Rage Against The eMachine: A Ryzen And Radeon Retro Revival

The late 90's and early 2000's were a special era for personal computing. We've seen PC prices fall drastically, we've switched from dial-up to broadband, and we've dabbled with Windows ME while waiting for XP to arrive. While some of us went the DIY route back then, many started with a pre-built rig purchased from a brick-and-mortar retailer.

One of the most notable brands during this era's race to the bottom was eMachines, founded in 1998 and later acquired by Gateway, which was then acquired by Acer. Back then, many "never outdated" eMachines systems were sold to budget-conscious users, and they helped introduce a generation of ATI Rage II and Rage Pro graphics. An integrated Rage LT Pro AGP graphics card was what I had in the first system I attempted to play on, with many hours spent playing Unreal Tournament (before that I was a console gamer and spent countless hours playing Gran to play tourism).

I went down the proverbial rabbit hole on a quest for retro PCs last year. It started with a Compaq Presario 5050 minitower that was physically similar to the PC I had when I first started searching hardware forums (Rage3D to be exact) for modded drivers. This endeavor actually introduced me to my best friend and set me on a career path in the technology industry. However, that one Compaq PC wasn't enough, and I began regularly checking OfferUp, Facebook Marketplace, and Craigslist for older systems.

In my search for retro computing goodness, I came across an eMachines T1090 for sale. It wasn't the beige "Never Obsolete" model that eMachines is notorious for, but a second-generation case design that was rounder and slimmer. The system was released in 2001 with Windows XP and featured a Celeron 900MHz, 128MB SDRAM and an Intel i810 chipset - a very low-end configuration that was already outdated by the time the system was released. However, cost was the primary driver in the segment in which these particular eMachines competed. At $474.99, or $399.99 after a $75 discount in the mail (remember that?), the system was extremely affordable. Adjusting for inflation, it would cost around $585 today, which could get you a decent budget machine these days.

I had no use for the included hardware, but I've been dying to assemble a sleeper machine ever since I was inspired by BSMOd's extremely well-made Juniper Networks retro mod. Those who know me can attest that I'm quite obsessive about small details that most people wouldn't care about, so it was never going to be a typical sleeper build.

Anger against the eMachine

I paid $40 for the system, took it home, and immediately began stripping it down to the bare metal. The eMachines chassis didn't have good airflow so I took a dremel like it was 2001, cut out a 120mm fan opening in the front, vented the bottom and added a 70mm fan on top. Corsair supplied an SF750 SFX power supply for the build, which is smaller and offers five times the wattage than the stock 150W unit.

Like most modern power supplies, the Corsair SF750 is painted black and would clash with the gray interior of the eMachines. That didn't work for me, so I disassembled it, sandblasted some parts, and hand sanded the others as best I could.

The rounded case design required a custom bezel for the optical drive. I could have stayed with the standard Samsung IDE CD-RW drive and ditched it, but where's the fun in that? I searched eBay for a specific Samsung Blu-ray drive that appeared to have similar bezel mounting points that was discontinued over five years ago and took the leap of faith. The eMachines bezel was a perfect replacement for the Samsung SATA Blu-ray drive. I cheated on the floppy drive though. The original plan was to use an LS120 internally with an IDE-to-USB adapter, but due to orientation problems with some motherboard connections, this plan was scrapped. A USB-C connector was placed in the floppy disk slot with clear JB Weld instead.

My hardware plans revolved around an AMD Ryzen processor and Radeon graphics because the AMD K6-2/III and ATI Rage LT Pro from the era of these machines hold a special place in my heart. Since it was a standard mATX case I figured it would be easy to slip a standard motherboard in without a headache, but boy was I wrong. Due to how small the case is inside and out, most mATX motherboards would have RAM slots that meet the floppy drive cage (which I had to notch anyway).

I've spent hours browsing motherboard manufacturers' sites for the right motherboard. Then, after getting ideas from a friend at AMD, he planted an idea in my head that led me down another rabbit hole: preserving the green PCB look of that era. I took that idea and went for it, researching modern components with green circuit boards and ending up with the core components. Coincidentally, ASRock Rack, ASRock's server and workstation brand, produces a mATX X470 green circuit board motherboard, the X470D4U. A newer X570-based board is coming later this year, but my impatience got the better of me. The downside to using a server board is its spartan nature — there are only two USB 3.0 ports, a single USB 3.0 header, and no onboard audio.

I solved the lack of USB 3.0 ports with a Sabrent internal USB 3.0 hub, which also happened to have a green circuit board, and an expansion slot USB 3.0 port bracket. The adapter offers three internal USB 3.0 headers and two USB 2.0 ports. There is a SATA power connector, but mine broke due to some voltage on the connector. Sorry, no new inventory of the Sabrent Internal USB 3.0 Hub is available.

I chose an AMD Ryzen 7 3800X processor with a cTDP setting of 65 watts, paired with a Noctua NH-L9a AM4 low-profile cooler and Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut thermal paste. Kingston ValueRAM still uses a green PCB, which is perfect for this build. The system originally came with 128MB of SDRAM, so maxing it out at 128GB seemed like the right thing to do. Finding a green PCB SSD has been difficult, but fortunately Plextor, once known for its CD burners and now owned by Lite-On, produces a full line of green PCB SSDs - a 1TB M8Se NVME SSD went into this build.

An AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT is my graphics card of choice because of its 7nm Navi architecture and blower heatsink design. I couldn't find a modern graphics card with a green PCB, but graphics cards of that era came in a variety of colors including orange, blue, red, and black. I went with a fan design so the heat goes straight to the back as I wasn't expecting the eMachines case to have much airflow.

Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live cards were a staple of most DIY systems of the era, so it's a no-brainer for this build. I was impressed with the Sound BlasterX AE-5 I reviewed three years ago and still had it on a shelf so it was perfect. The downside is that the Sound Blaster AE-5 doesn't have a green PCB, but neither does the Sound Blaster Live, so the spirit of the era is still alive.

By: Rage Against The eMachine: A Ryzen And Radeon Retro Revival