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    Modded Atari 2600 runs at 22,000 times the processing power of the original

    By | Today in Tech – Fri, Sep 14, 2012

    Call it a glorified case mod, but this retrofitted console packs a punch

    If you're old enough — sorry, classic enough — to remember the original Atari 2600 from the early '80s, you'll know that processor speed, hard drive capacity, and RAM chips were not really even a thing to be worried about. Your only concern was getting that white block on the right side of the screen over to the left side before your friend. But here we are 30 years later and gaming systems have changed quite a bit.

    Hard Drives Northwest has built a limited number of impressively retro machines that do a wonderful job of keeping that original Atari 2600 look, but still pack quite a punch when it comes to computing power. With the exception of the cooling fans peeking out from the cartridge slot and an LED power light, the average consumer might not even see the difference — until you plug it in.

    If you want to talk numbers, Atari's original MOS 6507 Processor crawled along at 1.19 MHz on one thread. This updated version runs on an Intel Core i7 2600S Processor at 3.4 GHz on eight threads. That's an increase of 22,857 times the processing power of the original! This glorified case mod also boasts 8GB of RAM, a 120GB SATA hard drive, and a 1GB 128-bit Radeon HD 6570 graphics card. All of this is miraculously powered by a mere 192W power supply.

    If you'd like to try to get your hands on one of these, you can follow freddiew2 on his YouTube channel for more details.

    This article was written by Shawn Schuster and originally appeared on Tecca

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