Use them , no point keeping them stored 😉

I think the better question is, are there any games that you have a burning desire to play at the moment for which a Voodoo2 is unquestionably the best option? 😜

From a practical standpoint, a V3 3000 that you can get everywhere for cheap should be faster than your SLI and has the RAMDAC filtering going on to mask the dithering; also, to my knowledge VSync needs to be turned on to avoid artifacts with V2 SLI which may cause input lag. I wouldn't bother dismembering these cards and just use a V3 honestly, save for games that need earlier Voodoo cards of course

KT7AGuy wrote:

Should I glue some heatsinks on those Canopus cards and use them? Or, do you think I should try to score some more common Voodoo cards on eBay for my new build?

These are the facts:

1. The cards that function correctly can both be used in a working system as well as in a display case.

2. The cards that do not work can *only* be used in a display case.

3. The cards that used to work but got broken meanwhile can still be used in a display case.

Go figure what to do on your own 😊

P.S. AFAIK, those canopus V2s are only interesting as a collectible item if they are paired with the canopus Riva TNT (or TNT2, not sure anymore) because they offer a unique internal connector that eliminates the need for pass-through cable and therefore you still get a sharp output even on resolutions higher then 1024x768. Otherwise, they are just as good as any other V2.

Here's my suggestions:

(1) Find out what is the ideal range of temperature & humidity for semiconductor and electronic devices.
(2) Get a small-sized, temperature & humidity-controlled vault that is water-proofed, fire-proofed, and also shock-and-explosives-proofed; then set it to stay within the values you get from #1
(3) Put the precious cards in the vault safely, and comfortably cushioned for good measure (but make sure you don't put any degradable materials in there)
(4) Don't forget to include this invaluable asset in your will (that is, if you have someone you can trust to take care of it)
(5) Be at peace that you have made a decent effort at preserving this pair of 20th century relics for at least the next few millennia

Welcome to the forum 😁

Hi All! Thanks for all your replies!

A bit more info on my planned build:

This is going to be an ABIT KT7A with an Athlon 1400 and 768mb of RAM running Win98SE. It will have an ISA AWE64 Gold for sound. For a PSU, I got an Antec Basiq 350.

I'm trying to create a system that is really fast, but also really compatible. That's where the voodoo cards come into play. For primary video, I'm undecided between a 5900 Ultra and a Ti4600. I'm a bit concerned that my 350W PSU is insufficient for the 5900 Ultra though. What do you all think? Or, do you think the Ti4600 is just a better choice regardless of the PSU's limitations?

One of my other KT7A boxes has a Ti4600 and it is REALLY nice. I was hoping for a bit more juice out of the 5900U, but I'm definitely satisfied with the Ti4600 for legacy gaming purposes if you all think the 5900U is a bad idea.

Thanks again for all your thoughts and opinions!

5900U is probably too much for that PSU. It is a nice card for pre-DX9 but it does consume a lot more power. But I don't know of any downsides other than that.

Welcome, fellow KT7A user! 😉
The difference between modern systems and the Socket A machines of yore is that current machines take the power for the CPU from one of the +12V rails, while Socket A boards use +5V instead.
PSU designs have changed accordingly over the years: A good PSU from 10 years ago can deliver >30 Amps on +5V, modern ones usually max out at about 20 Amps, which is barely enough to power a 70W CPU plus all the other stuff running from +5V.

Ex-user of KT7A-RAID here. 😀 (I promise this post will be serious)

Ti4600 is fine, or if you want FX 5900 but worried about power draw, you may consider 5900 vanilla or the XT version (I actually like them more than the Ultra because they are single slot cards--good for a microATX box).

Your Athlon 1400 is quite a beast for a single core CPU though, at ~70W TDP. Any chance you might be using a newer board version that can take newer chip? (http://www.cpu-upgrade.com/mb-ABIT/KT7A_v1.3.html) Power usage is the reason why I want to pair my own 5900XT with a Pentium M (no ISA slots of course), by the way.

Also, any Voodoo2/3/4/5 in one of the PCI slots will do, I think--the V3 PCI especially comes rather cheap.

The KT7A v1.3 supports up to Athlon XP 2100+ CPUs.
The KT7A v1.2 supports up to Athlon 1400 CPUs.

While I do have another system with the v1.3 board and an Athlon XP 2100+, this one is a v1.2 board so it can only support up to the Athlon 1400.

I tried for a long time to find another v1.3 board, but they're hard to come by. When I saw a guy on eBay selling this v1.2 board including the Athlon 1400 and 768mb of RAM, I jumped on it. It was too good a deal to pass up. The good folks at badcaps.net replaced all the caps on it for me and removed all the caked-on cigarette tar. I swear, the previous owner must have been smoking four packs a day around this poor motherboard. It looks almost like new now though.

KT7AGuy wrote:

The KT7A v1.3 supports up to Athlon XP 2100+ CPUs.

Meh. Dont believe all you read from the official papers. It also supports Barton-m@ 2.2-2.5Ghz 😎

I love my KT7A 😊

P.S. V1.2 also supports the same, if you manage to mod the BIOS accordingly. I have one such board (1.2 modded to 1.3).

elfuego wrote:

Meh. Dont believe all you read from the official papers. It also supports Barton-m@ 2.2-2.5Ghz :cool: […]
Show full quote

KT7AGuy wrote:

The KT7A v1.3 supports up to Athlon XP 2100+ CPUs.

Meh. Dont believe all you read from the official papers. It also supports Barton-m@ 2.2-2.5Ghz 😎

I love my KT7A 😊

P.S. V1.2 also supports the same, if you manage to mod the BIOS accordingly. I have one such board (1.2 modded to 1.3).

This was my thought also.
I have an Asus A7V133 1.05 (without a dot at the end) though only the 1.05. (with a dot)officially supports Athlon XP Palomino's and my 1.05 has been running with a 2000+ without any problems. I didn't need to use a modded bios though 😁

It looks like this thread is winding down, so I thought I'd make a final post and let everybody know that I've decided to use my Canopus cards. I guess they're not quite as uncommon/rare/unique as I thought. Still, I really like the more-flexible pass-through cable that the Canopus cards use, so I'm going to put them into service.

I've also decided not to use the Antec Basiq 350W power supply. See the other thread for details. Mostly, I really don't want any nagging thoughts about power issues in the back of my mind while using this PC. So, I ordered a 600W Rosewill PSU that provides 45A on the 5V rail. I'm also going to use a GeForce FX 5900 Ultra for the primary video.

I'm really looking forward to my new build. I've never really been into benchmarks or anything, but if anybody is interested and they can tell me how to do it, I'll run some and post the results.

Thank you all for your thoughts, opinions and insights! This site is a fantastic resource!

Thanks again!

Hey, feel free to post up updates on the build - some screenshots, or some 3dmark 2001 numbers 😀