Well, in 1999, the first Athlon (K7) was released. So you don't have that much to choose from. The Slot A K75 (Pluto/Orion) with 750 MHz was the fastest Athlon at that time; it was released in November 1999. Good luck finding exactly that one for a good price.

Maybe this is helpful:

The only thing i can say it would be miracle if your desired machine will work flawlessly. Slot A Athlon with AMD chipset (or it was rebranded VIA) and early Ati AGP cards, you will have so much fun trying to get it to work after installing AGP drivers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_AMD_chipsets
check wiki
In my own experience, even 8000 chipset targeted to workstation and servers was buggy.

you started your interest in computers when you were less than 1 year old?

Warlord wrote:

you started your interest in computers when you were less than 1 year old?

🤣 like the girl that is 6 and said she had planned for 10 years to do a charity thing 🤣

If referring to memories around 2006 and you think your parents had it for say 4-5 years then something from 2001-2002 would be like this advert from October 2001

I have a rare Slot A motherboard but it unfortunately is dead, it doesn't POST, i hear fans, the HDD spin up, etc. and thats it, nothing appears on the screen, no beeps, nothing. there are no bulging or leaking capacitors on it.

Warlord wrote:

you started your interest in computers when you were less than 1 year old?

Fair enough - a generation earlier, my parents have a photo of me typing on a C64 when I was 1. "Apparently" I knew how to type my name. I'm not sure I believe that, to be honest.

I guess if you want to stick to that specific year, I'd go with:
Athlon 750
1gb RAM
Radeon 7500
120gb HD
CDRW/DVDRW

If you didn't mind fudging the "period correctness" a bit I'd go Duron 1200 or 1.2ghz Athlon, 2GB RAM, and Radeon 9500 or 9700. But that's more of a 2001-2002 system, if I recall correctly.

I think radeon 7500 is a 2001 card, in 1999 he'd be stuck with ati rage 128 ultra or ati rage fury maxx. Also correct me if I'm wrong but didn't 120gb HDDs come out late 2001 too?

If you're just getting into retro computing, this isn't going to be an easy rig to acquire and setup. How serious are you about doing this?

derSammler wrote:

Well, in 1999, the first Athlon (K7) was released. So you don't have that much to choose from. The Slot A K75 (Pluto/Orion) with 750 MHz was the fastest Athlon at that time; it was released in November 1999. Good luck finding exactly that one for a good price.

Correct.

To stay in 1999, make sure you get the original Athlon 750 with the Pluto core (AMD-K7750MTR52B A), not the year-2000, integrated-cache Athlon 750 with the Thunderbird core (AMD-A0750MPR24B A).

For 1999 motherboards, the choices are: AMD Fester, MSI MS-6167, Gigabyte GA-7IX, FIC SD11, and possibly the Asus K7M. I can run down the strengths and weaknesses of these boards, if you'd like. Just make sure to avoid early revisions of the MSI and FIC boards. Other AMD 750 boards that may be 2000 releases are the MSI MS-6195 K7Pro and Soyo SY-K7AIA. Tracking releases of first-gen Athlon mobos is difficult, because in order to appease Intel, vendors did little to promote their AMD 750 boards in 1999.

You will need the right PSU with sufficient amperage on the 5V rail to power this. AMD had a list. The FIC SD11 apparently had a list that was narrowed down still further. You will likely need to decide between risking an old, period-correct PSU (possibly damaged), or purchasing a modern, high-wattage PSU (overpriced, horribly inefficient at the load you will be pulling).

For the graphics card, I was going to suggest ATi Rage Fury MAXX, but I'm not sure they actually got these into the hands of consumers before January 2000.

God Of Gaming wrote:

I think radeon 7500 is a 2001 card, in 1999 he'd be stuck with ati rage 128 ultra or ati rage fury maxx. Also correct me if I'm wrong but didn't 120gb HDDs come out late 2001 too?

You're probably right, I'm not good with exact release dates on hardware.

I think going for a specific year build with motherboard, HD etc and not just the CPU and graphics tied to that year, will be difficult. That's why I offered up items that were within a year or two. But yes, if the goal is to only use items from 1999, then that will limit what your options are. But do you go with the beginning of 1999 or the end? There is still a range even within sticking to a specific year.

yes, which is why I personally go with a specific month, not a specific year, when considering period correct builds

piatd wrote:

If you're just getting into retro computing, this isn't going to be an easy rig to acquire and setup. How serious are you about doing this?
[...]

For the graphics card, I was going to suggest ATi Rage Fury MAXX, but I'm not sure they actually got these into the hands of consumers before January 2000.

Also, getting hold of one of those will make motherboard, CPU and PSU look easy by comparison.

For 1999 I wouldn't consider ATi a compelling choice in any event, but if you really want to, Rage128 Pro cards are relatively easy and inexpensive to find.

even Rage 128 Ultra are easy actually, you can find them for 5 bucks and are common enough. It's what I'd go for if it has to be a 99 ati, it has higher clocks than the fury maxx, and no dual gpu AFR issues to deal with. But yeah, Nvidia TNT2 Ultra or 3dfx Voodoo3 would be better, even Matrox G400 Max would be a better '99 choice probably.

piatd wrote:

For the graphics card, I was going to suggest ATi Rage Fury MAXX, but I'm not sure they actually got these into the hands of consumers before January 2000.

yeah no chance to get one of these for anything close to a reasonable price unfortunately 🙁

can you elaborate what's wrong with the early MSI boards? I have two MS6191.

interestingly enough I don't think any of my Slot A boards have bad caps yet.

I still have my fathers old PC from around that time if I remember correctly. It has Asus A7V motherboard and it is still working perfectly. I have not done anything with it since he gave it to me after he didn't need it anymore, but after since the pc is working fine after 20 years or so, it must be well made motherboard.

imi wrote:

can you elaborate what's wrong with the early MSI boards? I have two MS6191.

interestingly enough I don't think any of my Slot A boards have bad caps yet.

In a word, stability.

From Anand:
"At the release of the Athlon, there were two motherboards shipping in limited quantities, the Microstar MS-6167 and the Gigabyte GA-7IX. The initial revision of the MSI board had some serious stability issues, and thus, it took another revision before the board was fit for public sale. The Gigabyte board was generally solid from the start, but it boasted no unique qualities other than a 95MHz FSB setting that would surely be of no use to Athlon owners."

So just avoid the first revision of the MS-6167. You have the MS-6169, so I'm not sure this applies. As for the FIC SD11, avoid all revisions before 1.8, also per Anand:

"When AnandTech first looked at the FIC SD-11 at the preproduction level, stability was terrible in all situations. We had trouble running Athlon's faster than 600 MHz on the board. Fortunately, with revision 1.8, FIC seems to have worked out all the bugs as the SD-11 was quite stable. This time, we had no trouble running CPU's up to 800 MHz, the fastest available from AMD. Rest assured that revision 1.8 or higher should be the only thing on the market at this point."

Someone on ebay is selling Open Box SD11s. Got mine today, can confirm a brand new board, rev. 1.8, I/O shield, and good packaging. I am not affiliated with this seller in any way. Also received an AMD-K7750MTR52B A from a different seller. Mine came with an HSF that looks legit, but since this is supposed to be an OEM chip, I wonder if there was a retail kit for this.