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 Back then, many "never outdated" eMachines systems were sold to budget-conscious users, and they helped introduce a generation of ATI Rage II and Rage Pro graphics.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 hol...