Welcome to my ideas page. I have thoughts for some machines that I have or would like to build. Not all of these systems are Dual CPU rigs. Yes, I do keep single CPU computers around to play games and use as work stations (read: more games). Some of the computers listed are just pipe dreams, others I have built and running, but want to moddify further.
Retro Gaming Box. This computer will run older video games, hardware and software. Having a CPU no newer than a Pentium 4, it will run on a slot 1 motherboard or Super socket 7. Video will be powered buy the ATI Rage Fury Maxx and a pair of Voodoo 2 12Mb PCI cards in SLI mode. Try to work in the old diamond Monster sound card. It will need a base sound card to run off of. A 56k modem or 10/100 NIC could round out the slots. Windows 98SE is the only real choice for the OS here. The Gravis game pad could be used if a console emulator is added. Ram may have to be limited to 512Mb, check support on the motherboard. The motherboard and final CPU choice will be made latter. Optical drives could include a DVD-ROM just to play movies. The chassis could be any beige box
Lubic® Airplane. I would like to find an ATX motherboard with onboard everything. The power supply is limited to 20 pin ATX. To finish the Airplane, I need two tail wings made of sheet plastic and big radial heatsink for the nose. Any add-in cards need to be kept to a minimum, as they will suck to try to secure. This project is lacking focus. The “case” for this system is very alternative, almost obnoxious. A fittingly odd use should be thought of. A Windows media center PC would waste the legit copy of that OS I have. Running Linux as a media center and or PVR may get complicated and need add-in cards to complete correctly. Hmm think of something for it. Spy plane. What model plane is the Lubic, and what was that plane in real life. If it was reconnaissance put in a web cam.
Rambuss and Hyperthreading. Intel’s last Rambuss chipset does support Hyperthreading. Use either a pair of Foster MP Cores or Prestonia cores in this system. Otherwise see the website for more information on this one. If the Tyan board is found, did Tyan also have a chassis for it? Most of those 860 motherboards had an 8 pin aux connector. A pre-built system could be stripped.
Super Socket 8 Dually. Rebuild the PR440FX Dual Intel Pentium 2 Overdrive machine. Include as much new and current technology in this one a possible. ATA100 IDE, SATA 2 or SCSI PCI cards and hard drives, a Gigabit NIC or wireless, USB 2.0, Firewire, and whatever was the fastest PCI video card. Does it really need a better sound card? YES! The OS can be whatever supports all that shit.
Yellow. Rebuild the mobile LAN machine. The Asus P5WDG2-WS motherboard is black, supports 533, 800 & 1066 FSB, DDR2 800 LGA775 65nm and ATI Crossfire 2 PCI-X Slots optional Wi-Fi, Cool. Paint the inside with UV paint and ad UV cold cathode lights. Paint the outside with black flames. Need a 775 Heat fan combo with an 80mm fan to put the orange UV fan and light back on. Yellow should be an Intel and ATI box, the first PCIe card should be able to run crossfire as the lead card or as the secondary card in the setup. DDR2 is also required. Already have the 775 P4 520 and could upgrade to a dual core later. What ever motherboard is installed, Core 2 support should be there.
Sledgehammer. Pick up a pair of AMD Opterons from eBay. Drop them into an Asus KN8-DL, a Tyan S2877ANRF or what ever.
Troy. Perhaps drop a pair of these into the Iwill Zmax-DP SFF barebones kit available at Geeks.com for $200. It would be cooler than Sledgehammers in a SFF. Looks like it will support dual core CPUs as well!
Xeon 800FSB on an 875 Chipset. Use an Asus NCCH-DL. It provides AGPpro 50, PCI-X. It requires 24 +8 pin Power supply. Any socket 604 Xeon can be dropped in. Prestonia, Nocona or Irwindale would all work. Drop in what ever you get a pair of first.
L440GX Katmia. Put this into the second Astor chassis. Use the one P3 600MHz 100FSB. Add a second CPU to match.
Silver Surfer. Convert the system to 1.0GHz Thunderbirds.
Compaq DL570. This is an example of a Casscades MP Quad system. It’s hard to match the Different CPU voltages on different motherboards and systems. I have seen these go cheap on eBay and on some of the sites I have bookmarked (last one was a single CPU IBM refurbished for 160, with free shipping.
Via VT-310DP has been discontinued. They can still be had online. Hit up at Caseoutlet.com for $330 in a barebones kit assembled with the Dual PCI rise and a CF to IDE adapter is like $530 and $590 with a slim CD-ROM drive installed. Uses could be a PRV type set-top box (would Media Center run on it?) or as a firewall appliance. Linux seems to be the OS for it in either case.
Cluster. I really would like to try to build a 4 node cluster. There are a few different configurations to start with. A highly available web server with fail node failover for Lisa. Windows cluster options could be fun with a shared SCSI quorum drive. I do have two legitimate 2K3 keys, perhaps cluster can be added. A small cluster of Linux boxes would give me Linux experience, and be mostly free for the software. I could rebuild the Sony desktop cases into a cluster. Two matching cases would look cool with Lisa’s Sony monitor. There are those two Win2k advanced trials I could run, also the beta copy of windows cluster.
Sossaman. Intel calls these socket 479 dual core Dothan based CPUs Xeon LV. Looks like they have finally been stocked by some places. Only 3 motherboards have been found for them. I prefer the Tyan Tiger i7520sd S5365G3NR model as it has more slots and can boot from the onboard CF connector and is a regular ATX form factor. The Xeons here don’t need to be really fast. The chance that this board would also run an Intel socket 479 mobile CPU is interesting. Could they run Dual also? Try dual 479 Celerons it supports a 533 FSB! Newegg has listings for very cheap 4U rack mount cases.
Dempsey & Woodcrest. These things are cheap as hell! Find a cheap board once they have been around for a bit, but before the Dempsey core CPUs are discoed.