Retro build - What GPU's should I go with?

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davis.anthony

Veteran
In my infinite boredom I've decided to build a retro Windows Vista gaming PC (No hate, Vista is better than you remember)

So I have a Gigabyte x58-UD5 with an i7 920 and 12Gb of RAM.

My options for the GPU's are:

  • 3x HD4890s for some Tri-Fire action
  • 3x GTX275s for some Tri-SLI action
  • 2x GTX460s for some SLI action (The 460s didn't support more than 2-way SLI)

I know the GTX460's are DX11 so I could always dual boot Windows Vista and Windows 7.

There are more expensive options I could look at, like GTX295's in Quad-SLI or some HD5000 series GPU's.

What would you go for?
 
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I for one will raise issue with calling Vista machine retro. Voodoo-era might be retro by now, but Vista?!
To that point, you should for sure go for V5 5500 (or 6000 if you can get hold of working one) + highend P3, Athlon or Northwood P4 or something along those lines. Get some Voodoo loving, it Glides ;)
 
Kaotik said:
I for one will raise issue with calling Vista machine retro. Voodoo-era might be retro by now, but Vista?!
To that point, you should for sure go for V5 5500 (or 6000 if you can get hold of working one) + highend P3, Athlon or Northwood P4 or something along those lines. Get some Voodoo loving, it Glides ;)
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By the definition of retro, Vista is retro.

I have no interest in building something that old as parts are a pain to fine, unreliable or cost a fortune.
 
GTX 470s can be had for like $30 bucks or less on Ebay so me I might just go hog wild on triple SLI GF100 for dubious bragging rights but all of em sound fun.
 
davis.anthony said:
I'm going to put it in here I think, tempered glass all around to show it off :cool:

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This would be more authentic to the times -

3687-1-1.jpg
 
arandomguy said:
This would be more authentic to the times -

3687-1-1.jpg
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I had the 900 back in the day but impossible to find now in the condition that I would one in.

There are loads of period correct cases that I would love to finding them in a good enough condition, at a decent price is impossible.
 
Same graphics memory yes, but as for mfg. there are some drivers, based on Creative Labs ones IIRC, that allow cross-vendor. Those drivers were a selling point for Creative Labs Voodoo2, but quickly were removed from official download sites once other vendors complained to 3Dfx about it.
 
I dont see the point in going with vista, what does it give you other than losing the ability to use hardware accelerated audio ?
 
Davros said:
I dont see the point in going with vista, what does it give you other than losing the ability to use hardware accelerated audio ?
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For one, much improved Crossfire performance over XP, which probably far outweighs the minor number of CPU cycles needed to manage audio streams. As a child of the very late 70's who had an ISA 8-bit SB Pro on a 386SX16, ISA 16-bit SB AWE64 on a 486DX33 up to a AM486DX3/120, and then one of the earlier PCI SB XFi cards on my Pentium 233MMX rig and later a Celeron 2/333 overclocked to 504, , the whole "hardware accelerated sound" thing never really seemed like it did much other than add reverb and echo and some questionable EQ choices. I ended up moving to the Envy24 chipset on my later P4 1.8A to 2.7GHz rig because I felt the audio quality ended up being equal or better for a drastically smaller price tag.

Back to the OP, I feel like the Tri-fire 4800-series would be really fun. Around that same era, I had a pair of 3870's which then transitioned to a pair of 4850's, only to eventually succumb to a single 5850 when newer games started getting less and less out of SLI / Crossfire setups. I will always have a soft spot for how much I felt like I got from the pair of 4850's.
 
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