So, today, I stopped by the recycling yard again, dropping off a Sandy Bridge era Dell (case, and MB), as well as one or two little electronic bits. Still shocks me every time I see how many TVs are there. I think the stuff gets hauled away every week.
Took a peek around for any interesting PCs, but a beige box and a Dell boasting of coming with Windows XP were older than I wanted to deal with.
There are these three big cardboard boxes, maybe about 3-1/2 to 4 feet each side. Peeked in the two that were not overflowing with microwaves and stereo equipment, and one was mostly empty. It also had a GPU sitting down in there. Clearly a dual-slot sized GPU, and I could barely reach it, as I had to lean over precariously, but I (barely) snagged it.
It had to have been dropped in there, there's no way it was placed down there carefully. That said, it looked remarkably pristine. Couldn't tell what it was offhand, but clearly indicated was Sapphire boldly on the fan shroud, and it is a two fan cooler, with each fan bearing the label Dual-X. At the long end of the card, a pair of 6-pin PCIe connectors, along with two DVI ports, an HDMI, and a DP at the other end made me quickly realize it wasn't the most modern thing in the world.
But, other than a very light smattering of dust on the back of the PCB, it looked nearly pristine. Brought it home, and a soft brush past the fan blades was all it took to remove the sparse dust on part of the heatsink fins.
Lo and behold, it's a Sapphire Dual-X R9 270X OC, with, not two, but a whopping FOUR GB of GDDR5 VRAM. Plugged it into a system, nothing. Then, duh, of course - go back to using the iGPU, change the settings in the BIOS to allow for Legacy ROM, shut down, reinstall the card, and voila! Runs about 45 FPS on FurMark at 1920x1080, and if I run it at Stress Test, the fans go up to 65% and the temps top out at 75°C. Granted, with no side panel. Given that I stuck it in a Dell XPS 8930, I imagine if I had the side panel, it would get hotter, but those 8910/8920/8930 cases apparently had less-than-stellar airflow.
This will impress absolutely no one with its performance today, but, what really has me more enthusiastic about it than I have any right to be is how pristine it is. I swear, it looks like it was barely ever used, and wherever it was, it did NOT collect cobwebs or dust.
Took a peek around for any interesting PCs, but a beige box and a Dell boasting of coming with Windows XP were older than I wanted to deal with.
There are these three big cardboard boxes, maybe about 3-1/2 to 4 feet each side. Peeked in the two that were not overflowing with microwaves and stereo equipment, and one was mostly empty. It also had a GPU sitting down in there. Clearly a dual-slot sized GPU, and I could barely reach it, as I had to lean over precariously, but I (barely) snagged it.
It had to have been dropped in there, there's no way it was placed down there carefully. That said, it looked remarkably pristine. Couldn't tell what it was offhand, but clearly indicated was Sapphire boldly on the fan shroud, and it is a two fan cooler, with each fan bearing the label Dual-X. At the long end of the card, a pair of 6-pin PCIe connectors, along with two DVI ports, an HDMI, and a DP at the other end made me quickly realize it wasn't the most modern thing in the world.
But, other than a very light smattering of dust on the back of the PCB, it looked nearly pristine. Brought it home, and a soft brush past the fan blades was all it took to remove the sparse dust on part of the heatsink fins.
Lo and behold, it's a Sapphire Dual-X R9 270X OC, with, not two, but a whopping FOUR GB of GDDR5 VRAM. Plugged it into a system, nothing. Then, duh, of course - go back to using the iGPU, change the settings in the BIOS to allow for Legacy ROM, shut down, reinstall the card, and voila! Runs about 45 FPS on FurMark at 1920x1080, and if I run it at Stress Test, the fans go up to 65% and the temps top out at 75°C. Granted, with no side panel. Given that I stuck it in a Dell XPS 8930, I imagine if I had the side panel, it would get hotter, but those 8910/8920/8930 cases apparently had less-than-stellar airflow.
This will impress absolutely no one with its performance today, but, what really has me more enthusiastic about it than I have any right to be is how pristine it is. I swear, it looks like it was barely ever used, and wherever it was, it did NOT collect cobwebs or dust.
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