Hey guys,

since I own a Voodoo5 5500PCI Mac and config is like in my signature, I was very pleased with the performance, but.......always looking for better ofcourse.

So I went in search for a board that would still support win2k, had PCI-X 66Mhz slots and more cpu power available.

I came across a great deal, this is it:

Supermicro H8DAE Dual Opteron board

http://www.supermicro.com/Aplus/motherboard/Opteron/8131/H8DAE.cfm

Along with it I got a Opteron 280's, which are 2.4Ghz dualcores as you might know.

Also with it I got 2GB DDR400 ECC ram and the coolers for the cpu's ofcourse.

I will rebuild my 3DFX rig and make it win2k based, and then run a few benches.....

Only problem is...about 2 weeks ago I threw out a few old cases, 1 of which could've held this mobo, is E-ATX, now I have none :( gotta find one fast :)

If all is running well, I will ofcourse have my Dual MP3000 setup left over, would anyone be interested in it? You can run a 5500AGP on it just fine, but it is on the incompatibility list for the 6000, so no go there.

Updates to follow.

the case this is going to be fitted in, is the Antec Performance Plus View Tower

http://www.antec.com/product.php?id=664

when the drive bays are removed, an E-ATX mobo can be placed, and since I will only need 1 harddrive, that is not going to be a problem.

well guys, seems the case I had in mind won't do after all, so I got a Precision T490 barebone from work, massive airflow for the cpu coolers and kind of a nice case...will have to do for now as I am a bit tight on cash....

for anyone who knows the layout of a Precision 490 / 5400 case, I will be removing quite a bit...had to cut out the bezel for the mobo at the back, since it is ofcourse Dell propriarity format....here's a picture of where I just removed all stuff from the case and planted the mobo inside to see how it would fit.

http://abload.de/thumb/insidecasehpqgw.jpg

http://abload.de/thumb/mobotopviewa4p5x.jpg

I know the case is really dusty, but before I did anything, I ofcourse needed to know for sure it could fit in the case, which it obviously does, so...me has some work to do :)

And yes, that is indeed a voodoo3 PCI in there, just for show :)

***EDIT***

I have my Enermax 475W Noisetaker PSU ready, should be more then enough power, only mobo requires 8 pin connector as well, besides the 24pins.
I don't have such a connector on it, but looked it up and a 4 pins connector proves same current, only 8 pins has more pins added for ground, but since I won't and can't be doing any overclocking, that shouldn't be a problem.

http://abload.de/thumb/moboincaseioui0.jpg

here is the motherboard placed in the case and PSU connected to see if cables can be managed.

All is looking good so far, so tonight I will be adding the rest to the system and start installing.

and yet another update, I will be dropping the Dell case, since the mobo standoffs are mostly OK, but the 1st mentioned case turns out to have the correct holes anyways for the standoffs.

I will be picking it up on saturday and then I will be building the rig.

little news is that my current PSU doesn't have a 8 pins connector, and the board won't boot with just a 4 pins connector in there and 2 cpu's, just with 1...which will have to do until I get that fixed :)

picked up the new case today, looks sweet.

Was some sticker leftovers on the window, but nothing nail polish remover couldn't fix. :)

Here are some pictures to enjoy whilst being built.

Here's the case empty with just the motherboard inside:

http://abload.de/thumb/casemobo1peqk.jpg

And here a shot of the motherboard with 5500PCI installed and MX300

http://abload.de/thumb/3dfxinside2wdu8.jpg

and here a better view of both cards:

http://abload.de/thumb/voodoo5mx30047ebl.jpg

if anyone has any suggestions or questions / remarks....feel free to post :)

Hi Ultima, a fine rig.
Are you satisfied with V5500 Pci on Pci-X ?
Do you plan to post some Cpu and 3dmark benches
to show how it works ?

hi Steven67,

yeah, performance of the 5500 on PCI-X is very nice, equal or maybe even a little bit better then at AGP.....

when the rig is finished, I will ofcourse post benchmarks, I have benchmark results from my dual MP3000+ setup as well, when it was running 2.4Ghz, so will be a nice comparison......opteron 2.4Ghz vs XP-M 2.4Ghz

Only differences are ofcourse I am running dual channel DDR400 vs single channel DDR300 with the XP-M and hypertransport link 1Ghz vs 150Mhz fsb and we all know voodoo's love high bandwidth.

I am having some trouble fitting it all in the case tho....the mobo fits just fine, but I have nowhere to put the necessary fans.....I might just have to build me a custom rig for it.....maybe even from wood...never did that:)

but maybe as a tribute to 3DFX, I will build my custom rig with metal, and make it awesome :)

I will make a sketch of if and post that here

@ultima,

Very nice system. I like so much your motherboard. Very great choosing.

Regards,
Oscar.

@Ultima : The case seems to have sufficient cooling with fans installed. Can you give more information about the extra fans you would install ?
To cool the daugther cards, with extra fans there was an old modding Sunbeam kit called "whenever rack".

you said that exactly correct, it has sufficient cooling with the fans installed.

But because it is an e-atx board, I had to take out the harddrive cages, which hold 2 fans for intake of air.....but I wanted to make my own case for a long time now....so this would be the oppurtune moment....but I will run some benchamrks before the case is finished.

And thank you Oscar, I searched quite some time for the board, I wanted one that was stable as a rock, was a solid performer and had certain features and came to this conclusion.

As for the case, I will make a desktop out of it I think, with a 3DFX logo at the front I think. will have to work out the details, but will make some drawings / sketches.

ultima wrote on 19.03.14 at 08:30:51:

Only differences are ofcourse I am running dual channel DDR400 vs single channel DDR300 with the XP-M and hypertransport link 1Ghz vs 150Mhz fsb and we all know voodoo's love high bandwidth.

The comparison is incorrect.

1GHz is the path's speed between the CPUs and the AMD 8131 controller, but the clock is 200MHz (x5 = HT).

So you must compare 150MHz clock frequency of the old system with 200MHz of the new one, which is higher, so better...

But HT works completely different from the FSB. FSB is a single external bus shared across the I/O devices on the system, RAM included of course. Since the AMD64 architecture provide a memory controller inside the CPU itself, the system memory is directly linked to the CPU with his own bus (whit all the benefits of the case), while the rest of the I/O devices present in the system share a second external bus, which is the Hyper Transport. But, while the FSB has a data width of 64bit, the HT implemented around the AMD CPUs has a data width of 32bit. Speaking of bandwidth:

Previous AXP-M platform:
150MHz*64bit*2/8=2400MB/s bandwidth

Current Opteron platform:
200MHz*32bit*2/8=1600MB/s bandwidth

It must be noted that HT is a parallel path, it means that data can flow through the bus in both directions at the same time. So it can be considered splitted in two sub-links by 16bit width each (16bit_upstream + 16bit _downstream = 32bit aggregated). That said, someone could argue that the real bandwidth must be calculated as the bandwidth available in only one direction (16bit width instead of 32bit), as you would do in the FSB case.

So, speaking about pure bandwidth, you have less now. But HT is a more efficient technology and provide some clear benefits over the FSB of which the most importants are:

1) Parallelism (I/O data flowing at the same time)
2) Memory and CPU deal directly (it means that, for example, while system devices as VGA access to RAM through NB, CPU can still access to RAM at the same time with reduced latency)

Well, that kinda sums it up then doesn't it?!

Thanks for the rectification Goriath, I stand corrected so to speak......learned something new today. :)

I knew HT link and fsb couldn't really be compared one on one, but didn't know the details behind it.

Time will tell which is the better performer, but I guess the Opteron

I will be usingf a program like Sketchup to make the design of my 3DFX Tribute case, and where-ever possible, I will make it myself :)

***EDIT***

I have found the cable I will need for my PSU to power both cpu's, at a dutch site, costs less then 5 euros:

http://azerty.nl/producten/product_detail/1549/332211/startech-com-4-pin-to-8-pin-eps-power-with-lp4-cable-adapter-netspanningsadapter-4-pens-atx-12-volt-v-4-pin-interne-voed.html?channel_code=40

today I received message from the shop, they shipped the cable today, so tommorrow I will have it.

Which PSU are you going to use?

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article149-page1.html

the Enermax 475W Noisetaker

I have looked up the specs and it should be more then adequate to handle this system

this is a quote from the Supermicro site for this board:


Quote:

Important Chassis Notes: - To ensure system stability, a 420W (minimum) ATX power supply [ 8-pin (+12V) and 24-pin are required]

I decided to install the system 1st completely before putting it into a case, don't want to find out something doesn't work when it has been installed into the case.

This is my test setup, doesn't look all that great, but hey it works :)

http://abload.de/thumb/img_20140330_1618289huei.jpg

http://abload.de/thumb/img_20140330_161840c4utm.jpg

I think something is wrong with my win2k cd, everytime I try to install it craps out at the moment it is "registereing components"

sometimes a BSOD, sometimes an ntoskrnl.dll error, sometimes a sudden reboot.

Will do a windows XP install to make sure hadware is just fine.

turns out my ram is faulty, will get free replacement from the guy that sold to me :)

Instead of building my own case, I will be modding one.......and I saw this one....I just have to have it :)

http://www.aerocool.us/strikex/strikex_air.html

whatta ya guys think?

the case has been ordered, will have it before the weekend.

will then install the system into it and finally run some benchmarks :)

And post some nice pics ofcourse :)

***EDIT***

getting excited, delivery man is on his way now :)

it's alive guys.....tho currently with only 1 cpu and 1GB of ram, but still

drivers are installed, dual Gbit lan on win2k. LOL

dx8.1 installed, last official 3DFX drivers for win2k....3DMark2001SE score is: 3132 on default settings

1st game to install and play is: Return to Castle Wolfenstein :)

after that... Final Fantasy 7 :)

Very nice setup ultima!
The 3dmark score seems to be a little low. On pcix i expect to get around 3700points.
is the card running at 66mhz?

Thanks m14radu

I'm still tweaking the rig, hard to find win2k drivers for it...tho they do exist.

Some listings under System are still exclemation marks, so....

just did a little run to try and see prelimenary score.

Will be doing a clean install now, I used a win2k + SP4 cd, but wanna start from scratch, with drivers too, gonna use the amigamerlin ones, they are better then the 3DFX official ones if ya ask me.

And it was with 1 cpu and 1 stick of ram, so no dual channel ram, but will have more ram this afternoon, so....

I will also install windows XP to do some nice comparison.

Why not try sfft 1.9?
http://www.3dfxzone.it/news/reader.php?objid=16199

amigamerlin is a good driver to, but seeing that your using 2k and not 9x I'd try sfft.

Almost forgot about those.....thanks, will do

yesterday I picked up 2 x 2GB PC2700 ram, with nice timings, which I manually set to 400Mhz and runs just fine, so now have 2 x 2GB + 2 x 1GB, gonna make a triple boot :D

Win2k
WinXP
Windows7 64 bit :)

ultima wrote on 30.04.14 at 12:01:41:

yesterday I picked up 2 x 2GB PC2700 ram, with nice timings, which I manually set to 400Mhz and runs just fine, so now have 2 x 2GB + 2 x 1GB, gonna make a triple boot :D Win2k WinXP Windows7 64 bit :)

Are those 2GB ram sticks ECC registered?

yes they are indeed, the only kind of ram this board will accept

this system is coming along nice. nicer then mine BTW  :-[

If ya want, ya can buy my old dual setup. :)

Is Asus A7M-266D, dual socketA with dual MP3000+ @ 2.4Ghz, 4 x. 512MB  ram and will run any voodoo card, save for 6000 and some prototypes.

Lemme know if yer interested.

ultima wrote on 01.05.14 at 21:40:45:

If ya want, ya can buy my old dual setup. :) Is Asus A7M-266D, dual socketA with dual MP3000+ @ 2.4Ghz, 4 x. 512MB  ram and will run any voodoo card, save for 6000 and some prototypes. Lemme know if yer interested.

No, but thanks. 2cpus would be no use for me, that and my 3dfx system is a smaller system (see SIG) I just need a 5500.

Ok no problem.

Tho ya could make a nice 98se / win2k dualboot. :)

Seeing your case,  that would easily fit my mobo.

ultima wrote on 04.05.14 at 13:18:15:

Ok no problem. Tho ya could make a nice 98se / win2k dualboot. :) Seeing your case,  that would easily fit my mobo.

my GuS does not fully work in win NT OS's. and it would be a tight fit in my case. Bare in mind where the cd drive goes. It would get in the way of the cpu heat sink.It would make a nice system tho.

oh, that sucks about your soundcard..too bad.

But seeing whre cd drive goes, it should still fit nicely :)

But seeing layout of mobo:

https://www.google.nl/#q=a7m-266d

that shouldn't be a problem...ram is before heatsinks, so......and normally there's enough room to clear the ram :)


but...your call.....

but aren't there nt drivers for your card here??

http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/index.php?catid=8

ultima wrote on 04.05.14 at 22:45:28:

oh, that sucks about your soundcard..too bad. But seeing whre cd drive goes, it should still fit nicely :) But seeing layout of mobo: https://www.google.nl/#q=a7m-266d that shouldn't be a problem...ram is before heatsinks, so......and normally there's enough room to clear the ram :) but...your call..... but aren't there nt drivers for your card here?? http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/index.php?catid=8

The NT drivers are pre alpha at best. Buggy only support for wave audio. I was working on a driver, but I had a hard drive fail on me.

That really sucks then.....no way  to start up development on the drivers anymore??

If you'd be successful, I'm sure loads of people would be very grateful.

well, I re-installed win2k, no dx8.1 install this time, games didn't seem to like it all that much.

Installed SFFT 1.9 + tools and so far installed:

Colin McRae Rally 2 --> runs very smooth
Final Fantasy 7 --> won't run on win2k...not original + patch or ultima edition (will play in XP )
Tombraider 1 --> doesn't wanna run just yet, maybe need patch
Tombraider 2 --> doesn't wanna run just yet, maybe need patch
Tombraider 3 --> doesn't wanna run just yet, maybe need patch
Return to Castle Wolfenstein -->
Unreal Tournament 99 GOTY --> drrooooooll :)

And then I went on to install WindowsXP, also with SFFT1.9 + tools:

Colin McRae Rally 2 --> runs like a charm
Final Fantasy 7 --> runs like a charm, both original patched and ultima edition
Tombraider 1 -->
Tombraider 2 -->
Tombraider 3 -->
Return to Castle Wolfenstein --> runs like a charm
Unreal Tournament 99 GOTY --> drrooooooll :)