Intel chipsets will be more popular for a P3, either the 440 or the 815 (820 is also an option if you don't mind buying RDRAM and can find a board). I don't see any reason you have to stop at 800MHz though. Going with a P4 (Socket 423 or 478; there is no 438 - I would go 478 unless you have some attachment to the 423 platform) may offer more performance (if you go with a 1.8GHz or above chip), but you will lose 3.3V AGP and may lose some backwards compatibility with very old operating systems compared to a P3 system; Win98 should be no problem, but I don't know about 3.11 or 3.51. Socket 462/A for Athlon/AthlonXP does offer boards that support 3.3V AGP, and like the P4 will offer better performance over the P3. SATA is also not impossible to find built-in for P4 or AthlonXP, which may save you the need for adapters. Just some things to consider. Graphics card wise, if you know the S3 to work with everything you wanted, that sounds like a winner. TNT2 should work too, but finding a non-M64 may take some doing (of course, there's nothing wrong with the M64 except performance).

820-boards are cheap on eBay. Some cones with CPU and RD-Ram.
Others do not. Yet they do not have ISA slots. (mine's got SB-Link header)

Voodoo cards, depending on the model, scale well with the processor. But as you increase resolution the processor isn't that important anymore. A Pentium III 800 MHz does the trick and slot 1 boards shouldn't be hard to find.

At the top is the Pentium III-S 1.4 GHz, quite the beast but boards are harder to find. 815 chipset gets my vote for compatibility and performance. But a 1.1 GHz Pentium III in a Slot 1 board with CL2 memory is not that far behind.

For a lot of data about Voodoo 2 SLI scaling check out my 60+ page project here: http://www.philscomputerlab.com/voodoo-2-and- … ng-project.html

V3, 4 and 5 card results can be found here: http://www.philscomputerlab.com/3dfx-voodoo-s … ut-project.html

I ran Windows 98 SE on Socket 478 systems with great success. The 865 chipset gets my vote. Even V2 ran fine in this system however I found that a Pentium III fast faster than the P4 platform. It wasn't until 3 GHz that the P4 could get a lead.

So personally I would stick with a PIII for Voodoo and on a P4 play around with GeForce card which have excellent OpenGL and DirectX compatibility, enough power for 1600 x 1200 gaming and / or AA.

But it all depends on what you actually want to do with this system. There are just too many variables.

I have a love for asus boards, so i recommend the p3b-f or p2b because they are great boards and very stable/reliable.

Abit slot1 boards are awesome too and Aopen has very good boards. Not a big fan of the via chipsets on slot1. I have such a board but i prefer the 440bx over every other chipset.

I run my p3b-f with a p3-700 and combined with a voodoo3 3500 it runs almost every glide game extremely well. V2-sli performs almost the same and when you use 1024x768 there is really no reason to go faster on the cpu since the cards will be maxxed out anyway with even a slower cpu.

I use a pIII-s 1400mhz as well but since it can max out a v5 5500 easily when used with higher resolutions or AA there is no real use to pair it with v2 sli. It will just push the cards real hard and make them run even hotter...

sli setup i have in a k6-3+ 600mhz system and even that setup handles most glide games very well and that cpu is a lot slower compared to the p3-700

So if you want to cover a big part of the 90's: 440bx board, p3-550 or higher, 256mb, win98se, geforce2 (gts,pro, or ti), v2-sli and any creative isa soundcard will give you a good experience.

The P3B-F looks like a sexy board! It can even cope with Tualatins with the right slotket! Also it's got ISA and AGP (2x... should be fine for both the Savage4, TNT or even something newer like a cheap MX4000 or FX5200), along with plenty of PCI for my needs. I could also get one of those Promise SATA/IDE controllers to get better HD speeds if needed, but that would probably be unnecessary. The only problem so far is that the only seller that has those in my country in our "eBay" seems to have low rep, but I'm not gonna buy it right away anyway... I've got time to look arround =)

If you're going to go with a newer graphics card, I would take the FX 5200 over the MX 4000. It'll give you DX8.1 support if you have anything that needs it, and can still run with "old" nVidia drivers (it's one of the original GeForce FX cards, so it can use various 4x.xx releases that folks seem to like). Get a passive cooled card either way - neither of them requires a fan, unless you just want some more noise in the machine. I also agree with meljor on the GeForce 2 if you want to go with something that's more contemporaneous; I have a 2 Ultra in my 98SE machine, but GTS/Pro/Ti are equally competent (they all have the same feature-set, the difference between them is performance). They will run older drivers than 4x.xx if that matters for your configuration. If you're going Tualatin I'd pass on the P4 - performance will be very similar (if not an advantage to the Tualatin) until you break the 2GHz barrier on the P4, and even then the P4 may not have significant advantages until you get a significantly faster/newer chip, as Phil points out.

Well, i just like the asus boards very much. P2B is also very good.

But there are many other good 440bx boards as the chipset is just awesome. Almost every good brand board comes with the same features like isa, lots of pci and an agp slot.
So if a p3b-f or p2b is no option in your area then maybe you can find another brand.

Just search at tomshardware for a review of 440bx boards and you will see which boards were recommended.

Remember when putting in a tualatin with these boards the agp bus gets overclocked to 89mhz (with 133mhz fsb cpu). Not every agp card likes that speed bump.
You can avoid it with a celeron tualatin which is also really fast but runs with a fsb of 100mhz (keeping the agp bus at 66mhz)

Oooh no, I'm not planning on putting an MX4000 or FX5200 on that build... It is just that I have both of them stored in my shelves, so I could put one of them temporarily until I get the one I want. I want NT 3.51 support so going with anything newer than a TNT2 or Savage 4 isn't an option.
Also a Tualatin is not a priority... But if I get a Slot 1 board I might just get a spare slocket and a Tually just to play arround.
So my current idea for the build is:
Voodoo² SLI
SB Live!
Cheap ISA Vibra
Savage4 Pro or TNT2
Coppermine 700-800
440BX board (slot 1 preferably)
Realtek PCI NIC
USB2 or SATA/IDE add on controller (optional)

How strong would my PSU need to be for that?

Depending on how many disk drives, fans, etc you want, I think a 250-300W PSU would be perfect. Of course if you want like 8 drive 15k SCSI and a bunch of really high performance Delta/Vantec/etc fans you may need a bigger PSU, but if we're going to assume everything is "typical" it shouldn't be too bad at all.

I would agree with Asus... but I would try to get a CUBX. I have two and they are great boards. Socket 370 will greatly open up your choice of CPUs and coolers. Just my two cents,

The CUBX is an interesting choice... from what I've read it is basically one of the best boards with the 440bx chipset. The only problem is that it appears to be even harder to find, and more expensive. I'll keep reading about 440bx boards, as that chipset seems to be awesome.

alexanrs wrote:

The CUBX is an interesting choice... from what I've read it is basically one of the best boards with the 440bx chipset. The only problem is that it appears to be even harder to find, and more expensive. I'll keep reading about 440bx boards, as that chipset seems to be awesome.

I know there's an ebay seller that apparently has a stockpile of boxed Intel boards with 440BX FWIW. I've never bought one, but I've seen the listing a time or two. I would assume they're decent enough boards - Intel branded boards are usually fairly stable and reliable, but don't expect the best overclocking performance. 😊

Did anyone from VOGONS buy such a board? Would be interesting to get a mini review. Especially what processors it supports since Intel might not have bleeding edge BIOSes.

In my opinion a Pentium III machine should be in range from 600 MHz to 800 MHz as it defines the Pentium III era and covers most glide games. Something other people failed to mention is that very fast CPUs will make your 3dfx chips run a bit hotter. It's probably not a deal breaker for most people, but it is to me. For something else I would just go with the Athlon XP or the Pentium IV. I would choose the Intel SE440BX-2 as my socket 1 mainboard. The answer is simple, it's rock solid stable as well as cheap and easy to find. When it comes to a video card for a Pentium III rig I would pick the 3dfx Voodoo3 3000/3500 or the Matrox G400/G400MAX or the GeForce 4 Ti4600. Why buy a video card based on the Nvidia GeForce2 chipset when you can buy a video card based on the NVIDIA GeForce4 chipset that you can also put in a Pentium IV machine? If you decide to get a GeForce 4 video card then make sure to check if it's compatible with your specific 440BX chipset based mainboard. When it comes to sound cards for a such rig I would prefer the one based on the Aureal Vortex2 chipset. Creative Sound Blaster Live! would be my second option.

Do you have the Intel SE440BX-2?\

Voodoo cards do indeed run warmer / hotter the more fps they pump out. I recommend enabling V-sync as it will keep the temperatures down. Or put passive coolers on V1 and V2 cards and active cooling on V3.

Regarding the Voodoo2 running warmer - paired up with a 2GHz P4 or a 1GHz P3 (either way) mine doesn't get too hot to touch, and I have had no artefacts or other problems. I wouldn't worry about it with a P3 or similar-age P4/Athlon system, but in previous threads people have mentioned massive overkill CPUs like Athlon64 FX or Core 2 enabling a V1/V2 to get fairly hot. Of course if you're very concerned, adding some heatsinks or ensuring that your case has good airflow isn't a bad choice, nor would it be very expensive. Unfortunately Voodoo2 doesn't report its temperatures, and I'm not aware of published thermal limits for the card either. Of course if you have artefacts, that's a problem.

It's also worth pointing out that this isn't a 3dfx-unique problem in principle, and I've observed the same thing with GeForce cards as well. Generally in situations where the system/application is heavily CPU limited, the graphics hardware won't run as hot.

If you are going for a geForce4 on a P-III, why not just go all the way for a FX-5XXX card?
I understand if someone would pick a geForce2 card, for a more correct P-III build (600 to 800mhz).
Or even better.... Pick a TNT2 Ultra 32mb, or the best V3 avaliable. (just to keep it in the 90's)
On the other hand, someone should clearly pick a 5500/5900 card over a 4.

Eighter do an era correct build, or pick parts for a maxed out build, within the spectrum of a P-III-Build.

brostenen wrote:

If you are going for a geForce4 on a P-III, why not just go all the way for a FX-5XXX card? I understand if someone would pick a […]
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If you are going for a geForce4 on a P-III, why not just go all the way for a FX-5XXX card?
I understand if someone would pick a geForce2 card, for a more correct P-III build (600 to 800mhz).
Or even better.... Pick a TNT2 Ultra 32mb, or the best V3 avaliable. (just to keep it in the 90's)
On the other hand, someone should clearly pick a 5500/5900 card over a 4.

Eighter do an era correct build, or pick parts for a maxed out build, within the spectrum of a P-III-Build.

I failed to see where it says "era correct build", but speaking of it...Why limit yourself? Why not to mix the best from both worlds? Many of you pick "era correct" parts, but still come up with an excuse to have a modern case or a modern hard drive or a modern CDRW/DVD drive...I don't get why people go crazy about crappy TNT cards when you can hit a jackpot by going with one of the GeForce series. May be this person doesn't have much money to burn and he could really cut corners with the GeForce4 instead of the GeForce2. It will also allow him to max graphics out in many OpenGL based games. Both chipsets either the GeForce3 or the GeForce4 are superior to the GeForce2. Later on he could pair a such card with Athlon XP or Pentium IV. A GeForce4 based video card Is future proof it's like a good investment. Who cares about a fail such as the FX series? I don't even know if you can pair this crap with a slot 1 motherboard since it has the AGP 8x bus. At the end of the day it comes to whatever he can get. Any GeForce card will work.

The reason for wanting a TNT or Savage4 is NT3.51 drivers... There is a VESA driver arround the internet but I've never had much luck with it.
Also, wouldn't most games that would benefit from a GF FX run better on my Athlon64 + GF 6600 anyway? I might build a P4 with a Ti 4x00 try Splinter Cell out in the future, though.