Driver support is one big thing for 98se builds. I'd like to do a P4 3.2 HT build but I have 2 Athlon XP builds already which deal well with that era, an Athlon XP 3200+ and a 3000+ both on ASUS A8NX.

Another good reason is the whole Price / Performance / Availability of hardware

Later Chips and boards like 775 and 754 / 939 are better suited to windows XP builds.

Well I see the P4 as a cheaper alternative to the P3 😀

It doesn't have ISA, but PCI sound cards work well, and with later DOS games compatibility is very good. Windows 98 compatibility is excellent, you benefit from USB 2, stable Intel chipset, working SATA controllers and decent performance. You can get a 800 MHz FSB chip and underclock it to lower speed, save power, reduce heat and noise.

775 for me is XP era, I'm sure there are ways to get Windows 98 running, but I haven't tried any of this. I don't see a need for such a fast system for Windows 98.

For Windows XP the Pentium 4 quickly runs out of steam IMO. Here you're much better of with something newer, though I would skip 775 and go straight to a newer core i3/i5 system or AMD AM3+.

I also have personal good memories of the P4, especially Northwood and 865 chipset. The Athlon 64 is very good, but chipset can be hit and miss and there are PCI issues that can lead to popping sounds with X-Fi cards, basically not as mature as Intel.

Some socket478 motherboards feature a PC/PCI connector, which makes for excellent compatibility with certain sound cards in DOS. There are no LGA775 motherboards with PC/PCI that I know of.

stamasd wrote:

Some socket478 motherboards feature a PC/PCI connector, which makes for excellent compatibility with certain sound cards in DOS. There are no LGA775 motherboards with PC/PCI that I know of.

Yes, this would be a perfect reason to get one 😀. I'll take a look on what's at hand. I don't think IBM bothered with PC/PCI. Thanks!

elod wrote:

stamasd wrote:

Some socket478 motherboards feature a PC/PCI connector, which makes for excellent compatibility with certain sound cards in DOS. There are no LGA775 motherboards with PC/PCI that I know of.

Yes, this would be a perfect reason to get one 😀. I'll take a look on what's at hand. I don't think IBM bothered with PC/PCI. Thanks!

I have a thread or two about that on this subforum. There are very few motherboards with socket 478 and PC/PCI, and almost all were made by QDI. I have personally tested a QDI PlatiniX 4X and a QDI PlatiniX 2E/333. There are a few other PlatiniX motherboards that probably have a PC/PCI connector, or at least the pads to solder one. You need a modified SETUPDS.EXE to make them work with Yamaha PCI cards.

YMF744, DOS, no DMA? (PC/PCI, SB-link tests) (edit YES DMA, read further down)

(N.B. the first one is a socker423 motherboard, not 478).

I think that socket-775 with 865 chipset is best and fastest decision. It is not necessary to get FSB800. It's enough FSB400 and DDR266 for DOS and Win98. You can't feel a difference in DOS and Win9X, it's true 😀 Therefore take Pentium E5700 or E5800, make BSEL mod 100 and plug it into i865-s775 motherboard which supports Core 2. You will get 600-1500MHz with one active core. You may set in BIOS multiplier 6 for 600MHz in DOS and in Win98 make presets for turn any CPU frequency up to 1500(E5700)-1600(E5800)MHz. A program CrystalCPUID can do it! I checked in Windows 98. At 1,5GHz frequency a Wolfdale CPU will break your Pentium 4.

But if you like FSB800 just get it without BSEL mod. The frequencies will be 1200-3000(3200)MHz. Start 1200, in Windows - CPUID presets.

Why 478 over 775? Hmmm....
I would say, better chance of getting drivers for Win98 as the main reason.

Well, one of the main issues for LGA 775 for OS earlier than XP are:
1 - Driver support in many chipsets
2 - Win 9x issues with Prescotts unless you disable CPUID max value
3 - Win 9x issues with large RAM quantities unless you limit it by editing some configuration files
4 - Windows 2000 doesn't fully support hyperthreading

As i know, LGA 775 chipsets with Win 9x support are:
Intel 845 series (chipset from Socket 478 generation, but used in LGA 775 mobos)
Intel 848P (chipset from Socket 478 generation, but used in LGA 775 mobos)
Intel 865 series (chipset from Socket 478 generation, but used in LGA 775 mobos)
Intel 875P (chipset from Socket 478 generation, but used in at least 1 LGA 775 mobo)
SiS 661FX
All VIA chipsets

Chipsets with Win 2000 support are:
All listed on Win 9x support
All Intel 900 series
All Intel 3 series
All Intel 4 series
Radeon Xpress 200/1150
Radeon Xpress x1250
nForce 680i including all variants
nForce 650i and 650i Ultra
nForce 5 series
nForce 4 series

I've got Windows 98 running on a ASUS P5VD2-MX before, everything working except for the the SoundMAX HD Audio Integrated

elod wrote:

Phil's idea of a P4 build just keeps bugging my neurons since I've read about it. I never had a P4, was all Athlon at the time, […]
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Phil's idea of a P4 build just keeps bugging my neurons since I've read about it.
I never had a P4, was all Athlon at the time, I still have a 939 Uli AGP/PCIe MB stashed away (and a couple of Socket A ones as well).

I also have 2 or 3 p5p800-vm (865G) with some Celerons, but also a separate P4 631 Cedar Mill so I will definitely do a build based on these.

So why bother with the Socket 478 generation?

I'm asking the question now because we'll soon be trashing a lot of 2003 vintage IBMs (P4 1.6-1.8-2G tops) that do not seem to be worth much.

Go on, i have one using this exactly motherboard(p5p800-vm).
My build actually have one AGP ATI Radeon 9600 PRO and a Creative SoundBlaster Live!, but if you have the chance to get one board with Aureal Vortex 2 it will be a lot better.
Except for dos audio, my build is goddamn stable, i didn't have any problems with it, but as a said if you get one Aureal Vortex 2 board you will be pretty good on DOS Compatibility aswell with Windows 98 sound.

The way I feel about pentium 4 is that it is all xp era stuff to me and for dos stuff that is what real 386/486 is for. Pentium 3 stuff is still available here in the states but supplies are drying up but still a little falls through the cracks at low prices. Fast 98 is still bit of the rage so some into that with with high end 478. I enjoy tinkering with more exotic hardware though like Pentium M stuff and dual gpu graphics cards.

Be aware that 775 boards support sata but its often sata 1.0
and newer sata drives dont have a jumper to set sata 1 mode so the boards wont detect the drive

"The designers of SATA aimed for backward and forward compatibility with future revisions of the SATA standard.To prevent interoperability problems that could occur when next generation SATA drives are installed on motherboards with standard legacy SATA 1.5 Gbit/s host controllers, many manufacturers have made it easy to switch those newer drives to the previous standard's mode. For example, Seagate/Maxtor has added a user-accessible jumper-switch, known as the force 150, to enable the drive switch between forced 1.5 Gbit/s and 1.5/3 Gbit/s negotiated operation. Western Digital uses a jumper setting called OPT1 enabled to force 1.5 Gbit/s data transfer speed (OPT1 is enabled by putting the jumper on pins 5 and 6). Samsung drives can be forced to 1.5 Gbit/s mode using software that may be downloaded from the manufacturer's website. Configuring some Samsung drives in this manner requires the temporary use of a SATA-2 (SATA 3.0 Gbit/s) controller while programming the drive.

And what? Nobody prevents to install SATA1 HDD.

If we take for system CPU E5700 and turn FSB to 133MHz it would be 800MHz-2GHz. It's excellent! 2GHz is equal about Pentium 4 3GHz. At the same time you can set down to 800MHz and it is equal about Pentium 3 or Athlon 1GHz.
By the way Windows 98 and most programs/benchmarks/games of that era "see" the Wolfdale CPUs as "Pentium-3" 😀 (because similar ID) It is funnily and even has its own chic!

Therefore "Why 478 and not 775?" is incorrect question. "Why 775 on i865 with AGP?" is correct.

And more: if you're ready to leave ISA you may look also at nForce3 and socket-939 (with AGP8X too), Athlon-64 FX. It is very comfortable, powerful configuration for Windows 98 with full official 9X chipset supporting.

With S775, you can get unlocked Core2duo CPUs that scale from 600MHz to 3000MHz+. Win98 drivers are available for the right chipset. And this range covers P3, P4 and C2D eras.

Below the 600MHz range, you can build K6/ VIA C3 machines for speed sensitivity and ISA. So with the right builds, you can have just TWO machines covering: 8088, 286, 386 ,486, Pentium, P2, P3, P4 and C2D...

Davros wrote:

Be aware that 775 boards support sata but its often sata 1.0
and newer sata drives dont have a jumper to set sata 1 mode so the boards wont detect the drive

I used ASRock 775Dual-VSTA, and it didn't have any problems detecting SATA2 HDD's.

Also, my 865P PGA 478 MB works fine with 500GB Samsung F3 (a SATA2 native drive).
My FastTrak S150 TX4 PCI controller (SATA1), works with my 4TB Seagate SATA3 drive (limited to ~2TB while using "MBR" of course).

Athlon64 CPUs can underclock via multiplier. They also make an excellent platform for that range.

I try to get a 775 board mainly for the better heatsinks and the ability to run quiet fans on them. I never liked 478's heatsink/fan combo.

775 boards are newer and supported newer processors, while still maintaining Win98 compatibility (edit - upto i875 chipset).

My P4 Gigabyte i865 chipset GA-8IPE775 Pro motherboard runs WIndows 98SE and TinyCore Linux. Using P4 660 3.6GHz processor.

775 can still run okay in 98SE. A Core2 is detected as some kind of Pentium 3, incidentally. It does a lot better than P4 for sure.

You'll want to be more concerned about chipset support than CPU support. 875 is the latest you'll get officially, but the Intel 900 boards do have modified drivers available. At that point though you can't really use any of the extra power available to you in 98SE.

If I did it over again, I'd avoid 478 entirely, unless I found a board with PC/PCI. I'd go up (like I eventually did) to 775 C2D and write off that capability, or down to 370 P3 and use a good board with either ISA or PC/PCI. These processors have given me far less trouble.

Only Wolfdale/Yorkfield are detected as Pentium 3. Conroe/Kentsfield aren't.

Unofficial 98/ME driver is not "for 900 boards" 😀 It is for ICH7 and you always have not problem with PCI video cards exactly. With PCI-E and 82.69 as it will be, successfully or poorly.

There aren't boards with AGP8X, DDR and PC/PCI. But there are a lot of boards s478, AGP8X, DDR and ISA.
And there are only 4 boards s775, AGP8X, DDR, ISA:

1) Anovo AIMB-865
2) Itox/DFI G7S620-N-G
3) Axiomtek IMB200
4) iBASE MB-865R

First supports Core2.
Second doesn't officially but with BIOS mod it does. I have this one modded with Core2, works fine.
Third supports Pentium 4/D. The mod for Core2 exists but isn't stable work.
Fourth even not supports Pentium D. Only single core Pentium 4.

With Itox G7S620-N I use two OSes - Win98/DOS7 and WinXP. DOS with 100x6=600MHz. Win98 with 100x(6---20)=600-2000MHz. WinXP with 133x18=2.4GHz or 133x21=2,8GHz or 200x14=2,8GHz (as you wish). And in WinXP two active cores of course 😀 CPU is unlocked Core 2 Extreme X6800.