As you already know i fed up using modern Ryzen/Radeon hardware and decided to go a bit retro.

Cheap Chinese clone mobos and second-hand high-performance cpu’s of previous generations induced me to rebuild my workstation and also fool around with Opteron-based server.

UPDATED ON: 2022-08-13 ▒ PREFACE WORDS As you remember, my previous daily driver was Ryzen 9590x 16c/32t. After some fun with it I’ve decided to drop it in favor to retro stuff. Intel Xeon CPU based around Broadwell chip: E5-2696v4 22c/44t became the chip of the choice. It is OEM version of top of the line E5-2699v4 . It is a bit slower, around marginal 3-4%, but costs significantly less than 2699v4.

Not long ago already reviewed in the past Firefox forks Icecat and Iceweasel for some reason went into 404 void. So, i was forced to find an alternative way and stumbled upon Chinese builds of Iceweasel . Just want to digest this historical fact as a blog post. Imagery by spacedrone808

Just to let you know. BENCHMARK YOUR HARDWARE CPU COMPARISON GPU COMPARISON Imagery by spacedrone808

GeForce 1650Ti is the fastest passively cooled GPU avaialable on market. It was made by Palit company and carries KalmX branding. Recently, i finished my Blender investigations and that is why i don’t need Radeon 6900xt power anymore. So, i decided to switch to something without fan with decent performance. KalmX design solely relies on massive radiator. Despite the fact that device doesn’t have any fans it provides pretty good performance.

Non-prepaid vintage hardware reviewer based in UK. Streaming not only about retro tech, but adds some life experience touch. Likes freedom speech and don’t contact much with corrupted government “authorities”. YT STREAM PERSONAL FORUM HT610 SITE Imagery by spacedrone808

Some time ago i told you about awesome Vortex Race III keyboard. During the last month of my workflows i’ve noticed that desperately feel the lack of numpad and other extended keys, which are common for full sized keyboards. After not so long thinking i’ve decided to switch keyboard. Yesterday i’ve received full-sized, but still compact Vortex TAB90M keyboard, based around the same Cherry Blue MX switches. Build quality is rock solid.

Like leaksters say Radeon 6950XT refresh will bring new 18Gbbs memory sub-system and 8-10% to performance . I’ve decided not to involve myself into GPU race and stick with plain 6900XT. It is a performance banger under Windows 7 environment. Imagery by spacedrone808

Back in the 2017 Amd broke intel’s rule of low core count CPUs and now they are delivering large enterprise-level cache to consumer products.

Some already confirmed facts about 5800x3D:

▒ FPU OPERATIONS COMPARISON Tested with the latest version of AIDA64 v6.60 / Windows 7 x64 ESU. FPU JULIA FPU SINJULIA FPU MANDEL QUEEN Z-LIB RAY TRACE 32 RAY TRACE 64 AES SHA 3 As you can see blue cpu’s eat dust in terms of FPU performance, but it is worth to note that memory wise we have backwards situation, thanks to shiny new DDR5 memory subsystem, which blue team is already exploiting.

Previously i already wrote about Chinese audio manufacturers and their quality products. Till today i used quad driver FiiO FA7 earphones powered by my trusty cameraphone Nokia PureView 808 . After some not so long considerations i’ve decided to try out something new with bigger puch and almost randomy selected Shanling M6 DAP paired with FiiO FA9 6-driver IEMs. I know that using Nokia 808 was quite limiting factor for quad driver earphones like FiiO FA7.

If you are interested in vintage computers like Amiga, Commodore, Atari and would like to learn classic technical English i advice you Dan Wood unambiguously. WINDOWS XP IN 2021 ▀ 20 YEARS LATER Imagery by spacedrone808

Just would like to showcase piece of brilliant mechanical keyboard of the past. Chyrosran22 one of the coolest YT mechanical keyboards reviewers counts it as the best mechanical keyboard experience ever . Imagery by spacedrone808

I bet some of you are already tired of ugly g monopoly with their telemetric data mining platform os-called operating system. As for me, i fixed myself on Android 8.0, last operating system without support of neural networks. These nets help to fingerprint your personal data and send it to marketing companies later on. I’m pretty sure that people in sane condition will not like such behaviour at all. Pinephone is based around Linux and not android, it doesn’t track or profile you.

¶ PREFACE NOTE Finally i have won the battle with my laziness and forced myself to complete this so looooooooongish project. Enjoy! PS: 3DMark 03, 3DMark 05, 3DMark 06, 3DMark Vantage [2007], 3DMark 2011 and 3DMark 2021 are not marked by ▒ sign, showing the fact that these programs lost the soul of demoscene and just providing comparison numbers, nothing else. █ COMPUTER CONFIGURATIONS CPUs: Threadripper 1 1950X / Ryzen 9 5950X / Ryzen 3 3100 GPUs: Radeon VII 16Gb / Radeon 6900XT 16Gb GFX SETTINGS: 2560x1600 32Bit color [where possible], ULTRA+ settings, Anti-aliasing is turned OFF COMPUTER TESTBEDS: [1] ► Threadripper 1950X / Asrock Taichi X399M / 64Gb DDR4 2667@2800Mhz / Radeon VII 16Gb [2] ► Threadripper 1950X / Asrock Taichi X399M / 64Gb DDR4 2667@2800Mhz / Radeon 6900XT 16Gb [3] ► Ryzen 3 3100 @3.

Finally, I’ve managed to finish my retro DOS/Windows 98 build machine based on powerul Athlon. By finish i mean assemble parts on the table without any case. Why no case? Answer is simple: i’m lazy. And it is more convenient to me to keep it as open testbed for weirdo experiments of my own. Collecting items took almost four months to accomplish this project. Puter consists of multitude parts, which were acquired around the globe.

A small note on how to make things rollin'. Default configuration of Keenetic Ultra makes XZ1 Compact to stuck in a loop during authorization process. If you can’t pair your XZ1 to 5Ghz WiFi network just switch router network to channel: 56 And you are good to go. Yeah, simple as that. See you around! Imagery by spacedrone808

Previous owner of my main laptop installed the most modern intel WiFi chip, AX200 to be precise. Unfortunately, chip does not have drivers for beloved Windows 7. Yeah intel dropped support in 2019. So, i have to downgrade wireless card. Found on eBay compatible Dell WiFi 1820 : the last one to support Windows 7 operating system. I always loved Dell’s Precision series for super easy installation of hardware upgrades.

Simple repost of an excellent YT review on my current trusty websurfer ► Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact smartphone. Imagery by spacedrone808

In one of the first posts I’ve promised to do a quick overview of this awesome laptop. So here it is! FRONT VIEW I/O SYSTEM KEYBOARD UPCLOSE SIDE PORTS CLOSED LID COMPAQ LOGO I like the overall aesthetics and design of the casing. Computer easily handles any DOS software. Keyboard is nice too, like tactile feel of it. My copy has a wobbly keyboard on the left side, but this due to it’s age of course.

CURRENTLY TEST IS NOT OPTIMIZED FOR MOBILE VIEW! ▒ DIRECT COMPARISON In the very beginning of the test I underline the fact that we are comparing only resolution and not the dynamic range. In this category older FSI sensor is an outsider, for sure. Today’s rival is Samsung S22 Ultra with 1/1.33" sensor. A lil’ smaller than mighty Nokia 808, which comes with 1/1.2". Now let’s see how Nokia will hold up in such situation.

UPDATED ON: 2022-02-18 CURRENTLY TEST IS NOT OPTIMIZED FOR MOBILE VIEW! ▒ DIRECT COMPARISON In the very beginning of the test I underline the fact that we are comparing only resolution and not the dynamic range. In this category older FSI sensor is an outsider, for sure. Today’s rival is IPHUCK 13 PRO HYPER MAX with unknown sensor, even GSMarena don’t know actual size of it [after some research i find out that it is somewhere around 1/1.

▓ DESCRIPTION OF NFT SET Some boomboxness at yer face! Exploring opportunity for another NFT project. INSPIRED BY: MATSUKI MS-959 NUMBER OF ITEMS: 5 USED TOOLS: Affinity Designer, Affinity Photo, XnView, Wacom PROPOSED PRICE: 1 ETH NFT buyer will get high resolution true color jpg files [width: 4800px] and original vector dummy. Pack will be available for exclusive purchase till 8 August of 2022. If you are interested in purchasing set as NFT please drop me a line :

EXPLORING OPPORTUNITIES IN SELLING DIGITAL ART OF MY OWN. Topic: vintage gadgets of the past. Tools: Affinity Designer, Affinity Photo, XnView, Wacom. Low quality 64-color png versions could be observed below. NFT buyer will get high resolution true color jpgs [width: 4800px] or even vector files. GHETTO BLASTER [IN WORKS] If you are interested in purchasing art as NFT please contact me : Imagery by spacedrone808