The Final Athlon XP 3200+ building a 2003 Retro Gaming PC

[@vdrand9893]

These old 2000-2003 games are so relaxing, not over hyped.

[@amalek.92]

Couldn’t agree more. Times were different. And it isn’t just about nostalgia. The gaming industry devolves nowadays at a rapid pace. Very few truly good games. I like Nintendo stuff, though, but we’re talking PC here.

[@Midee]

Well to be fair he did disable the music for each game, so that's inherently less hypey 😆

[@darthtripedacus1]

I still use my althon 64 machine. It's my quad boot baby. Xp 7 8 10. 8 gigs of RAM. It's a monster.

[@espro436]

I dont know why i'm watching this... but i like it :). Getting some nostalgia from childhood. In early 2000 i had Athlon 2500+ and Radeon 9100 64mb.

[@Adam-rt7lp]

espro more interesting then the modern stuff in my opinion.

[@ebverge6701]

I remember the Athlon XP series basing their numbering scheme on performance instead of frequency. Alot of people were mad at it but it was accurate. the 3200+ performed like a 3.2ghz cpu but was clocked much lower.

[@MarcoAntonio-df7sl]

like an awful p4 3.2? I never understood the numbers, p4 was way worse than athlon xp

[@sjogosPT]

@@MarcoAntonio-df7sl Yes. AMD made that because back in the day MHZ mathers. People wanted more megaheartz. AMD was very clever doing that, and the name "Athlon XP" was well choosen because of WIndows XP. I remeber they even write on CPU Box "Extreme Performance for WIndows XP".

[@nurbsivonsirup1416]

@@MarcoAntonio-df7sl Northwood P4s were really not that bad. In fact, with 133 or even 200Mhz FSB and >2,5Ghz they would regularly outperform Athlons in a similar performance bracket, even in games. Netburst may have been a dead end, but not all CPUs that came out of it sucked :>

[@gamebenchmarks9715]

My buddy set my Athlon XP to 3200+ and that was my first experience with "overclock"

[@MaTtRoSiTy]

Back in my favorite era again - nice!

[@Ronaldopopkings]

The big diffrence is the AMD Athlon systems were affordable. I remember my young teenage self being able to save cash and buy a 1800+ , then later a 3200+.

[@sjogosPT]

I was one of them. I had pentium 3 machine. First i bought a used mainboard, that still used SDRAM memory (this way i could use my pentium 3 memory). Then later i bought an 2400+. I had so little money but even then i was able to upgrade this way. Later i upgraded both mainboard and cpu (to abit NF7-S and Athlon XP-M 2600+).

[@QuantumBraced]

That's a pretty high-end system for 2003. I built my first PC in 2003 and it was an AthlonXP 2400+ with 512MB of DDR, and a GeForce FX 5200 64MB. It also had a massive 120GB HDD, because I was coming from a 200MB HDD from my childhood 486 and I was tired of never having any space.

[@sillyszili2593]

i just built an Athlon 64 3200+ (939,Venice 90nm) System today :D

[@drescorpio1114]

I used to have that CPU then I went to a Athlon 64 X2 4400+

[@christopherbartleson8918]

I remember having this CPU as well; I think I had it paired with an Nvidia 6800GS in one of those blue Apevia X-Qpack; I played Final Fantasy XI Online back then; what a fun time that was.

[@aarongarza4769]

2003... The golden era of gaming. Before the dark days...

[@AzrielStrife]

The athlon XP era is the first time I went all out. I bought the same nforce2 ECS board, 2 gigs of ddr-400 (dual channel) and a barton 3200+. I bought a 6600GT agp bundled with doom3 at the time. This is almost identical to my XP system, and i still have it, i couldn't bring myself to sell the hardware, and I still use it to play older games.

[@azrielstrife2557]

I'd love to send you photos of the machine now. Let me know if you'd be interested.

[@danherrin7691]

Oh man....talk about nostalgia! This brings back the good ol' times of when I first started to build my own PC's in the early 2000's. Love this!

[@Zizzily]

I had a 2500+ Barton core with the FSB at 200MHz instead of 166MHz, so it ran the same as a 3200+. First with a GeForce FX 5600 and then a GeForce 6800 before I moved to a Athlon 64 3800+ and then an X2 4200+. Even had an Audigy 2 ZS. Haha.

[@tukanovarit]

The same in my computer 15 year ago. Unbelievable Athlon XP 2500+ with barton Core. Just set FSB to 200 and 3200+ is born. Kick Intels ass.

[@asmongoldsmouth9839]

The only problem with moving up a few bins like that by stepping up your front side bus is your 2500 now is running at a much higher temperature than the 3200 did stock. High heat is terrible for circuitry. It where is its lifespan down significantly.

[@GTFour]

@@asmongoldsmouth9839 3200 was same clock multiplier as 2500 but a 200 fsb

[@ricardobarros1090]

Great Audigy 2 ZS, I have It in my retro PC here. And another retro PC, I have Sound Blaster Live! Gamer, do you remember It?

[@Zizzily]

@@ricardobarros1090 I vaguely remember the X-Gamer, though I think that was mostly a game bundle. I remember having a Live! Value before the 2 ZS, though.

[@takkyu82]

Oh man, loved my old athlon 3200 build back in the day. won a gold reference geforce 4 4600 ti back in the day at fragapalooza sponsored by voodoo pc. That pc was a beast.

[@MJ-uk6lu]

Red sexy ATI, Ruby demos, AMD CPU, sexy purple motherboard, nice looking RAM, enthusiasm and high fps. This video is pure perfection. Keep it up Phil, I feel this is one of your best videos so far.

[@3800S1]

Athlon 2800+, 1GB of DDR400, 6600GT, Abit NF7 and CPU was cooled by the Zalman reserator 1 passive water loop. Great times!

[@wot8219]

my system from 2004 (athlon xp 2800+, ati 9800 pro) still works today and i'm still using it occasionally to play older games... never had to replace any part.

[@WrenFJ]

awesome rig! i was born in 2003, so this is an especially cool build!

[@keremizgol]

Great video! I had a XP 2500+ (I still have lol) but I ran it with 200MHz FSB which made it essentialy a 3200+ :D

[@mcrazza]

I'm in the middle of a retro PC build myself. Been watching your channel for about a month now for tips and for that nostalgia trip to the early 2000s. Anyway, thanks for your quality content, it's been very informative. :)

[@fradd182]

I had athlon XP with ABIT nforce2 board as late as 2009. It was OC-ed to 2300mhz, with 3GB of RAM and matrox g400 card. Great system.

[@philscomputerlab]

Nice.

[@Domstar97]

I'm so glad that I found your channel a couple of years ago, I absolutely love these videos. They bring back memories of so many great experiences from my childhood. My first PC had Windows 98 SE on it, I was only 6 years old, didn't have any internet connection and would play these stupid and cheaply made mini game collections all day. My uncle taught me how a PC works and how to upgrade it and I grew to love PC building. PC hardware is like a drug, you can't get enough of it :-D

[@JMUDoc]

"Ahh - there you are." STABSTABSTABSTABSTAB!!!

[@GTFour]

I laugh every single time 🤣

[@sijimo]

My nostalgia is AMD 486 DX4-100 on Chicony CH-471A motherboard. Was lucky to hunt it down on ebay in two months. Previous CH-471 appeared there one year ago. So, if you feel nostalgic to something and it is available - go grab it immediately, otherwise you may have to wait for years

[@JeordieEH]

I had an athlon xp 2700+ that I believe was a thoroughbred core and not a barton core. I remember having issues with the memory not running correctly, it would only run stable at lower speeds. I was in the market for buying stable ram, and ended up finding someone who wanted to buy the motherboard and cpu I had, so I ended up just selling it and bought an athlon xp 3200+ and an asus a7n8x deluxe with the 400 bus and 400mhz ddr memory for dual channel(I had sold the 333mhz revision). I finally had a stable system that ran at the right speeds. While at the time I really should have just saved a little more and went for an athlon 64 system. It would have been a much better option, but I felt like I wanted to finally run the system I had at the right speeds and have it be stable. Looking back on it now, I wish I had the foresight to go dual core sooner, as later I remember when I did upgrade to an athlon 64 system, I didn't have get a dual core until later and money was tight at the time. So really, I should have done it sooner than later. I really got my money out of both of those systems and I still have them. I either should consider making them into a working system again or sell them. Since they were top of the line systems for end of athlon xp and 64.

[@clintonswart6670]

I owned an XP2700+ machine built back in 2003. Thank you for making this video. Brought back some good memories.

[@ricardobarros1090]

Great test! So many great games benchmarks😮 thank you Phil !!!👍

[@dragoburnhard]

i still have my amd xp 3200+, DFI lanparty ultra B mobo, gail 2GB ram, first had leadtek5900 then upgraded to gainward nvidia 7800 GS 512mb,,,, with a thermaltake xaser 3 case..... really good system.... although had fps slowdown with C&C generals and BF2

[@philscomputerlab]

Nice! Yea Battlefield 2 was quite demanding when it came out.

[@petenielsen6683]

My friend recently returned the internal parts for his Athlon 3200 since he was upgrading to the Ryzen platform and my father upgraded his 2600+ and returned his entire system to me.

[@Midee]

Man, the early 00's were both an exciting and awkward time for building PCs. So many big architectural shifts just over the horizon (PCI-E, SATA, x64) which of course became the standards even for today, but not really starting to take root until the middle of the decade. System longevity wasn't too great back then. Still a blast, though. Thanks for the video.

[@devikwolf]

I'm putting my Athlon XP back together, so it was cool to run across this video as I'm working on it! Love your vids and your builds -- exactly my sort of jam!

[@PacoStrano]

ahhhh nice Giant Citizen Kabuto a hidden gem for PC and a really fun game for lan parties

[@amalek.92]

That lovely olive XP theme.

[@PorscheRacer14]

I don't know if you can find it anymore but Mushkin DDR Redline runs at 1.5v at 500MHz. That means at 400MHz you can easily do 2-3-2-8 as I've done with this kit. Now, I've only ever used that kit (2 of them) on socket 939 with my FX-60. I'm still using this setup and can attest to the quality they are using the much desired Elpida chips of the time. They were pricy and rare when new so...good luck :)

[@mpalen19]

Great capture! Quality has vastly improved.

[@asmongoldsmouth9839]

I had the Barton 3200+. It was incredible.

[@simant5361]

Had an Athlon 1900+ (system had a Duron originally), with a Ti4200 & then a 6600GT to play Oblivion :). Have just acquired a Athlon 2400+ shuttle xpc

[@balazsvilaga8040]

Good old 3200+.never had a chance to have one-i only managed 3 2500+ Barton core ones.Well they can do 2300-2400 Mhz with good cooling,but its a disappointment to me.Also 2 Abit NF 7-one ver 1.0 and one NF7S2 died on me for NO reason.They did ran,next time i powered it on;nothing.No worries i have like 4 Penitum 4 systems if i want to retro gaming,but i still cant imagine whar could possible gone wrong.Nice vid as always Phil.

[@neavo8421]

I had an Athlon XP 1600 using a Geforce 2 and I loved that system

[@vgjhlgjhfuyfjhfjkhgyghj]

Just built this rig with 7600gt. Xp installing as we speak 👍👍👍

[@keithbrown814]

My first build was an old Athlon XP. I miss it. If I find one thrifting I'm picking it up. Just a newlywed and all I could afford was a Athlon XP 1800+. Good times.

[@xtreme350nm3]

Thank you for posting this! I just ordered an XP 3000+ (barton, 333MHz fsb) to build a similar rig out of other parts I have lying around. My first real desktop had an XP 1800+ (quite a bit faster than my parents' 600MHz katmai!), so this era of hardware has always been special to me.

[@PROSTO4Tabal]

I miss this kind of videos

[@rcarkk]

Still have an Athlon XP 2800+ barton with unlocked multiplier. Can easily clock it at 2.2Ghz 400mhz FSB with stock voltage. The MB is an A7N8X 2.0 Deluxe with the nforce 2 Ultra 400. That system runned an FX5600 256MB which was upgraded to the Asus 9600 XT 128MB, then to a 6600 GT 128MB and finally a 6800 Ultra. Beast of a system...

[@clintthompson4100]

My step dad used to own that motherboard when I built him an Athlon XP 3200 system and I ended up hating that motherboard even after to bios upgrades and newest driver upgrades could never get the board to stop random reboot times. Nothing was overheating exchanged that bored out for the latest socket A abit motherboard and never had a single reboot. Still have my abit AthlonXP 3200+ and it still runs great. To me! (this is just my opinion)ECS is like the trident video cards of old just plain junk. You get what you pay for. I do love seeing the retro build it is always nice to see any AMD system running software and playing games.

[@mkonji8522]

I have a very similar setup that I still use for xp games that I had purchased when new back in the day. I'm just stoked it's held up given the number of hours I have put into the system and only had to replace a dodgy power supply. It's a damn near exact match to this except I'm running an ATI x800 256mb agp card and Corsair cmx512+3200xlpro instead of the platinum versions of the memory. It's crazy how spot on your build is. Cheers!

[@dv7533]

My first new PC was a AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1400 on a VIA KT266A motherboard, I upgraded it through the years one part at a time to a Athlon XP-m 2800+ on a VIA KT400 motherboard with 4GB DDR400 CL2, it would overclock to 2.5 GHz. I tried an NForce 2 motherboard, but it would get unstable in combination with my GPU and only supported 3GB RAM. I only switched to a newer system about 4 years ago. It was such a great platform I stayed on it for13 years.

[@a351must2]

Had a XP 3200+ back in 2004 I believe initially with an ATI All in wonder card and later with a 6800GT. Still have the 3200+ in working condition, but the 6800GT is long dead.

[@DavidM-pd9oi]

Great chipset. We have an old Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe with the same cpu floating around in our garage. Might be a good build for our kids. Lol

[@PlaidDin]

I've gotten hold of my dad's Athlon 64 gaming rig from 2005. Now I'm using it as a CRT multimedia center and a machine for games that don't behave well on my modern machine. (Just had to replace the Chieftec 350W PSU with a newer Chieftec unit.)

[@armorgeddon]

"CRT multimedia center" -> now that's a new term :-D

[@PlaidDin]

@@armorgeddon let's coin it dude uwu

[@opex9]

Had a 3200+ 512mb ram and a geforce mx 440 back in the day. My first gaming rig.

[@xKynOx]

My 1st PC in 2003 had a XP 3200+, 9800 and 1GB ram, The cap's exploded on the MB but did not kill anything else.

[@supabass4003]

Hey mate I wanted to say that this video made my day! My first gaming PC that I built myself was nearly identical, I had a 2500+ Barton, 1GB DDR, NF7-S and a 9700Pro. It's really cool and nostalgic to be able to look back at my favourite build ever, so cheers!

[@johnk7134]

RAM: Samsung TCCD ddr 400 at CL2 and about 500+ with CL3. These are 512MB ram sticks only. No voltage needed. Look for 1gb stick with TCCC chips if need about the same characteristics with higher capacity. The best way is to change the mobo that sux a bit. ABIT NF7-S v2.0 is the way of DFI Lanparty, both NF2.

[@johnk7134]

Search ebay for the 1 gb sticks very cheap.For the 512mb gskill had a kit with rating for 400 cl2 and 550 i thik for cl3.Just for the history since AMD do not have high fsb like 240-245 with oc the best ram perfomancewise will be BH-5 but with a lot of voltage and hard work to have them running 1:1 with CL2

Great chipset, amazing review! Phil is the best !

[@mbe102]

LOL, that Rambus thumbnail makes me chuckle every single time.

[@bryndal36]

I upgraded to the Athlon XP 3200+ from my Duron 750. Huge difference in performance and I had it matched to a Geforce MX440. I had to replace the MX440 though cos Far Cry needed shaders to work and the 440 didn't support them so I upgraded to a FX 5700.

[@llugnuto7795]

if you want a good deal on certain hardware, you can search on ebay for people listing a large chunk of components as "for scrap or gold recovery" as most of the stuff they are selling usually still works. (the gold content is so little that the equipment and chemicals to process it might cost more than the gold you would be able recover)

[@johannsmith5697]

Phil do a top 5 or top 10 retro racing games video, they are great you play ones that look fun. Also can't wait for that video on that video card.

[@MJ-uk6lu]

Juiced, it's one of the best. NFS Porsche Unleashed is very good game, but has problems with modern platforms and by modern I meant even XP counts, so if you get it running, it's a great game.

[@groovedigga101]

I was the envy of all my friends when I got a Geforce 3 GFX on the day of release.

[@Checker201lol]

Bought my first own pc w/ an Athlon xp 2600+ &Radeon 9600. But with a mobo that got replaced 4 times after getting rid of the pc after just two years XD. Saved up so long to finally buy it in 2007^^ Recently I've built an XP 2600+ setup with a radeon 9800se, only to learn by Phil's videos, that the xp's are faster than the P4's clock for clock^^ On to building a Athlon 64 4000+ singlecore pc now.

[@razorback20]

I used to have a 3200+ that I milked to the last drop, as my main PC. Progressively upgraded, it ended with an Nforce 2 ultra 400 chipset, 2 gigs of RAM and a Geforce 7600 GT until I swapped to an AM3 platform under Win 10 64 bits in early 2010. Pretty capable CPU. BTW, I still have it, currently it's running as a retro-gaming platform project. Legends never die ;-)

[@basillicus3959]

Back in the days I bought a Athlon XP 2000+, maybe 2002 or so. Later I upgraded a 3000+ on in which served well until 2006 when C2D arrived. Funnily enough I sold the used 3000+ CPU with the same price I originally paid for a new one. Those 3000+ and 3200+ were quite rare and sought-after CPU's back then since they were the fastest ones you could get for SocketA system.

[@carlosfvs]

I had a barton 2600+ with 1gb ram on a PC CHIPS M848LU motherboard, and I think I got an nvdia fx5200 or something. I'm not sure now, but I still have those components in a box somewhere, gonna look for it and try to make it work after watching this video. Nice work, Phil!

[@Maxa1]

A slower version of this build was my first gaming computer. :) XP 2600+, nForce2 400 non-Ultra, Radeon 9600XT. Good times. Also, DDR500 sticks might work at DDR400 CL2 stock voltage. At least my A-Data Vitesta DDR500 512MB sticks work like that on the Intel D865PERL, which has no voltage control for anything.

[@philscomputerlab]

Ah, good tip. That's like using PC133 in a PC100 board. I shall keep an eye out for DDR500 memory!

[@constantinshaman3362]

5:09 Evolva! Nostalgia hits hard

[@a.sanford8731]

I remember my Athlon XP 2700+ machine with a GeForce 5600. It could play Doom 3, albeit with lower settings. Easily my favorite PC game from the time.

[@gamebenchmarks9715]

My first "assembled" computer had Athlon XP I used to play Max Payne, GTA 3, original Rainbow Six, Enter the Matrix on it, it was awesome

[@kevinvon1757]

I use Barton 2500+(oc 3200+) ABIT NF7, ATI 9550(128b)+ 256RAM*2 to play CS1.5-1.6，War3 in the end of 2003,Great CPU!

[@Atari8man2011]

Back in 2003-2004 Pc techs where using the Mobile version of the Athlon XP line and they work great on socket 462 motherboards . I had the Athlon XPM 2500. all the mobile processors where unlocked and was easy to Hit 2.4 or 2.6 and the mobile version was only about $20.00 more than the desktop versions. The performance rate or PR for short was 3.8 You may want to make a system like this if you haven't already. The best GPU for that build is Nvidia 6600gt or the Nvidia 6800gt . Lots of Fun

[@redwanhasan1721]

Nice video. Almost during that time(probably 2005) I had a system with the AMD Athlon XP 3400, 2.4GHz, Asus K8N(nforce3 I believe) board, 512+512MB DDR400 RAM, 160GB SATA 1.5Gbps drive, Combo drive and a nvidia 6800GT AGP. I was thinking about rebuilding it again and maybe play COD4.5, FC1,2, COH, CnC3, Crysis Warhead, GTA-SA, NFS-MW, the games that I played and miss now, many of the games can be played in my current system but GTA-SA doesn't look good in modern monitors.

[@PlaidDin]

Just center the resolution without scaling in the options of your graphic card's control center. That's the resolution problem solved. uwu

[@c462-]

the ultimate 462 build!

[@okisibarani]

miss my old barton 2500+ abit an-7 and winfast Ti4600..those time that combo is sound so luxurious..

[@soldiersvejk2053]

My first build was a Athlon XP 2200+ on a KT333 in 2003. nForce 2 was the new hot stuff then.

[@Roman-wv4rd]

Back in early 04 I had athlon xp3200+ with ati Radeon 1300xt 1gb and 4gb ram, was excellent back then

[@Tom2404]

I have an AMD Athlon XP 3200+ build. It also has an ATI Radeon X800Pro (the Radeon counterpart of your FireGL). The ram I use is not as beautiful to look at, but it's 2GB of DDR 400. It's dual channel using 3 Sticks if ram (1×1GB in one channel, 2×512MB in the other). All of it on an Asus motherboard with an nForce 2 Ultra Chipset.

[@Lowfategg]

I had the same motherboard, cpu combo in my system at the time. Also a soft modded 9800se to Pro.

[@nukez88]

I still have my first PC from 2004. It's an AMD Athlon 2200+ @1833 Mhz with 2048 MB of ram, Epox EP-8RDAE(I) motherboard and HD 3450 (512mb) AGP gpu. It is running windows 7 with no problems (but I have to use AMD Catalyst 12.3 to run stable with the AGP gpu). Watching the video and seeing some of the games you benchmarked makes me want to play them over again.

[@JS-bf9dw]

You should have bought Barton 2500+. This one can be simply overclocked to the exact speed of the 3200+ version. I had this CPU and it was quite popular back then for its simple OC ability. I don't know, whether you had to change the FSB or the multiplier, but it was basically just one visit to BIOS, changing one value and restart. I still have this PC in my basement. And, yeah, I ran it on MSI K9N Neo with HD4850. God, I want to be younger, just to have time for PCs and games.

[@philscomputerlab]

The main reason I got into this hobby is so I can use high end parts, that back in the day, I could only dream about. So there is no need for overclocking when you can get the top parts for cheap :) At least when I was looking, I'm always a bit ahead of things so to get good prices :)

[@JS-bf9dw]

PhilsComputerLab Yeah, exactly. The parts, that were too expensive back then for me as a poor student can be now bought for nearly nothing:) Well, good luck on ebay! I always enjoy your videos. It's like time machine - they take me back to the days without worries or stress;)

[@DeViLzzz2006]

I had an AMD Athlon XP 2500+ and probably would still have the pc but I felt at the time with the mobo being ECS brand and someone offering me good money for the system I'd let it go. Fortunately I did as either the mobo or PSU went bad. I haven't had an issue with selling anything since including some higher priced video cards and as for the person that bought that pc off me it seemed like they knew what to do about salvaging parts and making it work. I am betting it was the motherboard. Also since then I have never sold "as is" stuff and that could have bitten me in the butt in a way more than a few times as I tell people they can bring an item back within a reasonable amount of time if they have a problem and truly honor it but lucky nothing has been brought back to me. This includes some times where I have flipped stuff I truly did not want to hold onto. : O Anyway great video as always and this machine was a beast for me as the cpu overclocked well and I can still picture using it and the fun I had with it. I hope to build another one if I can someday soon. As for the games I played on it I didn't play all that you played but you showed some classics I definitely played. You showed one game though in this video or another called Giant Citizen Kabuto or something like that. It really looks like something I should play.

[@Uraim]

this motherboard looks beautiful :D

[@scottstamm7022]

I'm building, just this!.....but with a spin!

[@dave7244]

With this 2003/2004 ultimate machines, it is really worth benchmarking them with FEAR and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion to really benchmark these machines. FEAR was one of the first next gen games that really wanted a Athlon 64 or better.

[@Carstuff111]

I was recently called an AMD fanboy because I had said that AMD took the lead in performance for a little while over Intel..... Yet, time after time, I watched my roommate's AMD machines crush the Pentium 4 machine I had for a long while. I had three different processors, started out with an early 2.5GHz(?) Prescott core P4 that refused to overclock, got a Northwood core that overclocked from 2.5GHz to 3.45GHz stable on air, and had a late run Pentium 4 Prescott that ran at 3.2GHz and was faster than the overclocked Northwood. All three could not keep up with my roommate's AMD machines, even before he overclocked them.

[@philscomputerlab]

You got to be careful what parts a system is made up with. Sure if someone has an older Pentium 4 with SDR or single channel DDR, the performance will suffer. That RAMBUS system in the video was released a year sooner and it's got a weaker video card. In games it's really a close race, there are larger differences when you look into software that takes advantage of SSE2 and Hyper-Threading and all of that. You can check out my Intel vs AMD Season 1 videos, it covers this era nicely and it was really the Athlon 64 that outdid the Pentium 4.

[@Carstuff111]

Well, I had a decent overclocking MSI motherboard, 512MB OCZ 400MHz DDR memory (which was AMAZING!!) and started out with a GeForce MX 4000, but later upgraded to a Sapphire ATi Radeon 9800 Pro Atlantis 128MB graphics card that was overclocked from the stock 380MHz core clock to 475MHz on the core. I got the 9800 Pro just after he upgraded to a Sapphire X800 Pro, which he also overclocked. I miss those days. I love my current system, don't get me wrong, but things seemed so much more cut and dry back then. And what would be considered small overclock gains today, made huge changes back then.

[@K0nt4kt]

I had a 3200+ on an Abit NF7s 2.0 motherboard - Audigy, max ram, I forgot which graphics card, I used the computer until 2008, I still have the case but sold all of the other parts.

[@lagginswag]

I still have an old Athlon xp system I think it was a 2800+ and BFG 8400 GS pci... the gigabyte ga-7N400 board has bad caps cuz I fried a gtx 5950 ultra playing combat arms in 2008 or so. Replaced it with an Athlon II x3 440 system not long after. Have a strange itch to beef it up again with a new board and the strongest agp card for retro madness!

[@cosmefulanito5933]

At the time I had an Athlon XP 2500+ (1.83Ghz) @ 2408Mhz, 2.0V with a homemade watercooling. Very fast machine.

[@WizardNumberNext]

I have had AMD Athlon XP-M 2400+. it run at anything and everything. It had unlocked multiple, as it was Mobile and it had APIC, which gave me 24 interrupts instead of 16. I could even drop it into dual Socket A server board with second exactly same CPU and run dual Processor (mobile! with unlocked multiplier controlled fully by CPU itself, but still needed at least basic support for changing multiplier on fly) and I have had 3dfx Voodoo 4 4500 AGP running on this (I have had 3dfx Voodoo 5 5500 AGP, but it was AGP x2, 3.3v and Abit AN7 was 1.8V AGP only)

[@Denstoradiskmaskinen]

1:40 If Radeon software were so simple to manage these days, i would enjoy it.. now its a gift-shop with amazing things scattered all over the place, with profiles, settings hidden behind advanced settings... :S

[@mattpierce5009]

Ah, the Barton core, what a badass CPU. That FireGL, I wonder if it has the extra four pixel pipelines you can unlock like an X800 Pro?

[@obisstuff6884]

i had the 3200+, asus nforce2 mobo, i think i had roughly 1gb of ram. final upgrade was to a geforce 6800 agp. lost it to my ex. oh what i did have for cooling was special. It was Vantec TMD heatsink fan. If I could find another I would buy it. i also had this giant white ATX full tower with wheels case. 2 dvd-rw drives and a floppy drive. those were simple times. lol... loved playing on it. miss it too.

[@obisstuff6884]

oh i gamed at high resolutions for those times. 1280x1024, i really enjoyed that resolution. couldn't understand the hype with 1080...lol.

[@sjogosPT]

I had a 2400+ With SDRAM memory (That came from previous pentium 3 machine). Later i upgraded to Abit NFS7 -S with Athlon XP 2600+ with unlock multiplier from factory. It have a 266mhz FSB (133x2) and a 2000mhz stock. I overclocked it to 400mhz Bus and ajusted the multiplier. I rememer i could beat 3200+ speeds. Was an amazing machine. Motherboard died some years later, but i still have the CPU. I have some socket 462 mainboards, maybe sometime i rebuild my machine from back in the day. I have a Radeon X1950 Pro ready for that machine :). Back in those days, i had various GPUs in this rig, from FX5200 (came from my previous pentium 3 build) to radeon 9800 (i think?) and later a 7600GS. Today i could put a FX5900XT but this card is in my tualatin rig, then maybe i use the X1950 Pro to make a powerful early to mid XP era machine.2

[@jamessmith99731]

Fantastic. So much nostalgia!

[@Lolimaster]

Those times when you were the master race when running DDR-400 2.0-2-2-5 and running DDR-500 kits would give you instant VIP Status

[@2dfx]

BH-5 or bust, homie

[@RetroBerner]

Nice, I used that CPU in my first self built PC, before I figured out you could get the cheaper unlocked 2400 mobile variant and OC it. Good times.

[@philscomputerlab]

Yea back then overclocking was worth it, buy something cheap and OC it to match the top model. Gone are those days...

[@pauls4522]

Back in 2005. I remember finally getting a Socket A build. Yes this was well into the socket 939 era with Athlon 64... I went from a 500mhz pentium 3 to 1.75ghz Sempron 2500+. So not only was I on an obsolete socket, but a low-end ship of that socket. Regardless it was a massive upgrade over my Pentium 3 and that Sempron 2500+ still served me until college in fall of 2008. The system only costed 100$ for everything in the barebones build, except Hard Drive, Graphics Card and the system only came with 256mb of DDR pc2700 333mhz memory. I reused my 80gb maxtor hdd from a couple years prior, and had purchased a 256mb Radeon 9550. Most the games that I played such as Warcraft 3 and Diablo 2 technically ran fine on 256mb of ram, however i was heavily let down that world of warcraft ran worst than it did on my Pentium 3 system because that system had 768mb of pc133 sd ram. It was the only time I asked my mom to chip in because my dad was cheap and she gave me 50$ which bought me a stick of 512mb ddr 333mhz memory. With that upgrade I was able to play world of warcraft again, and allow me to enjoy what I had for those 3 years I ran that build. Other games include Doom 3 at Low-Medium Settings @ 30fps and 800x600, it allowed me to play warcraft 3 on custom maps that absolutely abused the engine with over 1000 units on the screen at once as well. unreal Tournament 2004 was maxed out as well, which was really nice.

[@dizzym9554]

With the exception of the Graphics Card, you just showed off the second computer I ever built. :P

[@philscomputerlab]

Nice, that must have been nice to have back in the day.

[@henryjon45able]

I know I'm late to the party but I still have a fully functional Athlon 3200 Barton system running with Corsair tach Ram and a BFG 6800 Ultra OC

[@prozzac85]

Had something similar back then, but I was a poor boy then so i got a 2500+ Barton and clocked it to 2.2 GHz myself. was really simple in the Nforce 2 400 board I had. just change the bus speed from 166 to 200. Didnt even have to turn up the voltage on the cpu :) Could'nt afford a good videocard so I got the Geforce 5700 LE Assmaster (TM) that got upgraded to a 7600 GS (less assy) when Oblivion came out. It could almost run it...

[@MJ-uk6lu]

Stefan Johansson Oh my, was Assmaster a brand for real? This is ridiculous, but I have seen Assman cables for sale.

[@prozzac85]

Mantas Jurksa Sadly no. But I once had some Rambo DDR memory, the package even had a stolen image of him on it :) And a friend bought cockram DDR memory about the same time. No fun image on the package sadly...

[@MJ-uk6lu]

Stefan Johansson Lmao wild early 2000s

[@prozzac85]

It was the best time :)

[@HardwareHackers]

Good recommendation on the PSU I had issues finding one with enough guts on the 5v rail to get mine running stable! will try and pick one up! always envied people with the 3200+, I used to run the 2500+ mobile socket A they were such a dark horse back in the day with their unlocked multiplier.

[@HeyImGaminOverHere]

Dang back in the day that would have been a beastly gaming machine. Still games REALLY well for the titles you played. The only thing I encountered with Athlon XP processors was slightly more stuttering and slightly shower load times than the Pentium 4 CPUs but I usually had better frame rate. Wonderful build Phil!