I think $20 would be a better target.

I see your board has the symphony chipset. Please benchmark this board for us when the system is ready.

Agree with AC on target cost of video card. $80 is too much to spend IMO. For reference, here's a couple of links:
ISA Graphic Card Performance in PCPlayer
ISA Graphic Card Performance in Quake 320

Hopefully someone else can help you more on the AWE64. Not sure how it would perform in a 386, but my gut says it's not a good match. You might want an Audician 32 Plus. They are cheap, sound awesome, and very compatible. Search ebay.

Although this one doesn't have the back plate, it is held in high regard:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/DIAMOND-SPEEDSTAR-ISA … nYAAOSwTM5Yv05Q

Made a few decisions and picked up the following for this build...

Tseng Labs ET4000AX 2MB ISA video card
Cirrus Logic CL-GD5429 2MB ISA video card

Creative Labs Sound Blaster CT1350B ISA sound card
Yamaha Audician 32 plus YMF718-S ISA sound card

I will try these and see what I like best and put the rest in my hardware collection as I don't have very many ISA items at the moment.

Can you really see much of a difference between vga cards in 386? I always thought the differences would only show up in 486.

Does the ET4000AX support 2MB? I've only ever seen 2MB with the W32x series.

Baoran wrote:

Can you really see much of a difference between vga cards in 386? I always thought the differences would only show up in 486.

You are probably right. I figured I would get a few known good ones just in case as it would not hurt to have them.

Anonymous Coward wrote:

Does the ET4000AX support 2MB? I've only ever seen 2MB with the W32x series.

I am pretty sure the one I got is 2MB but I could be wrong. I know the Cirrus Logic card I got is 2MB though.

I've never seen a card make less use of 2MB than the CL GD5429. I think all it buys is some useless interlaced mode.
For DOS use, I'm not entirely convinced that more than 512kb is necessary. Maybe if you're using a Pentium.
Still, it's nice to have 2MB just to say you have it. 😀

Anonymous Coward wrote:

I've never seen a card make less use of 2MB than the CL GD5429. I think all it buys is some useless interlaced mode.
For DOS use, I'm not entirely convinced that more than 512kb is necessary. Maybe if you're using a Pentium.
Still, it's nice to have 2MB just to say you have it. 😀

Yes I recall having a Tseng Labs 1MB card with my 386DX 40MHz that I had many years ago and it worked for everything that I played at that time so I may not ever need 2MB but I figured I would get it just in case it became useful to have. 🤣

I think you made some great choices and you'll have a tough time picking between the ET4000AX and GD5429 as well as the CT1350B and Audician.

As far as hard drives go I plan on using a 1GB compact flash card that can work as an IDE drive. I also have a 2GB compact flash micro hard drive that is another option. I have done some testing with these on a 486 and they worked well so they should be fine for the 386 I would assume.

A USB floppy drive emulator is a must as I have used one with a 486 and they work great so that will go on this system as well.

I have a full size AT case ready to go with an ATX 400 watt 80 plus bronze with both Over Voltage and Over Current Protection along with a nice ATX to AT power line converter that has a 3.3 volt dummy load on it to balance and steady the power to the AT motherboard.

And finally, I have ordered eight matching 1MB 30pin 70ns parity SIMMS to give me 8MB total memory. My original 386 system I had years ago had 4MB so I should be fine with 8MB for the DOS games I will be playing with this system.

Already have a nice AT keyboard and serial mouse ready to go.

I don't have any CRT's but I have several standard 4:3 aspect ratio LCD monitors that have analog VGA ports on them so I would assume that they will work with the ISA cards I have.

Regarding your question on whether an AWE64 will work in a 386 and the answer is yes (but only the hardware part). I used my AWE64 for about a year in my Cyrix 486DLC until I upgraded (this was back in late 1996 & 1997 when I was still studying).
The AWE64 uses Waveguide synthesis to produce the additional 32 MIDI voices (theoretically speaking) and for this you require Windows 3.1 or higher and at least a Pentium 90 MHz or higher.
But, if you exclude that part, then the AWE64 operates in the same manner as an AWE32.

jesolo wrote:

Regarding your question on whether an AWE64 will work in a 386 and the answer is yes (but only the hardware part). I used my AWE64 for about a year in my Cyrix 486DLC until I upgraded (this was back in late 1996 & 1997 when I was still studying).
The AWE64 uses Waveguide synthesis to produce the additional 32 MIDI voices (theoretically speaking) and for this you require Windows 3.1 or higher and at least a Pentium 90 MHz or higher.
But, if you exclude that part, then the AWE64 operates in the same manner as an AWE32.

Thanks for the comments on your experience with that. Very interesting. I already purchased a Sound Blaster CT1350B which I think may end up being my selection for this build but I may go ahead and see how the AWE64 performs just as a test. It may end up being a good secondary backup card if my primary one develops a problem in the future.

Beware that this CT1350B needs a -5V power rail to operate which your ATX PSU most likely lacks.

FGB wrote:

Beware that this CT1350B needs a -5V power rail to operate which your ATX PSU most likely lacks.

I think the ATX to AT converter I have does cover that but I will not know for certain until I try it. I see many of these sold so I would imagine with all the ISA cards used in AT systems these converters have a high success rate.