Can't help you with the AMD question, but my preferred combo that gives an ISA slot, plus keeps Intel for compatibility (which I personally like) is this:
http://shop.ebay.com/items/?_nkw=powerleap+ce … rleap&_osacat=0

with this:
http://homepage.hispeed.ch/rscheidegger/p2b_p … pgrade_faq.html

The fastest socket a with an ISA is going to be based off a kt133 or kt133a

abit k7a
epox kta3 < what i currently have.

You may have issues getting your chip to run at the 13.5 multiplier, since these boards only use 4 bits to signal the processor. I'm I'd like mine to use 14... but it will only reliably boot at 12... 12.5 being the highest. Gonna try a wire mod soon.

Thanks for the information!

So which KTA3 do you have? KTA3, KTA3+, KTA3+pro? Or is this not important?
The Duron runs at 133FSB with a 13,5 multiplier, so with 12x I would get a Duron 1600, which would be acceptable. This cpu runs with 1.5V - is this a problem? I also suppose that the bios might not recognize it as a duron but as an Ahtlon XP - does it matter?

Mhm... regarding the Intel cpu Valnar mentioned - yes, this is an option - but more expensive. I also wonder if a 1,4GHz Tualatin Celeron will make so much difference together with my V5 ( compared to the 1Ghz coppermine....)? Furthermore I have socket 370 based board, so I would need another adapter.

There are four models of the 8KTA3 board:

EP-8KTA3
EP-8KTA3+
EP-8KTA3 Pro
EP-8KTA3+ Pro

The "+" indicates that the optional Highpoint ATA-RAID chip is installed, giving you two additional IDE ports (they're easy to spot because they have yellow connectors in the board).

The "Pro" revisions come with a better clock generator which allows the FSB to be set in 1 MHz increments and do away with the problematic 100/133 MHz selection jumper found on the non-"Pro" versions. Additionally, the CPU voltage can be increased up to 2.25V.

Maximum CPU compatibility is difficult to find out with these boards - mainly because Epox is defunct, and random web reports tend to confuse revisions.

Officially, the non-"Pro" versions only accept the old Thunderbird/Spitfire CPUs. Palominos seem to work in some cases, but tend to run unstable / have bootup problems.
The "Pro" versions support Palomino and Thouroughbred(A) up to 2100+.

I had a Tbred 1700+ running in a 8KTA3+ Pro for some time, but unfortunately I don't remember how it behaved at multipliers above 12, and meanwhile my board has died because of long-time overclocking and the vexed capacitor plague.

A propos capacitors: It is very difficult to find a 8KTA3 without rotten capacitors these days, even if they look OK, they probably won't last for a long time.

Thanks for the details, 5u3 - so maybe it's too much trouble with those boards, and I should stick to my P3...

Silent Loon wrote:

Thanks for the details, 5u3 - so maybe it's too much trouble with those boards, and I should stick to my P3...

A wise choice... and ASUS P2B variants are plentiful on eBay, and will be for some time if you choose to go that route.

You'll probably run into bad capacitors though.... The only way to really avoid that is by going with an Intel OEM board, probably from either Dell or Gateway. Those mobos are of superior quality compared to the usual Abit/ASUS/Epox/etc stuff IMO, but don't have the overclocking options.

My Abit BF6 had bad caps which I went through the effort to replace. The board was never particularly stable and has serious PCI IRQ sharing issues with some cards, but it is nice enough. I am rather tired of its flakyness though, honestly. That's just how most "enthusiast" hardware was back then. I frequently ponder how Abit and ASUS built the rep they have, considering. I suppose it's just because they were the companies to most obviously acknowledge the existence of the enthusiast/gamer world with overclocking options galore.

I've also used an Intel SE440BX motherboard. It came with a Dell Dimension from 1998. The board was rock solid. I even dropped a Coppermine 700 Slot-1 into it and it worked perfectly. The problem with these is they use the proprietary ATX power connection, I believe. I'm fairly certain of that. You can build an adapter though, and Dell has the most awesome online parts/assembly data sheets online of any manufacturer out there.

I would defiantly say my project has made me upset a time or two.. but I'm sure everyone will agree that an althon based system, clock-for-clock will run circles around a p3, and take its watch. Althons have better FPUs, the voodoo drivers have been proven to take advantage of 3dnow, and if you factor the FSB having twice the bandwidth, it really drives it all home. I guess what it is going to come down to is how much work you are willing to put in to it. The bulk of that work is just finding a good board to build from. At this point the only complaints i have have left with my setup is 1) this board is not stable at 133. have to clock down to 130. and 2) to get past 12x multiplier I'm gonna need to do a wiremod. The 1st problem is my board, i have the the 8kta3.. no plus or pro, and an early revision at that. I didn't know very much about the boards or even the chipsets when i got, and I'm just going to get another soon. The 2nd problem is kinda minor... and even with out i'm running at 1.5ghz, with an effective 260fsb.

If you like like I have a v5 laying around... I could throw it in and get some 3dmark scores off it. If there is anyone else here with a p3 rig we could compare them 😀

Well, Athlon is certainly a bit faster per-clock. Probably 10% or so. It's not a big difference and you probably wouldn't notice it, frankly. Athlon XP bumps the performance up a good bit per clock compared to Tbird though, so at that point you are certainly ahead of P3.

The problem is that, again, you will almost certainly run into bad capacitors on Athlon boards these days. Anything from Abit will likely have bad caps. Shuttle, Iwill, Epox, ASUS, etc. As far as I know, all of the board makers used the bad caps at one point and the P3/Athlon/AthlonXP era is when it all happened. Don't buy any of the boards from those days until you've seen a high-res photo that allows you to see any leaking/bursting caps.

Maybe even consider building an old P4. I've pondered that. Some interesting hardware there. Dual channel that matters. Socket 478 can run lots of CPUs. And you can again have access to quality Intel-branded mobos with good caps.

I still have working everyday a Shuttle mobo with KT266A / Athlon 1.8MP ... still no porbs with caps...

Too bad that Kt266 board dosn't have a ISA slot. Really only other diff from the Kt133 is the DDR ram 😀

Unfortunately that's the point. I have a KT333 based mobo in which the V5 would fit (one of the last with AGP 2x/4x support) but of cause it has no ISA slot.
So I have three choices:

Get an Athlon / KT133A board with all its weaknesses and one ISA Slot but higher speed
Use the VIA based P3 board I allready have (DFI C61) with 3 ISA, 4 PCI and one AGP Slot but limited to a 1Ghz P3
Use the KT333 based Socket A board (Chaintech Apogee) but skip the ISA slot by
- using the "older" machines I allready assembled ( like this one: 286 Total Conversion ) for the "older" games. Buy new DDR-400-Ram and play the "newer" dos games with the legacy support a Soundblaster Live or a Diamond MX300 / Vortex2 offers me.

By the way: most people recommend a BX board. What's so bad about the VIA chipset? I use an ECS P6BAT-A+ for years (it's limited to a >P3 750 or 800) not having much problems. Furthermore this board could hold those infamous Via C3 cpus, which were very. very slow - which is an advantage for retro purposes. I think my VIA CIII 550 is slower than a P2-266!

Seems pretty cut and dry then. If you want the most speed, go with the athlon setup. Either get some ram and a MX300 (i have one.. highly recommend), or go looking for another board. Finding a good board shouldn't be very hard.. just have patience. Seeing as how you already have a P3 setup.. you could use that and get a little more flexibility seeing as how you have more ISA slots... but really it sounds like on is all you need. I'm also surprised to hear it won't handle over 1ghz.. i'm sure there is a mod or adapter that will do the trick. As I recall as long is it runs at the proper 133mhz fsb it just a matter of voltage... and then you could top it out with a 1.4 coppermine.

Check this out

that looks pretty cool.. expensive but surely bankable performance. as much as i love amd, a northwood p4 running at 3ghz with a 533fsb and pc2700 ddr will walk all over the athlon xp. i'm not sure that agp slot will take a voodoo though.

keropi wrote:

I still have working everyday a Shuttle mobo with KT266A / Athlon 1.8MP ... still no porbs with caps...

I had a Shuttle AK31A KT266A mobo with several bad caps (bursting/oozing), but it still worked until recently. All of the Abit boards from 1999-2001 (or so) that I've seen have had a few bad caps. The board may or may not work for long, but they will usually be unstable to varying degrees if they do work.

I replaced all the caps on my Abit BF6 440BX mobo. Cost $20-something for the cap pack from Badcaps.net. That's a lot of effort tho.

5u3 wrote:

I had a Tbred 1700+ running in a 8KTA3+ Pro for some time, but unfortunately I don't remember how it behaved at multipliers above 12, and meanwhile my board has died because of long-time overclocking and the vexed capacitor plague.

Mine still runs stable and boots up without problems, I do not overclock though. I'm using it for older games anyway (GLide games and below), and unlike those nuts at 3dfxZone 😉 , I ain't interested in seeing how F.E.A.R would run on V5.

I plan to throw away my 8KTA3+ and put my Voodoo5 on 440BX mobo instead. The BX supports slower processor (Pentium III), but it has more ISA slots.

For "newer old games" that are too demanding for PIII processor and/or Voodoo5 (MDK 2, Jane's USAF, etc), Athlon XP/GeForce 5950XT combo seems to be a better choice. You don't need ISA slots for those games anyway, and Voodoo5 is kinda slow to run them.

GeForce FX series is still supported by Windows 98. I always prefer GeForces than Radeons because the former still supports SSAA, which is more compatible with older games. Radeons have smaller AA penalty, but its MSAA doesn't work with certain older games. 🙁

swaaye wrote:

The problem is that, again, you will almost certainly run into bad capacitors on Athlon boards these days. Anything from Abit will likely have bad caps. Shuttle, Iwill, Epox, ASUS, etc. As far as I know, all of the board makers used the bad caps at one point and the P3/Athlon/AthlonXP era is when it all happened. Don't buy any of the boards from those days until you've seen a high-res photo that allows you to see any leaking/bursting caps.

How difficult it is to replace a bad cap? I'm not really experienced in soldering my own mobo, but computer workshops are cheap in my country. Is it difficult to find replacement cap?

On the bad caps website they say they can do the repair for you... for a fee. Just ship them the board and they send it back to you.

Yeah, look up the site. http://www.badcaps.net/

I'd definitely recommend sending it in if you are uncomfortable soldering. This is about as tricky as it can get because you have to desolder the old caps and then get the new caps through solder-plugged holes. It's tricky work.

Aparently, an AMD 760 chipset board with ISA slot existed for Socket A, is the Biostar M7MIA (AMD 761+VIA 686B), also might be the only DDR based Socket A motherboard with ISA slots (not really sure)

Looks like is also a decent performer

http://www.anandtech.com/show/845/4
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/athlon-bo … ters,299-6.html