MMX or not?

General rules for me are;
> Almost any Intel 430 chipset motherboard will be a sound choice for this platform. Beware, a few had fake cache but the chances of you ending up with one of those are very slim. You can cheat and get a VIA MVP3 board which is a Super Socket 7 platform, but will run anything from Pentium I all the way to K6-3. Perhaps avoid boards with the white VRM socket next to the CPU like mine as this limits voltage selection - not good if you want MMX as you will never find one of those VRMs now. Fine if your CPU comes with the board though I guess.
> The Pentium 166 seems to be a common speed, at least back then. How fast do you want it to go? At least some CPUs didn't have fully fixed multipliers so you can always underclock a little if it ends up too fast.
> S3 or Matrox video card, these are the best at 2D. You could use a Rage if you want simple 3D.
> Some people like 3DFX cards, if so, install a Matrox/S3 for 2D for best quality there and you will have the best of both worlds.
> Sound Blaster cards are good, Sound Blaster 16, AWE 32 or AWE 64 are the go-to cards for this platform. Some SB16 cards were relatively affordable last I checked (Quite a while back! ) but only have FM synths.
> You will NOT need more than 32MB of RAM, generally you won't want to exceed 64MB as some chipsets don't cache above this range.

Here's what my system has in it, for reference - it's actually a K5, but they were intended as the competing CPU and use the same boards.
> PCChips M520 / Pine XFX PT-7502 Motherboard (Intel Triton II)
> AMD K5-PR166
> A CoaSt module (256K I think)
> 32MB EDO RAM
> S3 Virge with upgraded memory it doesn't need (You will probably never need more than 2MB on your 2D card)
> 3DFX Voodoo 1 I never use
> Mitsumi 4x CD-ROM - Any CD-ROM drive will do!
> 3.5" Floppy
> 4GB Compact Flash card replaced the recently dead hard drive
> 200W PSU
> Sound Blaster 16 CT1740 - Common model, has a YMF262 onbaord instead of CQM... I don't mind CQM though.
> Roland SCC-1 which I rarely use
> Dial-up modem for the fun of it - actually sees some use.
> Windows 95 B though I think it would run WFW just fine. Some people ran 98 on such systems but I don't really recommend doing that, well, unless you like to watch paint dry for no real reason.

The same hardware would be appropriate for a faster or slower Pentium, though if you want to go faster than that you may as well just build a K6 system instead. If you want to go slower you would want to take out the 3DFX board as it would be useless in a slower system, you could probably get away with 16MB of RAM in 100MHz or lower Pentium systems.

I guess the first thing you should narrow down is the list of games you might play on that machine. Matrox is great for 2D, but has incompatibility issues with some DOS games. S3 is very compatible, but if you get one with horribly bright images you might want to hunt for a BIOS. I did that with mine and once I programmed a new BIOS I found online the image had decent blacks. Also, the Pentium MMX doesn't outpace the original Pentium by much in DOS, but the older Pentium could use lower multipliers (1.5 got remapped to 3.5 with the MMX). By some creative wiring of the Turbo button you could use it to select FSB clocks and/or the multi. Here is my Pentium Classic machine:

• Pentium 133MHz - turbo button wired to set the system to 66*2 = 133 MHz and 50*1.5 = 75 MHz. Since the processor only recognizes a new multiplier upon a cold boot (not even reset works, you gotta turn it off and on) I can also achieve 66*1,5 = 100 MHz and 50*2 = 100MHz
• PCChips M535 (Intel 430VX) + 256KB cache on a COAST module
• S3 Virge DX2 from a cheap brand (ATC)
• 32MB SDRAM
• 3DFX Voodoo2 (I don't have a more fitting machine for it)
• 6GB HDD
• Windows 95 B - Stay away from the shell update, if you want that you might just as well go 98 SE, with the added benefit of better USB support.
• Cheap YMF-719 (OPL3SAX) ISA sound card
• ISA ethernet card
• Some random LG DVD reader I had at hand
• A floppy drive - gotta love that floppy seek sound at startup

alexanrs wrote:

I guess the first thing you should narrow down is the list of games you might play on that machine.

Precisely. Because a Pentium, and even a 486, may be too fast for some games (old things with poorly programmed CPU-dependent timers), and then some other games can benefit from faster machines than a Pentium (think latest DOS 3D games at high resolutions).

Any Pentium CPU faster than 133 MHz should be fine, if you get the P233 MMX is a good idea to underclock it to 200 MHz to avoid some speed bugs.

The issue with really old games not working right is best solved by not playing them on a Pentium system. 😀

I would use a S3 video card and a Sound Blaster Pro2/16/AWE32 or perhaps an ESS AudioDrive 1868 sound card. When it comes to motherboard any Socket-7 board should work.

BrAlZy wrote:

I want to build a Pentium 1 PC. Looking to be able to play games without running into speed issues. Please leave your suggestions for parts down below. Thanks!

You should watch Phi'ls videos on youtube 😀
Speed is/can be a problem with that generation of machines/games, there's hardly a one size fits them all solution.

My pentium is non MMX 200MHz based, with 32MB RAM, an ET6000 Tseng Labs Video card and a CT2760 AWE32 sound blaster.

Basically, when building a pentium, 133 and mainly 166 are the most common parts (200 brings very little except "having a 200").
Those three CPU choices will give pretty much the same gaming experience outside of benchmarks (quake goes from 30 to 40 fps from 100MHz to 200MHz according to my own tests)
Pentium MMX is not a pentium, it's a pentium MMX, it doesn't have the same nostalgia vibe in my case.
16-64MB of RAM are enough.
video cards would be chosen between S3, Tseng Labs and Matrox, with maybe a voodoo 1/2 if you're into ugly filters.
And sound cards anything between a late SB16 to an AWE64Gold will serve well.

Yup, doesn't really matter much what Pentium you go for. Any of them, when you disable the caches will allow you to get the speed of a 486 and 386. The MMX will perform faster, which means it might be a bit too fast for old games like Wing Commander.

I run a P200, but clocked at 100 MHz for maximum compatibility 😀

Without knowing more about what you want to do, it's hard to make further recommendations.

Personally I like S3 graphics cards, AWE64 Gold and external Roland MIDI devices. That will give you an awesome DOS machine and great compatibility.

- Pentium 1 MMX or non-MMX as fast as you can go. For older games you can downclock it or disable cache.
- Any socket 7 mainboard with at least 256kb of L2 cache. For a more "retro feel" find a intel 430 chipset board. For better flexibility and a AGP slot get a VIA MVP3.
- 32 mb of ram is preferable. You can go with 64, but that's kind of overkill.
- S3 Virge (or Trio 64) graphics for greatest compatibility with old games. Cirrus Logic is also very compatible but a bit slower. If you go for the VIA MVP3 you can get a Voodoo Banshee AGP pretty cheap - quite a bit cheaper then the PCI version required for a Intel 430 board. It has excellent 2D, great compatibility and it allows to play glide games. Voodoo 1 exclusive games work on it as well with the right patch.
- (Optional) Voodoo 1 or Voodoo 2 for 3dfx titles. The V1 has better compatibility but it's quite a bit slower than the V2. You don't need one of these if you get an MVP3 + Voodoo Banshee, but you can still get the Voodoo 1 so you can play older glide titles w/o the hassle of finding patches.
- AWE32 or AWE64 sound. The AWE32 is preferable because it's easier to expand it's on board memory and it has real OPL3
- AT case with AT PSU (at least 150w). You can find ATX socket 7 boards out there, but they're usually quite a bit more expensive than the AT versions and the AT form factor is smaller compared to ATX.

For dos stuff I use the AMD K6-III+ rig in my signature. It can go as slow as a 386 and as fast as a Pentium 2 by adjusting the CPU multiplier and cache. On the K6 2 and 3 plus (+) models it is possible to change multi/cache settings by software from DOS. I have older machines but use this one because of flexibility and space constraints.

I think you have to be especially careful with ISA cards in fast Pentium systems.
These are some of the last computers to feature ISA cards, and the speed difference of these CPUs compared to the CPUs that were around when ISA cards were in common use can cause problems.
I had problems getting an SB Pro 2.0 and a Gravis UltraSound to work on some Pentium boards. They just weren't detected by most software, or the software didn't delay enough between commands, causing corrupted audio.
AWE32 or AWE64 should be fine. PCI sound cards are more reliable for Windows, but can cause problems when you want to use them in SB compatibility mode in DOS.

Scali wrote:

I think you have to be especially careful with ISA cards in fast Pentium systems. These are some of the last computers to featur […]
Show full quote

I think you have to be especially careful with ISA cards in fast Pentium systems.
These are some of the last computers to feature ISA cards, and the speed difference of these CPUs compared to the CPUs that were around when ISA cards were in common use can cause problems.
I had problems getting an SB Pro 2.0 and a Gravis UltraSound to work on some Pentium boards. They just weren't detected by most software, or the software didn't delay enough between commands, causing corrupted audio.
AWE32 or AWE64 should be fine. PCI sound cards are more reliable for Windows, but can cause problems when you want to use them in SB compatibility mode in DOS.

To be fair ISA was fairly widespread well into the Coppermine era, and the Pentium Classic, together with late 486s that were sold in the same period, were the first PC platform to move away from ISA (and I've never seen a S7 board without ISA slots). Also, you can usually set the clock divider for the ISA bus (or make it asynchronous, fixed at ~7.16 MHz). Though, sure, you're better off sticking to late ISA cards, as many late SBPro clones and SB16+ Creative cards are usually fine even with a fast P3 or K7.

alexanrs wrote:

To be fair ISA was fairly widespread well into the Coppermine era

Yes, and completely useless at some point 😀 Just because there's an ISA slot on the board doesn't mean it actually works.
My first Athlon board (Abit KT7A) had an ISA slot, but nothing I put in there ever worked. My PII also had trouble with various sound cards, but I could get late ISA cards working in that.
I had one Pentium board that worked with my SB Pro 2.0 and GUS (Random Taiwanese 430FX), and one that didn't (Asus 430HX).
I guess it depends on a lot of factors. Just saying that you can expect issues.

Scali wrote:

Yes, and completely useless at some point 😀 Just because there's an ISA slot on the board doesn't mean it actually works.

ISA cards were still being released well into 1997/1998, and I know at least one variant of the EWS64 (the XXL) was released in 1999. Surely older speed sensitive cards are troublesome in newer PCs, but SB16 and newer should be pretty safe, and so would many PnP SBPro clones.

Personally, for versatility, I would get a super socket 7 board (I prefer the ALi Aladdin V) as it gives you many more options e.g. AGP, SDRAM, faster CPUs down the line if you decide most the games you're running need more speed. The only thing to watch out for is that some boards (like the iWill XA100) have a minimum multiplier of 2.0x, which will prevent you from using older CPUs. Also allows you to mix and match PCI and ISA components and you will have a choice of AT or ATX depending on the model.

alexanrs wrote:

Scali wrote:

Yes, and completely useless at some point 😀 Just because there's an ISA slot on the board doesn't mean it actually works.

ISA cards were still being released well into 1997/1998, and I know at least one variant of the EWS64 (the XXL) was released in 1999. Surely older speed sensitive cards are troublesome in newer PCs, but SB16 and newer should be pretty safe, and so would many PnP SBPro clones.

Yes, that's my point, you should stick to late ISA cards, because the early ones might cause trouble.

BrAlZy wrote:

I want to build a Pentium 1 PC. Looking to be able to play games without running into speed issues. Please leave your suggestions for parts down below. Thanks!

For better suggestions, you need to give us some more information. What will be the purpose of this machine? Is it for playing games or just for the fun of building a Pentium? Which games do you want to play with it? Which OS will you install on it?

In any case, here is my own Pentium MMX 233 machine:

Intel Pentium MMX 233
Asus TXP4-X (430TX - 512KB PB cache) + 64MB RAM (64MB x 1 PC100 SDRAM)
3Dfx Voodoo 3 16 MB PCI
Sound Blaster 16 CT2230 ISA + NEC XR895 Wavetable
Adaptec AHA-2940UW PCI
3Com 3C900B Combo PCI
Aztech MSP2950-W Modem PCI
Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 80GB ATA
Compaq BD07288277 73GB SCSI
Compaq BF03685A35 36GB SCSI
3.5" NEC 1.44MB
5.25" Epson 1.2MB
Pioneer DVR-A18LBK DVD-RW IDE
3.5" CF to IDE Adapter
Iomega ZIP 250MB IDE
MS-DOS 6.22 + Windows 3.11 / Windows 95 OSR 2.1 / Windows 98SE

It's a hybrid machine, to say the least, and I have no games to play on it. It's basically a "nostalgia" project. Multiboot, but booting to DOS by default, Its DOS partition has all the application software (Word 2.0, Excel 3.0, Matlab, Mathcad, AutoCAD, MS Fortran, and many others) that I used during the first half of 90's (my university years), so it's just there to show my daughter or visiting friends what was it like during the times. 😈

brassicGamer wrote:

Personally, for versatility, I would get a super socket 7 board (I prefer the ALi Aladdin V) as it gives you many more options e.g. AGP, SDRAM, faster CPUs down the line if you decide most the games you're running need more speed. The only thing to watch out for is that some boards (like the iWill XA100) have a minimum multiplier of 2.0x, which will prevent you from using older CPUs. Also allows you to mix and match PCI and ISA components and you will have a choice of AT or ATX depending on the model.

Let's not get into the ALi vs VIA debate. I have 5 ALi Aladdin boards, only one works correctly. The others are either completely dead, freeze when installing an AGP video card or spit out "Gate A20 error" when loading himem.sys. I've never had issues with MVP5 boards, but other users have been complaining about them.

I do like ALi chipsets but only the later ones. I have an ALi M1689 socket 754 board for my overkill win98 rig and it KICKS ASS. Rock solid, great overclocking features (got my 3000+ to 2333 effortlessly while still being able to run the memory at 400MHz) and excellent win98 drivers. The thing scores ~15000 pts in 3dmark01 under win98 with a Chaintech Geforce 4 ti4600!

For a socket 754/939 rig I would also recommend ALi over VIA simply because of better driver support for win98 and better overclocking. ALi also makes some pretty cool socket A chipsets that support 3.3V AGP AND Barton CPUs so you can run your Voodoo 3/4/5 on a fast machine, but for socket 7 I'll stick with VIA.

kanecvr wrote:

Let's not get into the ALi vs VIA debate. I have 5 ALi Aladdin boards, only one works correctly.

Is not a debate I can enter having never owned an MVP but I do have two perfectly working Aladdin V boards. The last thing I would want to do is lead someone down a path to destruction though!

Also, do not disregard OEM systems. Some of them were built to last, were based on good chipsets and had all relevant connectors soldered on, like USB, PS/2, etc.

My personal favourite chipset for P1 build is i430TX / i430HX, preferably on ATX-format MB...
MVP3 and Aladdin V chipsets doesn't really offer anything useful for Pentium / Pentium MMX. Well, unless you really want to run AGP videocard.

I have a nice P1-133 machine with 16mb of ram and the usual stuff like CL-5446-PCI.

The machine is build, using the following part's:

P-133 (non-MMX)
Epox MVP3-C
16mb PC-100
16gb HDD. Yeah, the partitions are 2gb each, (because of MS-Dos-6.22)
Cirrus Logic 5446 PCI 2mb
SB-AWE64-Gold

Runs great and speedwise, I only have to disable L1 cache, when playing really old games.