u/JDTemple

Sharing some pics of my retro HTPC for 1080p streaming and gaming, hope you all enjoy! Specs and info below.

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450
HSF: Zalman CNPS8900 Quiet
MB: Asus P5QL-VM EPU
RAM: 4x 2Gb Patriot Gaming DDR2 1066Mhz
GPU: Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD4980 Zalman edition
Tuner: Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1800
SSD: 1x Western Digital Blue 250Gb SATA SSD
HDD: 3x Hitachi 2Tb 3.5” 7200rpm SATA HDD
ODD: HP BD-ROM Blu Ray drive
PSU: Rosewill VNW 550w power supply
Expansion: Orico 5.25” to 3.5” SATA hot swap
Controller: STW 4 channel 5.25” bay fan control
Fans: 2x Arctic P12 PWM + 1x Arctic P8 PWM
Case: Lian Li PC-V351B all aluminum cube case
OS: Windows 10 Pro IoT LTSC edition

Currently using this machine for 1080p OTA cable streams plus some media storage, backups, and legacy disc watching. I have two of the 2Tb drives in the internal 3.5” bays in RAID1 backup and the third drive in the hotswap 5.25” bay for easy transfers.

Windows 10 LTSC is surprisingly light and capable with all of the bloatware stripped out. It’s still snappy on the C2Q even though it’s almost 18 years old now. Idle RAM usage is usually under 3gb as well.

Sharing some pics and details of the build that I’ve been working on for a few months. Last year I shared some pics of my then 19-year old Q6600 + 8800 GTS SLI build which was my original first gaming PC build from 2006 that I had gotten running again. Unfortunately the motherboard and CPU both failed together this year as the system approached the 2 decade mark, and I decided to build one last homage to the legendary Intel LGA 775 + Nvidia Tesla era hardware platforms, leading to this PC.

Full specs below:
Motherboard - EVGA nForce 750i SLI FTW
CPU - Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550
Heatsink - Scythe Ninja III w/ Arctic P12 PWM
RAM - 4x 2Gb OCZ “SLI Ready” DDR2 800mhz
GPUs - 2x EVGA GTX 260 Core 216 55nm OC in SLI
Soundcard - Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium
Storage - 160gb WD VelociRaptor 10k RPM HDD
Storage - 1Tb SP SATA III SSD (modern)
PSU - Montech Century II 850w Modular (modern)
Case - Lian Li PC-A05N inverted ATX
Fans - 4x Xigmatek XLF-120 white LED PWM fans
Expansion - 74:1 USB media card, LG DVDRW, Lian Li combo fan controller + 2.5” drive adapter
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate x64

Peripherals:
Monitor - Samsung Syncmaster 206BW 19” 16:10
Speakers - Logitech X-240 2.1 system
Keyboard - Ducky Origin w/ Cherry MX Red switches
Mouse - Redragon M728-AIR

The monitor and speakers are the exact models that I had on my original PC in 2007. The keyboard and mouse are new/modern but have a retro feel.

My favorite part of the build is the case. I always wanted a Lian Li PC-A05 back in the day, but considering they were 3x the price of a standard gaming tower, I never bought one. This one came to me from eBay and I decided to customize it by adding 2x 120mm exhaust fans on the top panel and cutting a hole in the bottom panel for PSU air intake as well. I also had to add new case feet to raise the bottom panel off the floor, replace front panel mounting brackets, and thoroughly clean everything out from years of dust.

At the hardware level I completely tore down both GPUs and added new thermal pads and paste plus cleaned out the blower fans and heatsink fins. I also re-pasted the motherboard’s north bridge (these nForce boards run SO hot, iykyk) and swapped the standard 50mm fan for a 60mm Noctua running at 100% to keep things manageable.

After getting Windows installed, tracking down the exact drivers needed, and doing some customization to reduce microstutter, I am super pleased with the final result. Source engine games from the era and other legacy titles like Bioshock are surprisingly smooth. It’s been a fun project with a huge performance boost over my prior Q6600 retro rig. Hope you guys enjoy the photos here.

Sharing some pics of my Lian Li PC-A05N and PC-V351B. I just finished a retro build in my A05N which I’ve modified to add additional ventilation for the GPU’s and PSU plus period-correct fans and lighting.

The A05N has an EVGA 750i SLI FTW Motherboard with a Q9550, 8Gb DDR2, and 2x EVGA GTX 260 Core 216 55nm in SLI all running on Windows 7 Ultimate as part of my retro battle station setup. It previously had my original gaming PC parts from 2006 (EVGA 680i SLI, Q6600, 2x EVGA 8800 GTS 640mb) until the CPU and MB recently had a catastrophic failure. I took the opportunity to mod the A05N during the rebuild and I’m very happy with the result.

The V351B is currently empty but will have a media center setup soon with 2x hot swap 5.25-to-3.5 SATA bays, a blu ray drive, and a media card reader, plus a MATX build inside prioritizing low-noise operation.

Both of these cases were some of my absolute favorites about 2 decades ago when I began building PCs, and the unorthodox layouts of both of them contributed to my interests in MFF/SFF builds. I like these older style Lian Li chassis much better than what they’re currently producing, although I’m sure that’s not a popular opinion.

Looking for guidance on pricing a flip. Built many systems over the last ~20 years but never done a flip this nice before. Collected parts over time and traded some spare RAM for others after recent price increases. Upstate NY / USA if that’s important. Will likely list via Marketplace. Specs below

Intel Core i9 9900k / ASRock Z390M / WiFi + BT / 32gb (2x16) DDR4 3200 CL16 / Gigabyte RTX 3070 triple fan + RGB / 1Tb WD Blue NVMe / Thermaltake 700w PSU / Jonsbo D32 STD case / Thermalright PS120 cooler / 8x Thermalright 120mm ARGB fans (including some reserve blade)

Planning to sell with a brand new Razer Cynosa Lite and Deathadder Essential KB/M, plus a KTC 24” IPS 1440p 100hz monitor. Windows 11 Pro installed and activated.

I was thinking $750-850 range for the listing but wondering if I could/should go higher.