Blast from the Past - Original ROG Crosshair
One of four old gaming PCs I saved from the recycler yesterday...
This build revolves around the first Asus "ROG" Crosshair AM2 motherboard.
AMD Athon 64 X2 5600+ 2.8GHz
8GB DDR2-800
250GB Samsung 850 SATA SSD, 1TB Seagate Barracuda SATA II HDD
PNY GeForce 650Ti Boost 2GB
Corsair CX450M PSU
Thermaltake CPU cooler (unknown model)
Asus MDisc DVD burner
Rosewill ATX case
PC was running Windows 10, very poorly. I ran the latest version of the Passmark test and it placed the CPU in the 0th percentile of all results. Just launching the test utility pushed CPU utilization to 40% so it was really only testing 60% of the CPU🤣
Installed Q4OS Linux (Debian). Had many random kernel level crashes but did manage to verify the CPU is powerful enough to emulate PSP games. Before it crashed...again. Watching YouTube was smooth at 1080p (board has gigabit ethernet, rare for 2006). In other words, it was usable, if it weren't for the crashes. There are people still using smartphones and tablets that are weaker.
It is probable the issues stem from lack of SSE4 instructions so I ordered a Phenom X4 9500 to try. It might yet still be a serviceable basic PC. I could probably drop in my video capture card and run with it. The 650Ti supports first gen NVENC hardware encoding, which is good enough for me.
If that doesn't work, I will probably sell the board because I need another high end SLI motherboard from the '00s like I need another hole in my head. I know there's a collector or three out there who would give me stupid money for it in the box. This board is from a time when most people just got the basic one. They weren't exactly growing on trees, even 20 years ago. I know what I got :P
I want to put that ridiculous cooler on my 5700X3D.
It can definitely handle that, and more. But I don't think I trust that fan, no matter how cool it looks so I'm gonna put a Noctua on it.