Discussion What Are Your System Specs?

[jnjnilson6]

I would be delighted if you should share the system specifications of your current machine or a favorite machine from the past.

We're not aiming to outdistance other users by making this a performance competition. It is just about the hardware you love and the system you're most fond of. In the end - it is not the hardware that makes a machine valuable, it's how we feel about it - whether we find working with it comfortable and through years of usage have grown accustomed to it like a bit of fancy décor, a favorable object in the room, the mellow sunshine falling tepidly in a circle on the floor through a sunny day.

A machine is not special through higher and higher hardware, but through the vision of it in its owner's eyes.

So I would be glad to see what you've got!

 

[Nighthawk117]

Jeez, man! That's a gick load of storage! Nice.

It is but it means I can run all my apps and games on SSD's. Unfortunately I'm a bit of a hoarder and never uninstall anything

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

It is but it means I can run all my apps and games on SSD's. Unfortunately I'm a bit of a hoarder and never uninstall anything

I know that feeling I hate uninstalling games particularly, and cry when I hit my storage limits and have to work out what I can lose. Will follow your guide and just store everything! All! Black Friday, here I come!

 

[punkncat]

@jnjnilson6 GREAT THREAD idea!

For me to pick a "favorite" would be really hard as I have enjoyed so many of my builds. Most of them were completely unnecessary and/or the result of me just wanting to tinker and tune. I cannot recall all of the details of many of them any more, but will share a few highlights from over the years.

My current rigs are:
Gaming/surfing is an i9 11900K on a Z590i Unify with 32GB of GSkill Trident 3200/16 running an RTX3070.
HTPC is an i5 11600K which was in the previous position until an outstanding deal on the i9 presented. 16GB of Corsair 3000/16 with a GTX1080. This one has the absolutely cheapest B series mobo I could find on Amazon and is doing an outstanding job.
The gaming rig is all SSD storage w/ NVME as OS drive. The HTPC is actually running an M.2 SATA SSD as OS drive with a supplemental SSD for game storage along with a (blech) WD Green 3TB HDD for backups. I also keep a Synology NAS for critical storage and backup, large files, etc.

Honorable mentions over the years.

I had been the self-imposed victim of cheapo Black Friday specials for years. Running Celeron/Athlon low end CPU on dedicated graphics and so forth. I finally decided I wanted to actually game on a PC, off console, so the first "real" capable gaming PC I ever purchased was a Dell XPS 8000 series with the i7 2600 and some 6000 series GPU. It was a really decent machine, particularly in relation to what I had been using before and got really good service out of it over the years. The single reason I finally got rid of it was due to being BIOS locked to the three GPU it was offered with from Dell. As time went on, none of those cards were strong enough to continue playing the games I wanted. Most of my "upgrade" experience (outside of playing PC Lego) was due to a title not being able to play on the current.

I had an i5 4690 machine alongside a 960 that was a great machine for me. I actually passed that one down to my son with a 970 in it and still works fine today.

I cannot comment on a thread like this without also mentioning Ryzen. When 1xxx was released, I purchased an R3 1200 on the day of release. I was enthralled and it made a great upgrade to the above i5 PC, I think in part to just how much newer it was. That machine saw many updates over the next few years first moving to a 1700 and then a 2700X which I just recently sold. The 1200 was purchased by a friend of mine and the 1700 based machine is being utilized as an office machine. The 2700X was the first machine that I picked and purchased a case that was not the cheapest one available. It was also my first foray into AIO cooling as well as M.2 NVME storage.

 

[Nighthawk117]

I know that feeling I hate uninstalling games particularly, and cry when I hit my storage limits and have to work out what I can lose. Will follow your guide and just store everything! All! Black Friday, here I come!

I bought my two SATA SSD's on Black Friday last year. I'm hopeless at completing games so I just accumulate

 

[USAFRet]

Available storage space, in or attached to my NAS:

QNAP 453A
480GB SSD - system drive
8TB
8TB
18TB

TR-004
4x 4TB Ironwolf

4 bay MediaSonic
3TB
3TB
16TB
8TB

=========================
80.5 TB
Mix of Toshiba, Seagate, WD.

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Available storage space, in or attached to my NAS:

QNAP 453A
480GB SSD - system drive
8TB
8TB
18TB

TR-004
4x 4TB Ironwolf

4 bay MediaSonic
3TB
3TB
16TB
8TB

=========================
80.5 TB
Mix of Toshiba, Seagate, WD.

Do you Chia Farm on this set up! Wow, that's some serious storage going on.

 

[USAFRet]

Do you Chia Farm on this set up! Wow, that's some serious storage going on.

Chia?
Not a chance.

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

@jnjnilson6 GREAT THREAD idea!

Yes, absolutely. Has me and prob a few others harking back and reminiscing with smiles on our faces!

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

I cannot comment on a thread like this without also mentioning Ryzen. When 1xxx was released, I purchased an R3 1200 on the day of release. I was enthralled and it made a great upgrade to the above i5 PC, I think in part to just how much newer it was. That machine saw many updates over the next few years first moving to a 1700 and then a 2700X which I just recently sold. The 1200 was purchased by a friend of mine and the 1700 based machine is being utilized as an office machine. The 2700X was the first machine that I picked and purchased a case that was not the cheapest one available. It was also my first foray into AIO cooling as well as M.2 NVME storage.

Wasn't/Isn't AM4 one of the best sockets of all time. It was the gift that kept on giving. 3 or 4 CPU upgrades!

 

[MJS WARLORD]

my custom built rig is 6 years old , i was just about to place the order with a gtx titan gpu and pc gamer dropped trough the door saying gtx 1080 just released so i changed the order.

The tower COOLERMASTER HAF-X FULL TOWER GAMING CASE, the tower is massive.
The cpu is Intel® Core™i7 Six Core Processor i7-6800K (3.4GHz) 15MB Cache.
The motherboard is ASUS® ROG STRIX X99: ATX, USB 3.1, SATA 6 GB/s.
The ram is 16GB HyperX FURY DDR4 2133MHz (4 x 4GB) ....
The graphics card is 8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1080 - DVI, HDMI, 3x DP - GTX VR Ready!
The main drive is 480GB HyperX SAVAGE 2.5" SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (up to 560MB/sR | 530MB/sW) for windows and all the items you can’t chose where they install.
The second drive is 960GB HyperX SAVAGE 2.5" SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (up to 560MB/sR | 530MB/sW) for my steam client games and all other games.
The dvd/blue ray is 24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM.
The power supply is CORSAIR 650W CS SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET.
The cpu cooler is Noctua NH-D15S Ultra Quiet Performance CPU Cooler, this is huge!

Although the 1080 is now considered old i can run some games from steam client that players with better systems say they have a problem with.

 

[punkncat]

Wasn't/Isn't AM4 one of the best sockets of all time. It was the gift that kept on giving. 3 or 4 CPU upgrades!

In particular to those that got in early and did some research, yes. It was a tremendous show of support.

For those that just picked parts and didn't really know what they were doing it turned out to be quite the quagmire for those of us trying to help them get an operational system. I pretty much skip over any AMD "no video" thread at this point.

 

[punkncat]

Although the 1080 is now considered old i can run some games from steam client that players with better systems say they have a problem with.

The 1080 was an absolute gift to gamers from Nvidia. In spite of age, it still holds its own quite well.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

New Rig "SNOWBLIND" in progress = ETA Mid December!

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X
CPUCooler: Corsair iCUE H150i ELITE CAPELLIX
Motherboard: Asus ROG STRIX X670E-E GAMING WIFI
Memory: Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB 32 GB = (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-5600 CL36
Memory: Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB 32 GB = (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-5600 CL36
Storage: Western Digital Black SN850X 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME SSD
Storage: Western Digital Black SN850X 4 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME SSD
Video Card: Asus ROG STRIX WHITE OC GeForce RTX 3080 10GB
Case: Lian Li O11 Dynamic Mini Snow Edition
Power Supply: Asus ROG LOKI 1000 W 80+ Platinum

 

[punkncat]

I have been very pleased with my selection of an 011 D Mini. it is a joy to build in with tremendous access everywhere, even for people with big ass hands like myself. They look tremendous when completed as well. It certainly will make you bone up on wire management skills.

In my own case, I opted for very minimal lighting, only the AIO cooler block and RAM, thus didn't have to work so hard to keep the things you don't want seen as such. I typically don't like to use zip ties and whatnot in builds when I don't have to as it makes it such a PITA to change items or do heavy (remove hardware) cleaning.

 

[jnjnilson6]

Still waiting for that one guy to write he's using a Pentium Pro with 64 MB RAM on Windows XP and somehow managed to make his way to the Forums...

 

[Nighthawk117]

Still waiting for that one guy to write he's using a Pentium Pro with 64 MB RAM on Windows XP and somehow managed to make his way to the Forums...

"It does everything I need it to, no reason to upgrade"

 

[USAFRet]

Still waiting for that one guy to write he's using a Pentium Pro with 64 MB RAM on Windows XP and somehow managed to make his way to the Forums...

Almost...

[SOLVED] - Most powerful AGP GPU for retro PC

Trying to find out what the most powerful, (ahem), AGP GPU would be for my Dell Dimension 4100. Has a whopping 512mb of.... hold onto your hats.... PC 133 ram! Anyway I really enjoy working with older tech, and could not find an answer anywhere else so should have just started here to begin...

forums.tomshardware.com

[SOLVED] - retro agp graphics card recommendations

Hello, I’ve recently been looking for a retro agp graphics card for my pentium 4 system (2.4ghz 1gb ddr ). I have an offer of 30$ for a used Radeon 9600 pro I’m not to sure if this is a good deal? I would like to find something for as cheap as possible less than $30 preferably, any recommendations?

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[jnjnilson6]

Almost...

[SOLVED] - Most powerful AGP GPU for retro PC

Trying to find out what the most powerful, (ahem), AGP GPU would be for my Dell Dimension 4100. Has a whopping 512mb of.... hold onto your hats.... PC 133 ram! Anyway I really enjoy working with older tech, and could not find an answer anywhere else so should have just started here to begin...

forums.tomshardware.com

[SOLVED] - retro agp graphics card recommendations

Hello, I’ve recently been looking for a retro agp graphics card for my pentium 4 system (2.4ghz 1gb ddr ). I have an offer of 30$ for a used Radeon 9600 pro I’m not to sure if this is a good deal? I would like to find something for as cheap as possible less than $30 preferably, any recommendations?

forums.tomshardware.com

I mean, technically, a Pentium 4 which supports Execute Disable Bit (like the 520J) can run Windows 10 and if you have at least 2 GB RAM you may flounder on the edge of tolerable Web Browsing and construe your daily Office applications to the light and melodic rhythm of an unceasing fan, whirring breathlessly while the keys hover delicately in the vicinity of the hand and the temperature in the room decreases monotonously by points through the hours.

And unless a headache hits the head and the hand begins to cut through the edge of the desk toward the coffee cup at a speed of more than two times a minute and if the unceasing melodious fan doesn't decide to slowly cease, there may appear the ghost of a smile underneath the innocuous eyes of the wielder of an ancient and barely eligible machine.

 

[punkncat]

Up until somewhat recently I had a Pentium 4 with HT (two smoking threads) running at my mother's house updating a background picture app daily in order to keep her internet connection alive in between her infrequent use of it. I had it on a very stripped-down version of W7 of which the origin was very questionable.

It was absolutely pointless to attempt to use it for anything (else) but powered on and ran "fine" according to your interpretation of such.

 

[USAFRet]

Still waiting for that one guy to write he's using a Pentium Pro with 64 MB RAM on Windows XP and somehow managed to make his way to the Forums...

Stroll through here. You may find something.

Discussion - What's the oldest and/or cheesiest system you have Win 10 installed on?

Mine is a 2009 era Toshiba Satellite L305-S5955 Celeron 900, 2.2GHz, 2GB RAM, 250GB HDD. The only upgrade from stock was a warranty replacement of the original 160GB HDD to the current 250GB. Currently v1903, Build 18362.295 https://www.cnet.com/products/toshiba-satellite-l305-s5955/specs/...

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[Flayed]

My PC Specs are in sig. I'm waiting for a new monitor to arrive as on my current AOC U3477PQU 34.0" 3440 x 1440 60 Hz Monitor the right-hand half has died. I guess it must be made using two panels side by side and one panel has kicked the bucket.
It is only about 6 or 7 years old too.

 

[Karadjgne]

Cpu: Ryzen 3700x
Mobo: Asus X570-I
Psu: Corsair SFX600 Platinum
Gpu: Evga Black 2070Super
Ram: Gskill RipJaws V 32Gb 3600 C16
Storage: XPG SX-8200 Pro 2Tb NVMe
Cooler: XSPC Raystorm Pro Black
Cooler: Watercool Heatkiller IV Black Full block for 2070Super/2080
Rad: XSPC Tx240 20mm ultra thin
Rad: Hardware Labs BlackIce Nemesis GTS240
Tubing: EKWB 16/10 soft black
Fittings: All fittings by Koolance, including quick disconnects, excepting Phobya inline temp sensor
Reservoir: Iceman reservoir/pump for nCase M1
Pump: EKWB 3.2 DDC PWM
Case: original nCase M1 v6 Aluminium mITX
Fan: Noctua A12x25 x2 on GTS rad
Fan: Noctua A12x15 x2 on Tx240 rad
Coolant: Distilled Water with Primochill Liquid Utopia and Purple dye
OS: Win10 Pro

All that crammed into a case that's smaller than a shoebox and runs dead silent normally, gaming loads are still quieter than the ceiling fan. Best part is absolutely Zero ARGB. 🚫🌈👍

 

[ptTimeBldr]

My main admin system is a Dell Vostro 15 3000 laptop running Windows 10 Pro with Intel Core i3 two cores, 8gb mem and 240gb HD. I've had this for few years already and do almost everything with it except gaming as it's slightly underpowered graphics-wise for this.
My second system is an Asus TUF Gaming laptop which I use mainly for gaming, although the fan does get a bit loud. It has a Ryzen 5 CPU with four cores, 8gb mem and 240gb SSD. This has Windows 10 Home edition.
Lastly I have a Linx notebook with detachable keyboard so it can be used as a tablet in portrait or landscape mode. It has just 4gb mem and a 64gb SSD, I forget what CPU it has. It has Windows 8.1 on it. I use this when I'm out-and-about for which it's ideal as it's very compact and lightweight but still has a big enough screen for displaying web pages full width.