CPU: Actually I'm going to use a Powerleap PL-ProMMX Plus adaptor I bought from Japan (Yes I know, it would have been easier to just get another socket 7 board)

You probably would've preferred to hear this before you bought it, but I'm pretty sure you don't actually need that adapter if you go with a P233. That board should be able to go down to 2.5V, despite what TULARC shows (which is a much older revision than the one you have). I believe it also has an undocumented 75mhz and/or 83mhz bus setting.

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

CPU: Actually I'm going to use a Powerleap PL-ProMMX Plus adaptor I bought from Japan (Yes I know, it would have been easier to just get another socket 7 board)

You probably would've preferred to hear this before you bought it, but I'm pretty sure you don't actually need that adapter if you go with a P233. That board should be able to go down to 2.5V, despite what TULARC shows (which is a much older revision than the one you have). I believe it also has an undocumented 75mhz and/or 83mhz bus setting.

He can't run a P233 in the board if there is no 3.5 multiplier setting for it. If there is a undocumented 75mhz and/or 83mhz it could ofc be overclocked through FSB. The Powerleap adapter can be set to 2x (which the CPU should read as 6x) and then you can have 400mhz. If bus speed can indeed be increased you can get 6x75= 450mhz. Some games do take advantage of 3DNow, most notable is Quake 2 which gives a tremendous advantage with the 3Dnow driver (I went for 40 fps to 57 fps in 1024x768 when I had my K6-2)

From what I know he only paid 15 dollars + shipping for the adapter (with original box, manual, CPUs) so it was a good deal.

He can't run a P233 in the board if there is no 3.5 multiplier setting for it.

But it does have a 3.5X setting. Technically all socket 7 boards have a 3.5X multiplier, because it's not really a function of the board, but of the CPU... it's remapped to the same setting as 1.5X, in the same way that 2X = 6X on the higher-speed K6-2 chips.

Don't forget that not all older motherboards could use a processor upgrade without a BIOS flash first.

For that time period the Socket 7 platform is indeed the much better choice.

I think you should get AMD K6 due it performance, but try them first if it stable or not. If not stable, use MMX 233.

Is your (abit) mobo using SoftMenu?

Here is a brief overview of what you can cover with different CPUs.

It's part of my MS-DOS Time-Machine YT channel project. Wish I had more time 🙁

Findings:

- Non-MMX supports the 1.5 multiplier and can run at 100MHz and therefore the slowest Pentium chip.
- MMX chips is faster, but lowest multiplier is 2x = 133 MHz. Best chip to use if you need to want to hit a 486DX2-66 with L1 cache turned off.
- K6-2+ is a mobile chip, low voltage (need to check for BIOS and voltage support). Multiplier can be set via CONFIG.SYS driver which is very convenient. Fastest DOS gaming performance of all chips. Personally for such games that need this kind of performance go to a BX440 machine.
- K6 chips slowest when L1 Cache disabled. Not ideal for hitting a 486DX2-66.

What do I recommend?

Really depends on what you want to do 😀

This is exactly why I made the CPU sensitive games list - that way, one can easily catalog which games can be feasibly played on which machine. It's no use without significant contributions from others though, as I don't own all games ever released or have time to test everything myself.

Thanx for the answers guys. I'm going to try both cpu's, try different settings and do some benchmarks.

My idea is not to go as down as a 486DX2 66mhz as I already have one (Mau1wurf1977) But play 1995-1997 year games on this baby.

In terms of performance, what's better:

40 EDO ram or 64 FPM ram?

Vetz: These dip switches found in the Powerleap Adaptor
Do they have to be the same as in the Socket 7 motherboard?

Ah no worries!

In this case either the MMX 233 or the K6-2+ or K6-3+. Now I actually don't know if Pentium optimized games (floating point) run faster on the MMX 233 compared to a highly clocked K6-2+ or K6-3+. I guess the MMX 233 is a very safe bet.

If you need more power then you could go straight to the P3 or P4.

Pingaloka wrote:

40 EDO ram or 64 FPM ram?

According to testing done by Gona with a 430VX board the EDO is about 5% quicker. If that outweighs the extra benefit of getting 64MB system RAM is up to you.

Pingaloka wrote:

Vetz: These dip switches found in the Powerleap Adaptor
Do they have to be the same in the Socket 7 motherboard?

No. The adapter will override the motherboard. The only thing you have to set on the motherboard is the FSB. I am pretty sure you can set it to 6x multiplier by setting the first three DIP switches to ON - OFF - OFF (that is how it is with all other Powerleap adapters with 10 DIP switches)

DIPS 4,5,6,7,8 controls the voltage
DIP 9 is Pin AL-1 Compatibility
DIP 10 is CPU overheat protection set ON to enable.

Well it seems that the Powerleap does not override the motherboard settings. And because the multiplier in this MOBO only goes up to 3x I have only been able to set the 233MMX up to 200mhz. Any suggestions? Or that is the end of it?

Pingaloka wrote:

Well it seems that the Powerleap does not override the motherboard settings. And because the multiplier in this MOBO only goes up to 3x I have only been able to set the 233MMX up to 200mhz. Any suggestions? Or that is the end of it?

I have an idea. So the cpu isn't soldered to the adapter? Why not try to use a multiplier locked MMX 233 with it? I think this way your motherboard wouldn't be able to override Multi settings if your CPU isn't capable of doing it

subhuman@xgtx wrote:

Pingaloka wrote:

Well it seems that the Powerleap does not override the motherboard settings. And because the multiplier in this MOBO only goes up to 3x I have only been able to set the 233MMX up to 200mhz. Any suggestions? Or that is the end of it?

I have an idea. So the cpu isn't soldered to the adapter? Why not try to use a multiplier locked MMX 233 with it? I think this way your motherboard wouldn't be able to override Multi settings if your CPU isn't capable of doing it

That is an option, but I'd rather take advantage of the stuff I already have.
I don't have any locked 233MMX CPU's at the moment.
I do have an AMD-K6 2, tried it on the board and booted as a 486DX 66mhz!!!

200 vs 233 is likely bugger all difference. I'd be happy with that 😀

It is really strange that the Powerleap adapter does not override the multiplier on the motherboard. I've tested them in my 430VX and MVP3 board and never experienced that before. Have you installed the latest BIOS to the Abit board? You could also surf around on Powerleap's old websites through archive.org. Might be some information about this board. As I recall not all boards were compatible.

Other things to try out:
1. Setting multiplier to 1.5x, does that yield 233mhz?
2. The AMD K6-II might be reported as a 486, but what do speedsys report? How is the performance?

vetz wrote:

It is really strange that the Powerleap adapter does not override the multiplier on the motherboard. I've tested them in my 430V […]
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It is really strange that the Powerleap adapter does not override the multiplier on the motherboard. I've tested them in my 430VX and MVP3 board and never experienced that before. Have you installed the latest BIOS to the Abit board? You could also surf around on Powerleap's old websites through archive.org. Might be some information about this board. As I recall not all boards were compatible.

Other things to try out:
1. Setting multiplier to 1.5x, does that yield 233mhz?
2. The AMD K6-II might be reported as a 486, but what do speedsys report? How is the performance?

Indeed it is Vetz. I'm going to keep trying different settings and see if I can make this baby go pass the 200mhz.

For games from 94 till 98 what OS should I install in this machine. Windows 95, Windows 98? Dual boot with Ms-DOS option?

This is the setup for now:

Pentium 200MMX
64mb FPM RAM
S3 Trio64V+ 2MB
Diamond Voodoo1
Yamaha YMF719 + XR385

W95B or W98SE gets my vote as they come with FAT32 support. Leaning towards W95B for some reason (because you mention till 98...).

I just saw your Floppy Disk Drive emulator video Mau1wurf1977, I noticed that you have Windows 98 in a Pentium 200 so I might as well go for that setup as I read Windows 98SE is a bit more stable than Windows 95.
Also, any reasons for booting directly into DOS and not Windows?

BTW this floppy emulators are the best thing! Really handy!