I've Never Seen a Custom PC Build Quite Like This Before...
### Article: A Unique and Functional Retro PC Build: A Journey Through Old Hardware
#### Introduction
Hello everyone and welcome to another video. Now, about a month ago, I placed a bid on this 55-pound PC that looks like nothing I've ever bought before. At this price point, I thought it would make a nice desktop showpiece if nothing else. It's sort of a celebration of old hardware, but it is functional and I couldn't help but wonder what it could actually do. First, though, let's take a look around this thing.
#### The Build: A Glimpse into the Past
The first thing to note is the sleeved custom cables with the theme even extending to the CPU and GPU fan cables as well. The blue and green goes well with the motherboard itself, and this sort of care is usually reserved for more expensive builds. It's clear that whoever put this together also has a passion for older hardware.
The graphics card has its own compartment down the bottom here. Because the motherboard has no PCIe x16 connector, it's been hooked up to the PCIe x1 slot with an adapter. Now, this does make me wonder how performance will be affected, but because the card is an AMD HD 7470, I don't think we'll be missing out on too much frame rate-wise.
Atop this Pegatron ITX board and underneath the aftermarket cooler is a Core 2 Duo E6750. Back in 2007, this dual-core 2.66 GHz processor was actually very capable, often outperforming quad-core chips, but only because most games didn't utilize four cores back then.
For storage, we've got a 128-gigabyte SSD, an unusual but welcome sight with a build of this age or a build that uses aged components. I should say adding an SSD to an old system can really help out by making even the most basic of tasks run a lot smoother.
Before we get to the actual functional RAM, I want to point out this carrying handle on the back made from a stick of DDR3. This is a nice touch and you'll be pleased to know it actually works for the system round. We've got four gigs of OCZ Platinum DDR3 clocked at 1333 MHz, pretty good stuff.
To finalize on the specs, we have these custom power and reset buttons in keeping with the blue and green theme of course—the blue is power and the green is reset. Speaking of power, all of our components are powered by a 300-watt small form factor PSU tucked around the back of the build and held on by what I assume is or was hot glue.
So, a setup like this isn't for everyone. I can appreciate it as a sort of nice desktop showpiece but it is working, and after installing Windows 10, I couldn't resist putting it to the test.
#### Gaming Performance: Challenges and Surprises
As it is, gaming is going to be a challenge. The HD 7470 is an OEM card that uses one gigabyte of DDR3 memory and offers very little in the way of performance. There's also the matter of that PCIe adapter but we'll be investigating the impact of that in another video with a more powerful card.
Forgive the lack of overlay here—the FPS on screen was inaccurate compared to the actual figures, so I decided to leave it off but I have recorded the performance figures as per usual which are at the top of the screen. Call of Duty: Black Ops will average just under 30 FPS but the percentile figures indicate some serious stutter, which you may be able to pick up in the gameplay on screen.
GTA will fare even worse, averaging around 25 FPS with low percentile numbers, and while some sparsely populated locations in Liberty City will mean that this system does sometimes perform with at least 30 frames per second, it's not really that enjoyable for the most part. Skyrim, the original 2011 release, actually did alright—39 FPS was the average at low settings once again with the usual 720p resolution. It's not perfect but it is playable and again just like in GTA 4, the game will run way better in more open and less populated parts of the map.
2013's Tomb Raider will also average above 30 but just again there were some big drops.
#### Upgrading on a Shoestring Budget
So how can we improve this PC and better yet, how can we improve it on a shoestring budget? Well, thankfully, this board supports DDR3 which is plentiful on the used market and Core 2 quads. So I decided to swap out the dual-core for the Q8300 here and switch the RAM out for 8 gigs. Will these small changes improve things?
Well here is a little table that compares all of the results before and after our Core 2 Quad and RAM swap. As you can see, the averages don't really change but our 1.1 lows have increased so gameplay performance across the board is more stable. It's clear then that the issue is now the 7470—this one-gig OEM GPU isn't up to much and even struggles to keep up when it comes to these older games.
First of all, I dug out a GT740 from under the bed in hopes of making it fit but even when removing the piece of wood that acts as a GPU bracket, there was a clearance problem with the motherboard but only just—the card just wouldn't quite fit here unless I removed the adapter from its base. I therefore decided on something smaller and something that can still be found for a lot cheaper—an HD 5570.
This small form factor card still has a standard size bracket attached, but with a little bit of quality and innovative engineering, I was able to make it fit. I will replace this full height bracket with a smaller one when I find one just for aesthetic sake.
So is this 5570 actually an upgrade over the 7470? Well, thankfully my older games collection is running far smoother than beforehand with at least 10 to 15 FPS extra gained in all of our test instances. The 1.1 lows have also been improved across the board—the graphics card is still the limiting factor but each of our games really benefit from this cheap upgrade.
Now, I probably have no intention of using this very often; it'll just decorate my desk but it could also prove useful as a GeForce Now cloud gaming PC where thanks to the power of Nvidia's own high spec computer, this thing will be able to stream modern titles like Cyberpunk 2077 smoothly.
#### Conclusion
So there we go—possibly the most unique cheap PC I've ever bought. I'm glad to see that quite a bit of work went into glamorizing this old tech even though it's best suited purpose in 2021 is either retro gaming or a decorative one or even cloud gaming which I'm sure will only increase in popularity if newer hardware continues to become harder to find and more expensive. But there we go.
Thank you very much for watching this video—I've had this PC for a while and not really been sure what to do with it so I thought I'd just talk about it and see what it could do. Hopefully, you've enjoyed it. If you did, leave a like on it down below; leave a dislike if you didn't. Subscribe to the channel if you haven't done so already and hopefully, I'll see all of you in the next one.
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