There were many moments in my life when i wished i had the 866 MHz instead of my 850, the reason being FSB like you said.

I think it would need to be VIA-based or an Intel 820-based board using RDRAM.

Some 440BX boards can be run stably at 133 but you pretty much need to forgo AGP if you want reliability. ISA and PCI can be kept within spec on some later 440BX boards but the chipset lacks the proper divider for AGP.

I'd get a 100MHz FSB CPU and a 440BX motherboard instead.

Or u could get a bx board and run it at 133mhz,a lot of them offer the option and run without problems.

Nahkri wrote:

Or u could get a bx board and run it at 133mhz,a lot of them offer the option and run without problems.

You need to mention the caveat of 90MHz AGP causing problems with most AGP cards, whether those problems are subtle or serious. More often than not this setup does not work flawlessly.

swaaye wrote:

I think it would need to be VIA-based or an Intel 820-based board using RDRAM.

Some 440BX boards can be run stably at 133 but you pretty much need to forgo AGP if you want reliability. ISA and PCI can be kept within spec on some later 440BX boards but the chipset lacks the proper divider for AGP.

I'd get a 100MHz FSB CPU and a 440BX motherboard instead.

Someone suggested 440BX so I looked into it. Yea, it forces a 35% over clock of the AGP bus if you go 133 bus on that. In the Wiki post on 440BX I see that the Intel 820 had some issues, but that the 815 was considered perhaps the best P3 chipset of all. It handled the 133 bus fine w/out hosing AGP, etc. and it's an SD-RAM board.

See towards bottom: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_440BX
Anand roundup of 815 boards: http://www.anandtech.com/show/595 (circa 2000)

Intel 815 seems the way to go, no?

bp

The problem there is that 815 boards don't have ISA slots.

The 820 chipset itself is fine. The problems were with the memory translator hub that allowed boards to use SDRAM instead of RDRAM.

Damn. None of the boards in Anand's roundup have any ISA slots. I want an ISA slot. Perhaps 815 does not support it...

bp

Hmm, the 440BX was the last Intel chipset to support ISA. There were alternatives, such as from VIA, the Apollo Pro 133T chipset. It's on the Soyo SY-7VBA133U, which has two ISA slots and AGP.

http://www.motherboards.org/files/manuals/107 … m7vba133u10.pdf

I see two on eBay right now. One $344 and one $499... Sheesh!

bp

As I said there are some 820 boards with ISA, otherwise yes VIA. Or just get a 100MHz FSB PIII-E instead of that PIII-EB you have.

Others here like Duron/Athlon + KT133A for their high-performance board w/ ISA desires.

blakespot wrote:

Hmm, the 440BX was the last Intel chipset to support ISA. There were alternatives, such as from VIA, the Apollo Pro 133T chipset […]
Show full quote

Hmm, the 440BX was the last Intel chipset to support ISA. There were alternatives, such as from VIA, the Apollo Pro 133T chipset. It's on the Soyo SY-7VBA133U, which has two ISA slots and AGP.

http://www.motherboards.org/files/manuals/107 … m7vba133u10.pdf

I see two on eBay right now. One $344 and one $499... Sheesh!

bp

Actually the last Intel chipset that has ISA support that has seen that in use is the 845 on a hand full of socket 478 boards but they are expensive. Support is there but just not used as most back then were not making use of the isa slots so board makers focused more on pci instead. VIA boards often had at least one isa slot but sometimes more, in the end it all comes down to what you can find on the second hand market.

swaaye wrote:

Nahkri wrote:

Or u could get a bx board and run it at 133mhz,a lot of them offer the option and run without problems.

You need to mention the caveat of 90MHz AGP causing problems with most AGP cards, whether those problems are subtle or serious. More often than not this setup does not work flawlessly.

Many Nvidia cards works just fine on 89MHz AGP, even 100MHz with 150MHz FSB is no problem. Used a GeForce DDR on 89MHz and 100MHz on a B3B-F back in the days. I'm now using a GeForce FX5200 on a Asus P2B-D on 89MHz with 133MHz FSB.

Kamerat wrote:

swaaye wrote:

Nahkri wrote:

Or u could get a bx board and run it at 133mhz,a lot of them offer the option and run without problems.

You need to mention the caveat of 90MHz AGP causing problems with most AGP cards, whether those problems are subtle or serious. More often than not this setup does not work flawlessly.

Many Nvidia cards works just fine on 89MHz AGP, even 100MHz with 150MHz FSB is no problem. Used a GeForce DDR on 89MHz and 100MHz on a B3B-F back in the days. I'm now using a GeForce FX5200 on a Asus P2B-D on 89MHz with 133MHz FSB.

I have the same experience. On my P3B-F I can't think of a single AGP card that have given me issues at 133mhz FSB.

Well that's just super but lets get real. Some 440BX motherboards and some AGP video cards don't work correctly at 133 MHz / 89 MHz AGP. You're way out of spec. It is probably a combination of variables, like some motherboards are built better, some 440BX chips clock up better, and some AGP video cards are more tolerant. You also need to make sure you have a pretty late model 440BX board because earlier ones don't even implement the 1/4 PCI divider which probably means disk corruption and other fun.

swaaye wrote:

Well that's just super but lets get real. Some 440BX motherboards and some AGP video cards don't work correctly at 133 MHz / 89 MHz AGP. You're way out of spec. It is probably a combination of variables, like some motherboards are built better, some 440BX chips clock up better, and some AGP video cards are more tolerant.

Won't argue with you on that. I'm sure there are variables. I haven't done in depth testing of all my AGP cards, but maybe that could be a project 😉

vetz wrote:

Won't argue with you on that. I'm sure there are variables. I haven't done in depth testing of all my AGP cards, but maybe that could be a project 😉

In my experience it seems NVIDIA cards are more tolerant. I've had the most problems with ATI and Matrox.

What do we think of a VIA 694X & 686B motherboard from GIGABYTE for a P3 866? I think it doesn't have the AGP over-speed issue that the 440BX has. Motherboard is a GA-6VXC7-4X-P (5 PCI, 1AGP, 1ISA).

Thoughts? Thanks.

bp

VIA chipset boards would give you all these options. 133 FSB, Tualatin support and AGP.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

VIA chipset boards would give you all these options. 133 FSB, Tualatin support and AGP.

Work w/ P3 866 right? Any negs?

bp

blakespot wrote:

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

VIA chipset boards would give you all these options. 133 FSB, Tualatin support and AGP.

Work w/ P3 866 right? Any negs?

Yeah, its a VIA chip set.

(now I'm going to have nightmares about 4-in-1 drivers)