They're all good, but the T2P4 is legendary.

It depends on what do you want: SDRAM? ATA-33? MMX? etc. And more importantly... how much does it cost and how much are you willing to pay for?
Chronically,
TP4N, TP4XE: 430FX chipset, might not support MMX's voltage out of the box therefore a VRM is needed for MMX. Different revisions may have either async. or p-burst cache configurations; the latter is faster.
T2P4: 430HX chipset, legendary, maximum 512MB RAM, maximum 512MB cacheable RAM. Added USB support. Added MMX voltage support out of the box.
TVP4, VX97: 430VX chipset, added SDRAM support but the max RAM and MAX cacheable RAM declined to 128MB and 64MB, respectively. VX97 has no SDRAM slot.
TXP4, TX97: 430TX chipset, added ATA-33 support. Different versions/revisions may have different numbers of DIMM and SIMM slots, yes/no support for ATX power, ATX or AT form factor.

Ok. I'm looking for one with support for the Cyrix 6x86mx-200. I assume p-burse cache is optimal for that CPU, so the chip socket version is not a requirement, as that only comes on the modules if i recall correctly. SDRAM is also not a requirement, though i know it would be faster. I just kinda want that 72-pin simm experience 😁
It looks like the T2P4 will be my choice! Now, It seems like you can achieve the 83.3Mhz bus speed on the 430HX chipset unofficially, which would allow for an even higher-clocked 6x86mx. How would one go about that and is it a good idea? Lastly, no UltraATA means awfully slow transfer speeds, so maybe I'll grab a PCI SCSI card for the heck of it 😁

Bus overclocks with the T2P4 were almost routine so long as your PCI peripherals weren't sensitive to high clocks.

Jupiter-18 wrote:

Ok. I'm looking for one with support for the Cyrix 6x86mx-200. I assume p-burse cache is optimal for that CPU, so the chip socket version is not a requirement, as that only comes on the modules if i recall correctly. SDRAM is also not a requirement, though i know it would be faster. I just kinda want that 72-pin simm experience 😁
It looks like the T2P4 will be my choice! Now, It seems like you can achieve the 83.3Mhz bus speed on the 430HX chipset unofficially, which would allow for an even higher-clocked 6x86mx. How would one go about that and is it a good idea? Lastly, no UltraATA means awfully slow transfer speeds, so maybe I'll grab a PCI SCSI card for the heck of it 😁

T2P4 will serve you well! 6x86MX-PR200 should run at 83MHz x2 with ease on T2P4. The highest clock achievable on T2P4 should be 83x3.5 for 6x86MX/MII and 83x6 for K6-2

Which is a better choice, the PR200 (83*2.0) or the PR233 (66*3.0)? Which is more important? Bus speed or CPU speed?

Busspeed is more important (faster) but 83mhz fsb is pretty high and not officially supported. For stability sake i would choose a 66 or 75mhz fsb version.

Jupiter-18 wrote:

Which is a better choice, the PR200 (83*2.0) or the PR233 (66*3.0)? Which is more important? Bus speed or CPU speed?

IIRC setting PR200 to run at 83x2 the motherboard will probably report PR233.

What could happen with a bus speed of 83 on a board that only unofficially supports it? I mean it says no but people seem to say it does the job at 83 just fine.

At the least, some PCI cards will be sensitive to the increased bus speed. Might cause issues, might not.

Would it make the PC unstable?

The motherboard should be fine. Peripheral cards might be unstable or not work properly if they're clock sensitive.

Ok! Now how do i enable an unsupported bus speed?
Also, Since this board has Asus Media Bus, I gotta use it 😁
They mainly made graphics/sound combos it seems, with the central chips appearing to be first the Mach64 PCI 2MB (later using the VT and GT revisions), then later the 3d Rage II 4MB. Are there better options for graphics with a 6x86/MII? I could always look for the SCSI/sound card they made and use a different GPU.

I believe this will answer all your questions 😀
http://www.wowohl.de/kalle/rev3.htm

That is indeed very helpful thank you! Missing info on Cyrix, but i'm sure I can piece that together!

Jupiter-18 wrote:

That is indeed very helpful thank you! Missing info on Cyrix, but i'm sure I can piece that together!

The media bus is essentially one PCI bus and one ISA bus stitched together. Because only ASUS had been making cards for this bus the choices are quite limited, and to make things even worse, ASUS made two mutually incompatible revisions: 1.2 and 2.0.

[quote='Wikipedia"]
Media Bus rev. 1.2 cards

PCI-AS7870 - Fast/Wide SCSI and audio card (Adaptec AS7870 and Vibra16s (with separate yamaha yfm262-m, WBH))
PCI-AV264CT - audio and video card (ATI Mach64 PCI 1MB (up to 2MB) and Vibra16s (with separate yamaha yfm262-m, WBH))
PCI-AV868 (pictured) - audio and video card (S3 Vision868 1MB and Vibra16s (with separate yamaha yfm262-m, WBH))

Media Bus rev. 2.0 cards

PCI-AS2940UW - Ultra Fast/Wide SCSI and audio card
PCI-AV264CT-N - audio and video card (ATI Mach64 PCI 1MB (up to 2MB) and Vibra16c (with WBH))
PCI-AV264VT - audio and video card
PCI-AV264GT - audio and video card
PCI-AV264GT/Plus - audio and video card (ATI 3D Rage II 2MB (up to 4MB) and Vibra16c (with WBH))
[/quote]

The T2P4 board can only take rev. 2.0 cards. I would get the AS2940UW if I had to pick one from them... just for the sake of OPL3. If I don't have to worry about running out of expansion slots I would pick 2940U2W or even 29160N and a much better sound card. Old ATI video cards are not very welcome in retro builds... There are better alternatives depending on the purpose of your build.

lazibayer wrote:

It depends on what do you want: SDRAM? ATA-33? MMX? etc. And more importantly... how much does it cost and how much are you will […]
Show full quote

It depends on what do you want: SDRAM? ATA-33? MMX? etc. And more importantly... how much does it cost and how much are you willing to pay for?
Chronically,
TP4N, TP4XE: 430FX chipset, might not support MMX's voltage out of the box therefore a VRM is needed for MMX. Different revisions may have either async. or p-burst cache configurations; the latter is faster.
T2P4: 430HX chipset, legendary, maximum 512MB RAM, maximum 512MB cacheable RAM. Added USB support. Added MMX voltage support out of the box.
TVP4, VX97: 430VX chipset, added SDRAM support but the max RAM and MAX cacheable RAM declined to 128MB and 64MB, respectively. VX97 has no SDRAM slot.
TXP4, TX97: 430TX chipset, added ATA-33 support. Different versions/revisions may have different numbers of DIMM and SIMM slots, yes/no support for ATX power, ATX or AT form factor.

The VX97 also didn't have the proprietary ASUS Media bus slot and also has a coin battery socket unlike the TVP4.

Opinion of mine is Media Bus isn't any good, It might of been good value at one time, but theres nothing stopping anyone from filling up regular pci and isa slots with the same hardware on a mediabus card. And thats not really saying much.

Here's an unpopular opinion: Asus is heavily overrated. Make no mistake, every motherboard I ever used was from Asus. They are fine and solid boards. But as far as retro hardware goes — make sure you're getting a tested board. Somehow every dead or unstable boards I got over the 5 years I'm in the hobby was from Asus. Here are just some examples: TX97-X, P/I-XP6NP5 and even P3B-F.

I have a theory that Asus tended to make OC-friendly products (e.g. 430TX for 83MHz bus, 440BX for 133MHz, etc) which ensured their success on the market but also heavily shortened the lifespan of the actual hardware. So when you read something like this:

the T2P4 is legendary.

You have to understand that someone probably once used this board to extract the absolute most performance out of his/her hardware. So I would advice to only buy Asus boards for cheap or tested.

Other minor issue with most of their late Socket 7 AT boards is non-standard PS/2 pinout. Instead of a regular header they have a USB/MIR/PS2 board like this:

This board is also known as "ATX form card" by other vendors. Many users have reported that it's not a particularly rare piece of hardware, yet I've only found one board with it (an Asus P2V-B, it was also dead BTW).