Jupiter-18 wrote:

Looking for a motherboard with two AGP slots

My advice: take it slow, read a lot of magazines/articles from the era and research a lot.
(I'd suggest Google Book's Maximum PC and PC Magz archives, Computer Gaming World archive, and tomshardware)

Then please let me know if you ever find the above! 😀

I'm willing to bet he means PCI slots. V2's are pci only after all.

luckybob wrote:

I'm willing to bet he means PCI slots. V2's are pci only after all.

I didn't even realize that! 🤣
Would a Voodoo 2 SLI setup be a good choice for a dual Pentium 3 pc? Or is there a better option?

voodoo 2's typically require windows 98 and thus are single cpu items.

That said, I personally have an AMD 1ghz system with my voodoo 2's. I use a Matrox G450 video card in the agp slot, with DVI out. This lets me hok both up to my monitor and eliminate the sli video cable crap, because my monitor will auto-switch.

Jupiter-18 wrote:

Hello!
My next retro PC build will be a Slot 1 build. I'm hoping to build a dual slot 1 PC with two Katmai Pentium IIIs. Looking for a motherboard with two AGP slots for a 3dfx Voodoo 2 SLI setup. I've looked at the chipsets for Slot 1, and I'd like some advice as to which is better: Intel i820E or Via Apollo Pro 133A. Any advice on this subject would be appreciated, as I am just starting with this subject.
Thanks!

🤣 you need to do your research as no board with two agp slots exists ever! If you want a cheap smp box from the period just keep looking over a month to three months and you can get lucky with either a dual slot 1 or a dual 370 board often with matching procs, ram, coolers, and sometimes other goodies. 440BX and 815 is the most common but 820 is very uncommon as it didn't sell well for a veriety of reasons mainly due to cost and performance. VIA boards are common and cheap.

🤣 you need to do your research as no board with two agp slots exists ever! If you want a cheap smp box from the period just keep looking over a month to three months and you can get lucky with either a dual slot 1 or a dual 370 board often with matching procs, ram, coolers, and sometimes other goodies. 440BX and 815 is the most common but 820 is very uncommon as it didn't sell well for a veriety of reasons mainly due to cost and performance. VIA boards are common and cheap.

Got it! 🤣 Are Via chipsets as buggy as people say?

There are better boards.

Stick with 440BX and you honestly cant go wrong.

Boards like the Asus P3B-F are very expensive, but usually of the highest quality. Stick with name brands that are still around today, you will pay a premium for them, but in most cases they will be better boards.

My ideal board would be a Dual CPU board with either the Intel i820E or Via Apollo Pro 133A chipsets. Know any that meet these requirements?

Jupiter-18 wrote:

🤣 you need to do your research as no board with two agp slots exists ever! If you want a cheap smp box from the period just keep looking over a month to three months and you can get lucky with either a dual slot 1 or a dual 370 board often with matching procs, ram, coolers, and sometimes other goodies. 440BX and 815 is the most common but 820 is very uncommon as it didn't sell well for a veriety of reasons mainly due to cost and performance. VIA boards are common and cheap.

Got it! 🤣 Are Via chipsets as buggy as people say?

Some VIA chipsets are excrement but usually the boards they are on are always the bottom end junk often with rotten bloated caps, the good VIA boards are just fine and are desirable performers while not as fast as Intel but they have the perk of being great overclocking boards. The 820 isn't worth it trust me find a 815 or a VIA board before you buy one of those.

The best all-round Slot1 chip set is 440BX originally designed for 100MHz FSB Pentium II. There are last-gen 440BX boards that overclock the chip set by default to 133MHz FSB operation. They exist because Intel never released anything better for Slot1/Socket370, being busy playing with RAMBUS. However, running BX at 133MHz results in 89MHz AGP bus, default for which is 66MHz. Some videocards don't like it at all. That's where VIA Apollo Pro 133A comes to play, boards like ASUS P3V4X. They perform on par with 440BX, sometimes slightly slower, but offer 66MHz AGP at 133MHz.

The result is, a 133MHz 440BX board is the best you can have for a PIII at stock clock, if your videocard can handle it. If you wish to overclock, VIA Apollo Pro 133A is worth considering.

P.S. Just FYI, fastest Slot 1 processors, 733MHz and above, are a rare breed. Pentiums were introduced on Socket 370 (previously Mendocino exclusive) at the time of Coppermine. Socket 370 CPUs were cheaper to produce and are much more common. You can use the Slotket adapter to mount a Socket 370 CPU in Slot1 machine, but that kind of kills the point.

correct, the last true official slot-1 cpu from intel was the 850 if memory serves. They made a 1ghz chip with 100fsb later but it was more of an afterthought.

So jupiter-18, exactly what do you want to DO with this setup? I assume from wanting 2x V2's your plan is late 90's gaming. What is your skill level with computers? Budget? etc.

I was planning on doing exactly that. Would XP run on a system like this? I love computers, and I've been planning a modern build for quite some time. I love tinkering, so the more involved the better! 🤣
Why isn't the i820E worth it? I'll likely go with the Via Apollo 133A, but if the Intel i820E is good, then I'll go with it.

What do people think of the Tyan Tiger 133 S1834D-I? Via Apollo 133A, dual slot 1, 1GB ram, 1 ISA (which is all i need, for the soundblaster AWE32 PnP-IDE), six pci, one agp. Looks like the best choice!

I personally would save XP for Pentium 4 era computers.

The shallow end of the retro gaming pool is the Pentium 3 socket 370 build. Cheap, easy to build, work in 99.999% of cases for people.

The deep end is usually the dual cpu systems, with obscure hardware that tends to cost out the ass. These are mostly built for show, at least in my experience.

One of the other members here makes really neat videos, I'd recommend this one for starters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pmpdQ073-4

So then the best OS would be 98? The Tyan Tiger looks like my ideal board. I will save up for it!

for voodoo 2's. yes

Exciting! This will likely be my setup:
CPU: Intel Pentium III Slot 1 x2
Mobo: Tyan Tiger 133 S1834D-I
GPU: 3Dfx Voodoo 2 SLI setup
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster AWE32 PnP-IDE + Dreamblaster X1

... yet 98 does not support multiple CPUs and only a single one would work. I would forget about the dual CPU thing if I were you. There's no point in it, at least not for gaming of that era.

And what's going to be your primary GPU? Voodoo 2 won't handle 2D.

Watch the video I posted, thats a VERY nice setup for what your looking to do. Granted it isnt "Slot 1" but it will be much cheaper and easier to build.