Since XP is seems to be your most significant bottleneck, I'd go with an XP rig.
For 9x I personally like to use my Tualatin 1400 rig and for anything faster (or for Windows XP) I prefer to use something like you already hinted at, A64 with a good AGP card or something slightly faster as anything faster than that is good with Win7.

It's partially a matter of personal preference, so expect various different recommendations on this 😜
I'd use A64 or even Northwood/AthlonXP as I don't have anything s775 and I have all the other parts at hand anyway (so it's cheaper for me that way).

My thought is along the lines of Scenario 3 - either a Core 2 Duo or a Phenom II (Socket AM2+/AM3). I'd forego the Win98 part - your Tualatin rig does a good job for that - and just focus on XP. I assume you have a Win7/8/10 rig (the main box you mention, ya?) to handle anything that would make a Phenom II/C2D cry.

Now, between the Tualatin box and a Super 7 rig, that's a good question.

What I'm setting up - it's all still in the works - is similar to what you've got there but less elaborate, and I'm going with a 5x86/133 box, a K6-III+ and a Socket AM3 machine (Phenom II 975), and even then, I think I want a Pentium III or Athlon in there for late Win98 games. But the point you make about most games that won't max out on the K6 running well on XP is well taken. The P3 rig might not even be needed at all, but on the other hand, that's a really nice box, why not?

But, on the gripping hand, a K6 is much easier to tweak into being as slow as you might need, while the 486 can handle things that fall off the pokey end of things, at least until you get down into XT-era stuff. (Which is poorly handled by anything other than real 286-class hardware. Or, weirdly, emulation - maybe I'm just odd, but a lot of those very old games feel right enough to me in emulation, while later, 386/486-era games like Wing Commander 2, don't.)

jade_angel wrote:

My thought is along the lines of Scenario 3 - either a Core 2 Duo or a Phenom II (Socket AM2+/AM3). I'd forego the Win98 part - your Tualatin rig does a good job for that - and just focus on XP. I assume you have a Win7/8/10 rig (the main box you mention, ya?) to handle anything that would make a Phenom II/C2D cry.

The thing is having the Voodoo5 in there I just need a dual boot, but yes, most of the time it wouldn't be used as the K6-III machine will cover most Win98 usage. Highres DOS games will need to be played on this machine though, so need to have two soundcards. Vortex2 for A3D, Win98 and good compatibility in DOS, and the Audigy2 ZX for Windows XP (EAX).

jade_angel wrote:

What I'm setting up - it's all still in the works - is similar to what you've got there but less elaborate, and I'm going with a 5x86/133 box, a K6-III+ and a Socket AM3 machine (Phenom II 975), and even then, I think I want a Pentium III or Athlon in there for late Win98 games. But the point you make about most games that won't max out on the K6 running well on XP is well taken. The P3 rig might not even be needed at all, but on the other hand, that's a really nice box, why not?

You're doing something similar 😀 Unfortunately I value my test bench spot in the system, so can't just keep the Pentium III around, or else it would have stayed.

jade_angel wrote:

But, on the gripping hand, a K6 is much easier to tweak into being as slow as you might need, while the 486 can handle things that fall off the pokey end of things, at least until you get down into XT-era stuff. (Which is poorly handled by anything other than real 286-class hardware. Or, weirdly, emulation - maybe I'm just odd, but a lot of those very old games feel right enough to me in emulation, while later, 386/486-era games like Wing Commander 2, don't.)

My thoughts exactly. Emulation is always an option, but only for console, arcade and XT 😉

There will always be the following in reach, as long as I can help it:
- Socket 3 system, normally with a Cx5x86. 33 to 100MHz.
- Super Socket 7 system, normally with a K6-III+. 60MHz (Cyrix) to 500MHz (K6).
- Slot 1 system which can switch to Socket 370(T) with an adapter. 100MHz to 1400 MHz.
- Windows XP system, Ivy Bridge based, With a Radeon 6xxx card.**
The first three are more of a hardware interest then a gaming one. They can run many different processors.

As for games, and more to the point:
The socket 3 is the least versatile for games and Socket 7 and Slot 1 together can emulate its speeds. Between SS7 and Slot 1, I can imagine it both ways. One could use either one to get a long way in anything DOS game related. I suppose the recent VIA C3 Ezra-T observations made Slot 1 the winner. But then you have to swap it out for another CPU to get hires games up to speed. SS7 seems unable to go below 9..10 SpeedSys points, unless one uses 'Throttle'.
You seem to have done quite a few tests with the slowdown possibilities of Socket 3 and Socket 4, and mostly different from mine, which is a good thing.
Like you said, If high end AGP cards are a thing then that would indeed require something in between the Slot 1 and XP one... I don't know too much about that.

(** - With the right driver version. Or maybe there is an nvidia card that is equally backward compatible, I haven't tried it. dgVoodoo seems quite succesful too lately, so that is another option )

A full highend Win98 build would allow you to run Glide titles at high performance under emulation. You could also dual boot it to Win2k or XP by partition cloaking, drive swapping, or having the master/slave jumpers toggled by an external switch.

Your setup is much more elaborate then mine, and my requirements in anything related to music/sound/MIDI is quite basic to say the least, but there are similarities between what I have and what you have/require, so maybe describing what I have and why I have it might help you.

I also use a four way KVM and double monitor setup, but one of the four PC's connected is actually my main rig (A C2Q with Windows 7, for anything modern that I need daily.

The other 3 PC's are:
1. Pentium MMX 233 with Voodoo 3 PCI, SB16 and NCR MIDI DB: Multiboot (MS-DOS 6.22+Windows 3.11, Windows 95, Windows 98) but mostly used for DOS games and fiddling with Windows 3.x applications for nostalgia.

2. Pentium IIIs 1400 with Geforce2 Ultra, Voodoo2 SLI, and SB64 Gold: Multiboot (MS-DOS 6.22+Windows 3.11, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows 2000) but mostly used for Windows 9x games up to and including 2001. Other OSs is there for the reasons something between "just in case" and "just for the heck of it". 🤣

3. AMD Athlon Opteron 180 with Geforce GTS250 and SB Audigy 2 ZS: Dedicated Windows XP machine for any games came after 2001 and up to and including games like Crysis and Far Cry 2. It also serves the important purpose of being a backup daily rig. It was a multiboot machine in the recent past, with Fedora and Mint as well as XP, and I might be reconfiguring it like that in the near future.

I also had an 386 class machine as part of the setup in the past. To tell you the truth, I'm not interested in things like very old games, and the excitement of having your first PC ever on your desktop again wears quick, so it became a dust collector in time, so I packed it away. My Pentium MMX is covering all my DOS needs, and does it certainly better. Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Doom II, X-Wing, TIE Fighter, Duke Nukem 3D, Bioforge etc. are the ones that I want to play, not the older games.

You don't need a SS7 system. Just two builds would suffice:

1) Your S775 build with an unlocked C2D that can downclock to 600MHz and smoothly scale to a fast, dual core 3+GHz system. And the video and sound cards of your choice.

2) A VIA C3 Ezra-T system that can *smoothly* scale from a slow 386 to a fast Pentium II. And your video and sound cards of choice.

I know nGlide and dgVoodoo could solve many issues, but that for me is the same as using DosBox. I'd want to stay away from emulation except for XT/286 stuff.

As j^aws suggest, those two builds would work, but I don't have the hardware for it and I can easily have three builds in my setup:) I have no experience with VIA C3 systems, and finding an LGA775 board with Core2 and Win98 support which also supports the unlocked X6800 is hard. I do own the X6800, but my LGA775 board Asrock 775Dual-VSTA do not allow multiplier changes. It's also the problem to find a video/sound card that covers all the periods well.

I think I'm going to do some benchmark and testing with the different options to see what plays the best. I'd also prefer the least mucking around. That is why I don't want to use experimental drivers/setups like 7x00 series videocard.

This is why I gave up on the idea of building just three or four systems to get and resorted to building a small fleet of systems that are closer to the period for dos and 9x vs using pentium 4s ect though it hogs a Lot more space and is expensive. I rather like period correct 9x builds or close to it as they are just easier and they work. Some people have gotten 98 to work with pci-e but with all the custom patches out there I do wish that people considered such a patch so that it was easier instead of being limited to agp.

vetz wrote:

I know nGlide and dgVoodoo could solve many issues, but that for me is the same as using DosBox. I'd want to stay away from emulation except for XT/286 stuff.

You can start with that then, if you like, you can upgrade to a set of Voodoo 2 SLI cards.

For a universal Win98/XP machine, I think it's important to have strong capabilities for OpenGL and Direct3D (8 or 9). Installing a Voodoo 3 already limits you on this.

I've been down that route with multiple PCs.

As you know I just ended up building whatever I wanted when I needed it 😀

If you have lots of storage devices, keep them with the parts and put them away. That way you will be up and running in a few minutes. I only have one permanent retro PC, my Pentium 100 Time Machine with AWE64 Gold and Roland MIDI bliss 🤣

vetz wrote:

I do own the X6800, but my LGA775 board Asrock 775Dual-VSTA do not allow multiplier changes. It's also the problem to find a video/sound card that covers all the periods well.

Speaking from experience, I used x13 multi no problem with x11 as standard for C2E X6800 - LINK

Try switching off C1E support and/or SpeedStep in CPU Configuration.

agent_x007 wrote:

vetz wrote:

I do own the X6800, but my LGA775 board Asrock 775Dual-VSTA do not allow multiplier changes. It's also the problem to find a video/sound card that covers all the periods well.

Speaking from experience, I used x13 multi no problem with x11 as standard for C2E X6800 - LINK

Try switching off C1E support and/or SpeedStep in CPU Configuration.

I was under the impression that you only had the 4CoreDual board. Thanks for the tip, I'll try it out!

I'm going to start with testing out how it'll work with a multiple GPU setup. The Voodoo5 5500 PCI for Windows 98 (VGA) and a much quicker PCI-Express card for Windows XP (DVI). The downside is that if the game won't run well in Windows XP and Voodoo5 can't max it, then I'm kinda screwed. Not that I can think of any games like that. The upside is that I won't be limited by a 6800 Ultra or X850XT in the newer games.

Oh, I have/own both 4CoreDual-SATA2 R2.0 and 775Dual-VSTA 😀
In 2006-2007 I owned a 775Dual-880Pro as well, just FYI.

Here's a MAD idea (with ASRock MB) :
Use AGP 1 slot card (like 4600 Ti), great PCI-e one (like Radeon 5770) with PCI Voodoo as "backup".

I think by changing primary graphics adapter (from AGP to PCI-e to PCI), it should work per OS... but I didn't tested it myself.

It's at least worth checking out I think.

agent_x007 wrote:

Oh, I have/own both 4CoreDual-SATA2 R2.0 and 775Dual-VSTA :) In 2006-2007 I owned a 775Dual-880Pro as well, just FYI. […]
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Oh, I have/own both 4CoreDual-SATA2 R2.0 and 775Dual-VSTA 😀
In 2006-2007 I owned a 775Dual-880Pro as well, just FYI.

Here's a MAD idea (with ASRock MB) :
Use AGP 1 slot card (like 4600 Ti), great PCI-e one (like Radeon 5770) with PCI Voodoo as "backup".

I think by changing primary graphics adapter (from AGP to PCI-e to PCI), it should work per OS... but I didn't tested it myself.

It's at least worth checking out I think.

I'm going to test that. The problem with AGP and PCI-E with the Asrock MBs is that you need to change BIOS option AFAIK. Also AGP will be limited to single slot cards, and those can be very noisy. I think my MSI 4800 is probably the best I got, but you can also get X800 AGP in that form factor.

Maybe, but remember that there are no slots between AGP and PCI-e.
So going with high powered AGP is out of the question if you want a powerfull PCI-e (PCI-e card will cook AGP one by blocking airlow to it + it will be getting only pre-heated air to intake, unless you have side mounted fan).

agent_x007 wrote:

Maybe, but remember that there are no slots between AGP and PCI-e.
So going with high powered AGP is out of the question if you want a powerfull PCI-e (PCI-e card will cook AGP one by blocking airlow to it + it will be getting only pre-heated air to intake, unless you have side mounted fan).

Remember, they won't be used at the same time. One card will always be in idle mode. The AGP card will be reserved for Windows 98 usage.

I tested the "worst" kind of setup, the same X800XT cards just with different slot type. I was curious what would happen in Windows XP with the drivers being installed. Both cards was detected and auto installed. Catalyst recognized the AGP card as the main card, and disabled the PCI-Express. The X800 cards are made for single slot, so they should work fine in the config, even though it's not optimal with regards to airflow. A sidemounted fan as you say might solve that problem.

Also it worked with disabling speedstep with regards to the multiplier unlock! It now works! Couldn't clock my X6800 much though as I can't change the voltage. I have Pentium 5800 and a unlocked 6500K on the way which may work better.

See picture of my test bench:

vetz wrote:

As j^aws suggest, those two builds would work, but I don't have the hardware for it and I can easily have three builds in my setup:) I have no experience with VIA C3 systems, and finding an LGA775 board with Core2 and Win98 support which also supports the unlocked X6800 is hard. I do own the X6800, but my LGA775 board Asrock 775Dual-VSTA do not allow multiplier changes. It's also the problem to find a video/sound card that covers all the periods well.

Regarding the bold:

Video: A multi-card setup with Tseng ET4000AX for ISA and S3 ViRGE DX-GX /Voodoo 5500 for PCI are extremely compatible for VGA. For 3D, Voodoo 5500 and Vodoo 1/2 combo with a GeForce 2/3/4/5/6 are extremely compatible. And for good measure, chuck in a PowerVR PCX2.

Sound: A multi-card setup with a SBPro 2/ AWE32/ GUS for ISA, and YMF 7x4/ Vortex 2/Live 5.1/ Audigy 2/4 setup for PCI should cover the entire aforementioned range very well. You can use SoftMPU or a hardware Intelligent MPU solution with external MIDI modules to round off the sound setup.

Good job, sweet build you got there 😀
You always can do a vid mod with alutape/isolation tape and get higher Vcore that way.

Overclocking any cpu can be tricky on those mb since they have Massive Vdroop.
Without VID mod 3,5-3,7GHz should be doable on 45nm, BUT it depends highly on sku you get and VID it has.

PS. I did 4GHz on my e5800 with VID mod 😉