Toolbox PC (it is what it sounds like)

[Kyosho]

I considered posting this in the Afternoon Projects thread, since technically I did do this in one day. But it was afternoon, evening, and a little bit of night. Had difficulty installing Windows 7-64 without a DVD drive.

So yeah. It's a $10 toolbox from Walmart with a PC in it. Fancy.

 

[zaxxon]

good job on this, I also can't wait for skyrim, wish I had a gaming rig but ill play on ps3.

 

[XCVG]

Specs?

 

[Kyosho]

Crappy. It's the same system from my PGPC but with my video card and more RAM. It'll play Skyrim, I'm sure, just probably not at any decent detail. At best, medium. Though that's wishful thinking. Probably a combination of medium and low settings.

Intel T7300 Core 2 Duo 2Ghz (4MB L2 cache)
Geforce 250 GTS 1GB
8GB DDR3 1066

I'm going to experiment with overclocking the CPU a bit. I'd love to get it up to 3GHz. Not likely. If I had the money I would build a whole new computer (and wouldn't have cannibalized my PGPC) but as it is, this will have to do.

 

[Kyosho]

I was going to just edit my post but this got a bit longer than I thought an edit should contain.

Did some overlocking tests. Interesting. I remember trying to overclock this board back when I was building my PGPC and it just wouldn't work. I think it has to do with the fact that I'm not using the onboard video now. Because it also automatically turned off the shared memory that the onboard chip used.

I was able to get it up to 2.375Ghz (950 FSB) and it seemed stable. However, with OCCT the heat just kept climbing during the 10 minute test. It was the first time I've heard OCCT quack at me. Made me laugh. With some better cooling I bet it'd be okay. I could probably easily get it to 2.4 (960). Possibly even 2.5 (1000).

Now, I've got it at 2.25Ghz (900 FSB) and it seems alright. During the 10 minute test it peaked out and leveled off at about 79c. Which is a bit higher than I'd like, but is almost acceptable. The supposed max temp (before flax burns up, yo) is 100c. But I don't believe that. It's probably lower. Just like the supposed max FSB is 1066. No. It wouldn't even boot at that.

I'm going to run a longer test later. We'll see what happens.

 

[Mario]

Crappy.

Intel T7300 Core 2 Duo 2Ghz (4MB L2 cache)
Geforce 250 GTS 1GB
8GB DDR3 1066.

I wish that's what I considered crappy. That's better than any of my computers!

 

[wolborg]

I KNOW!!! I read that and was like CRAPPY?!?!

 

[Kyosho]

Trust me, if you're a hardcore PC gamer, that's the very lowest end of what would be considered a "gaming PC." The RAM is great. The CPU and video card? Below average.

I'm running this thing at 2.125 GHz for now. I ran a 30 minute OCCT test last night at 2.25Ghz and at around the 24 minute mark it got too hot. But at 2.125 it stays nice and cool around 65c no matter how long I run a test.

 

[Mario]

I'm not a "hardcore gamer", but I would trade that thing for one of my desktops in an instant. Sure beats my 2.8ghz, 1.5gb RAM, 256meg video card computer, and my 1.6ghz dual-core, 1gb RAM, 512mb video card computer.

 

[wolborg]

I have astock Compaq Presario CQ60 2GB RAM ,Intel Celeron 2.20GHs 2.19GHs 64-Bit so yeah I'll trade you

 

[ShockSlayer]

I wish that's what I considered crappy. That's better than any of my computers!

 

[XCVG]

I wouldn't consider that great, but I wouldn't consider it crappy either. My main PC is awesome, and so is my laptop, but I work with junk all the time. Everything at school is a writeoff and up until a few days ago the only spare PCs at my house were an old, slow NetBurst Celeron, a PIII, and a Core 2 Duo that didn't work anymore. I have since fixed the C2D one and made it into a server, and relegated the Celeron to a garage PC (mounted on a wall).

I'll trade you the crappy Celeron for your crappy toolbox PC

 

[Kyosho]

Skyrim specs are out! I was correct in my assessment of this PC. Falls in between minimum and recommended. Phew. That's a load off my mind.

Recommended Specs

* Windows 7/Vista/XP PC (32 or 64 bit)
* Processor: Quad-core Intel or AMD CPU
* 4GB System RAM
* 6GB free HDD space
* DirectX 9 compatible NVIDIA or AMD ATI video card with 1GB of RAM (Nvidia GeForce GTX 260 or higher; ATI Radeon 4890 or higher).
* DirectX compatible sound card
* Internet access for Steam activation

Minimum Specs

* Windows 7/Vista/XP PC (32 or 64 bit)
* Processor: Dual Core 2.0GHz or equivalent processor
* 2GB System RAM
* 6GB free HDD Space
* Direct X 9 compliant video card with 512 MB of RAM
* DirectX compatible sound card
* Internet access for Steam activation