It depends really. If your socket 7 board is actually a super 7 board (it has AGP and SDR) then go with that. These support K6-2+ and K6-3 cpus witch can be slowed down via setmul for speed sensitive dos games or be overclocked by multiplier to provide a speed boost in 1998-1999 games.

If it's just a regular socket 7 board, go with the socket 8 kit. The Pentium PRO's L2 cache runs at CPU speed witch should give it an advantage over the regular pentium witch relies on the slower L2 cache on the motherboard.

If you're interested in DOS gaming, I'd say go socket 7 (due to the flexibility) as long as your board supports 2.0-2.2V cpus. See below for a list of boards which handle K6-2+/III+ (as well as some other handy features). It's worth noting that your P166MMX might by itself be very potent for DOS gaming, depending on whether it exposes TR12 registers to SETMUL.
http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/J.Steunebrink/k6plus.htm

Another intriguing possibility exists in ISA bus equipped slot 1/slocket (ideally BX) or socket 370 motherboards running VIA Eden CPUs, as they provide a huge number of tweaking options also via SETMUL, perhaps having even more flexibility than socket 7.

My opinion on socket 8 for gaming.

It was awesome for GLQuake because PPRO is much faster at 32-bit for which it was designed (running NT and such). It is however slower at 16-bit. It can be cool but I wouldn't use it for DOS.

If 1997 is your date, I suggest a Slot 1 PentiumII. That's what was the l33t Battlestation at the time, and the 440FX is no BX, but it's sure sturdy as hell.

kanecvr wrote:

If your socket 7 board is actually a super 7 board (it has AGP and SDR) then go with that.

Alas, it is just regular Socket 7, however does surprisingly support 2.2V core voltage and max 83.3MHz FSB, hence compatibility with most K6-2, but not K6-2+ or K6-III. I actually have a stack of K6-2 450 processors around here somewhere if/when I want to upgrade.

squareguy wrote:

It [Pentium Pro] is however slower at 16-bit. It can be cool but I wouldn't use it for DOS.

This seems to be something that is brought up often here, but "slow" is relative, and the consensus seems to be Pentium Pros are no slower than a comparable frequency Pentium classic, so... am I really losing that much when I want to play DOS games (and I will)? I doubt it.

I will have a Voodoo2 card installed in this thing so I will definitely be targeting games like GLQuake, Tomb Raider, etc., but also earlier non-accelerated FPS like Doom and Dark Forces (which I still have my original copy of around somewhere) and will be heavy into playing classic early 90s adventure games (Monkey Island 2, Kings Quest 5-7, etc.).

Typically what happens is you are never happy with any machine you build and just collect more and more old junk until you are sickened by it all and lose interest. 😀

If you are stuck with 1997, I'd probably get a Pentium II. It is as fast as PPro but has MMX and better performance with any 8/16-bit code. Some games do use MMX and complain about it being missing if you lack it. In 1997 I had a Klamath PII 233 on a 440FX board.

If you have a need to mess with Socket 8, by all means jump on it and enjoy it. I have a Intel VS440FX board that's quite nice. I beat Wing Commander 3 on it a few years ago. Be sure to use Fastvid or the video performance is awful in DOS (same with PII actually).

Socket 7 is not very interesting to me. Super 7 however can run K6 Plus chips and those will blow away Socket 8 hardware. Unfortunately many of those boards have terrible AGP compatibility.

With the socket 8 platform, you always have the option of going with a 333mhz overdrive. These chips are stupid fast and subsequently rather expensive. My favorite machine is a dual socket 8 setup with 2 overdrives. Have a gander: Bitchin' dual p-pro setup

And before you ask, a dual is mostly for the dick-waving factor. Its only use is a room heater in DOS & win9x.

RJDog wrote:

Objective and subjective opinions welcome.

If your Socket 7 board is equipped with an appropriate Turbo-switch function (there are various types), and in conjunction with a Socket 7 interposer that can run a K6-3+ CPU, this is by far the most flexible, speed-sensitive setup. This has a scope from 4.77MHz 8088 XT speeds to fast Pentium II, and everything in-between; an extremely versatile DOS/ Win9x setup.

RJDog wrote:

Alas, it is just regular Socket 7, however does surprisingly support 2.2V core voltage and max 83.3MHz FSB, hence compatibility […]
Show full quote

kanecvr wrote:

If your socket 7 board is actually a super 7 board (it has AGP and SDR) then go with that.

Alas, it is just regular Socket 7, however does surprisingly support 2.2V core voltage and max 83.3MHz FSB, hence compatibility with most K6-2, but not K6-2+ or K6-III. I actually have a stack of K6-2 450 processors around here somewhere if/when I want to upgrade.

squareguy wrote:

It [Pentium Pro] is however slower at 16-bit. It can be cool but I wouldn't use it for DOS.

This seems to be something that is brought up often here, but "slow" is relative, and the consensus seems to be Pentium Pros are no slower than a comparable frequency Pentium classic, so... am I really losing that much when I want to play DOS games (and I will)? I doubt it.

It makes it extremely difficult to run games which have issues at higher clock speed.

RJDog wrote:

I will have a Voodoo2 card installed in this thing so I will definitely be targeting games like GLQuake, Tomb Raider, etc., but also earlier non-accelerated FPS like Doom and Dark Forces (which I still have my original copy of around somewhere) and will be heavy into playing classic early 90s adventure games (Monkey Island 2, Kings Quest 5-7, etc.).

First of all, what's your board? Is it on the list of unofficially patched BIOSes? Even if it is not, there may be undocumented jumpers to lower your VCore to 2.1 or 2.0V. Unlike newer CPUs, there's no requirement for CPU microcode support in the BIOS. As long as the chip gets the right core voltage and connects to a standard socket 7 FSB, it should work perfectly, although it might be mis-identified during bootup and you will certainly want to manually set jumpers.

Second, SCI and SCUMM games from the early 90s definitely have issues with faster CPUs. Sometimes the issue is with audio corruption e.g. FoA adlib or Red Storm Rising, but sometimes the issue is with scripting and has much more effect e.g. QFG3 and the Simbani initiation. Origin games are often very susceptible to clock speed issues as well, especially Wing Commander.

Ah yes the age old problem of CPU speed and older DOS game timing.

swaaye wrote:

Typically what happens is you are never happy with any machine you build and just collect more and more old junk until you are sickened by it all and lose interest. 😀

^^ So true 😀

My vote goes for Socket 7. Even a stock Pentium lets me play games spanning from Wing Commander to Doom 2 and Descent. That's a TON of awesome games.

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

swaaye wrote:

Typically what happens is you are never happy with any machine you build and just collect more and more old junk until you are sickened by it all and lose interest. 😀

^^ So true 😀

My vote goes for Socket 7. Even a stock Pentium lets me play games spanning from Wing Commander to Doom 2 and Descent. That's a TON of awesome games.

Yyyyep 😵

Another vote for Socket 7. Socket 8 is cool, but the Socket 7 platform is more versatile.

Depending on the games you want to run, speed might not be an issue. Almost all of the later titles run on a K6-2. And if you don't insist on running everything in SVGA, the 166MMX should be fast enough to run any DOS game.

What mainboard do you have, anyway? Intel chipsets are generally solid, and I actually prefer them to Super Socket 7, but they all have drawbacks.

gdjacobs wrote:

It's worth noting that your P166MMX might by itself be very potent for DOS gaming, depending on whether it exposes TR12 registers to SETMUL.
http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/J.Steunebrink/k6plus.htm

Can you please elaborate on that? I always thought that I need a "plus" K6 for downclocking via setmul. I have maybe 10 different Pentiums (from 120 to 233 MMX) and 8 Socket 7 motherboards (all either Intel TX or VX chipset). What do I need to look for?

How about dual socket 7? It provides that extra little "wow" under the hood.

jheronimus wrote:

gdjacobs wrote:

It's worth noting that your P166MMX might by itself be very potent for DOS gaming, depending on whether it exposes TR12 registers to SETMUL.
http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/J.Steunebrink/k6plus.htm

Can you please elaborate on that? I always thought that I need a "plus" K6 for downclocking via setmul. I have maybe 10 different Pentiums (from 120 to 233 MMX) and 8 Socket 7 motherboards (all either Intel TX or VX chipset). What do I need to look for?

The p54c core pentium chips (and some others) have a set of test registers (TR12) which allow manipulation of some execution features, such as

• BPD - Disable Branch Prediction
• VPD - Disable V Pipeline
• L1DX - Disable L1 cache exclusively
• CCD - Disable L1 code cache
• DCD - Disable L1 data cache
• PFE - Pentium Features Enable; Resets the above TR12 options to default.

[from Germin's SETMUL thread at SetMul - Multiplier control for VIA C3 / AMD K6+7+8 Mobile / Cyrix 5x86]

You can see the effect on performance as tested with a POD P200 by clueless1.
Re: What's up with all those Setmul switches?

I vote for a SS7 or S7 for playing dos games.
As these gives you more freedom to underclock, set timings on stuff, disable cache and so on. SS7 can even run a wide range of good Dos compatible vga cards in both AGP and PCI versions.

brostenen wrote:

I vote for a SS7 or S7 for playing dos games.

This seems to be the consensus so I think I'll stick with the Socket 7 I originally acquired. P166MMX should be more than sufficient for what I want to do, and is upgradable to K6-2 as mentioned if it isn't.

j^aws wrote:

If your Socket 7 board is equipped with an appropriate Turbo-switch function.

It is! There is a turbo switch and LED headers but haven't seen too much documentation on what it does yet... might just have to play with it.

For those that asked, it is PC Chips M571 v7.

brostenen wrote:

these gives you more freedom to underclock, set timings on stuff, disable cache and so on.

This is definitely true of the Socket 7 motherboard; many FSB and multiplier options (by jumpers) and ability to enable/disable caches through BIOS. The Socket 8 motherboard certainly does not have this functionality, at least not that I have been able to determine.

swaaye wrote:

Typically what happens is you are never happy with any machine you build and just collect more and more old junk until you are sickened by it all and lose interest. 😀

Yeah, I think I might curb this potential hoarding and sell off the Socket 8 motherboard... I actually have two identical ones (Intel VS440FX for those curious) one with PPro 166 and one with PPro 200.

RJDog wrote:

This seems to be the consensus so I think I'll stick with the Socket 7 I originally acquired. P166MMX should be more than sufficient for what I want to do, and is upgradable to K6-2 as mentioned if it isn't.

S7 can not do K6-II. For that you need SS7.
SS7 on the other hand, can do K6-II, K6-III, P166MMX and a lot of other CPU's.

brostenen wrote:

RJDog wrote:

This seems to be the consensus so I think I'll stick with the Socket 7 I originally acquired. P166MMX should be more than sufficient for what I want to do, and is upgradable to K6-2 as mentioned if it isn't.

S7 can not do K6-II. For that you need SS7.
SS7 on the other hand, can do K6-II, K6-III, P166MMX and a lot of other CPU's.

That's not true - you don't need SS7 for K6-2. If the board has a low enough voltage regulator and compatible BIOS, then it will work. And you also don't need SS7 for all those CPUs, too. Failing that, a simple S7 interposer can take care of the voltage.