, and the computer mostly runs at 800mhz 99% of the time with cool n quiet enabled.

I never notice a slowdown on anything that I use the PC for. I run a Plex server that streams media throughout the house, virtual machines for work related aspects, and nothing bogs this machine down. As a general purpose, light office related PC, it is still very adequate.

I have a i5 4570 at work (that is several years old) with a 512 GB SSD that on synthetic benchmarks wipes the floor with my Phenom II x3, but I can't tell the difference in daily use.

The only thing that is possibly holding me back is the 8 GB of RAM. DDR2 is price prohibitive, so the only reason I will upgrade is something dies, or I eventually need more than 8 GB of RAM.

I've used G1820s and 4770s and there is a distinct difference in terms of pep. It is very noticeable. Plus that Phenom would be a power pig to boot. I've seen this 7600 non K push past 50% with Filezilla and a couple of tabs in Chrome. Software has gotten fatter and fatter and if I had a choice to save $200 over the life of a desktop build or spend that $200 I'd spend it every time.

 

[Homerboy]

Still running an AMD Phenom II X2 555 with unlocked cores and at 3.4ghz in my main PC at home.
I'd love to upgrade, but really don't have an REAL need to do so. I wish there was a chip I could drop in to ramp it up even a little.