I've never had any luck running 133mhz on the PIII Slot 1 boards I've encountered. I've had a few Gigabyte 6XBC's (1.9 & 2.0's) and could not get any of them to post at 133mhz. I Flashed with a the correct bios with an Upgradeware Slot T Adaptor but no joy. I do have a Abit BX133 Mhz that worked but the caps are shot on that. In the end a DFI/ITOX CB60-BX-C was the board that used. Worked at 133mhz with a 1400-S, 3 ISA Slots, SB Link Non shot caps, only difference being its a Socket 370 Board.

This is my main machine currently with with a Geforce 4 Ti4600.

I wouldn't disregard the Athlon route entirely, you can pick up a nice KT133A board for a good price and some boards will accept XP CPUs. There are a few Gigabyte 7IXE4 boards, which combined with a Athlon 1200/1300 mhz CPU would make a nice machine, 2 ISA Slots also.

boxpressed wrote:

My Intel SE440BX-2 system is my "go to" retro computer. I had all the questions you did, and I bought all the stuff trick it out […]
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My Intel SE440BX-2 system is my "go to" retro computer. I had all the questions you did, and I bought all the stuff trick it out, including a 1000 MHz (100 MHz FSB) P3 as well as a Slotket with a 1300 MHz (100 MHz FSB) Celeron.

It's been running a 550 MHz P3 for a while now.

I just didn't need all that speed, not for the games I was playing (a GF4 Ti4600 helps). I was also a little worried about Intel's warning not to run anything over 700 or 800 MHz.

Some SE440BX boards have a built-in YMF7x4, so you may not need the SB Link if you can find one of those.

Some board revisions have, with the latest BIOS, support for up to an 800MHz clock 100MHz FSB PIII Coppermine. It does not have adjustable FSB, multiplier nor cache settings in the BIOS (I own the board too, but haven’t tried it yet, this is what I understand from the manual). Still, you can use an utility to adjust FSB and caches. What I like about this Intel board is its build quality, extensive documentation and plug ‘n playness. If you’re not interested in overclocking and don’t want to worry about technical details, then this is the board for you.

I apologise for not responding to everyone; I don't want to make the post and thread needlessly long, but have read all the posts thus far and taken it all on board.w

Katmai500 wrote:

Slot CPUs are the coolest. Socket 370 isn't nearly as cool. If you want stock 133 FSB and ISA with a slot processor, an Apollo Pro 133A board is a good choice. The ASUS P3V4X pops up pretty often. Drop a 933 or 1000/133 Slot 1 PIII in there and you're good to go.

Thanks! These boards could definitely be an option. So this is one of the crucial points of my build: Which scenario would I need more than 1 ISA slot? What is normally used in them for, say, DOS compatibility beyond a single sound card?

dionb wrote:

Tbh though, it sounds like you're actually thinking about three separate systems here: - a DOS/Win9x system with maximum compati […]
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Tbh though, it sounds like you're actually thinking about three separate systems here:
- a DOS/Win9x system with maximum compatibility (someone already mentioned PC/PCI SB-Link)
- a dual-CPU P3 Win2k system
- an overclocked Tualatin BX system

You might get away with any two here in one box, but all three is highly unlikely. I'd suggest focusing your requirements a bit and build one coherent system. Or two. Or three 😉

I've realised you're totally right. I think I'd really be going for two options: an old DOS/3.11 machine that can run speed-sensitive games, and a Slot 1/A system to run 98/2k (as those are actually the two types of systems I had back in the day).

SpectriaForce wrote:

I'd personally aim for a late revision P2B (with 3 ISA slots, and with Coppermine VRMs) or similar, simply because you definitely don't need more than 4 PCI slots - that's enough for 2x V2, a NIC and a SATA or fast PATA controller.

This is the board I'd probably want most, but they are pretty pricey. In fact I can only find one on eBay with a revision that'll work (in this case 1.12) at 133, going for about £160 just for the board 😲

SpectriaForce wrote:

I’ve managed to upgrade the BIOS of my Asus P3B-F to the most recent (beta?) version last evening. It has some improvements compared to the old 1004 like more voltage settings for the CPU and correct identification of my 1GHz Coppermine slot 1. What I really like about this i440BX board is that it has a FSB/PCI ratio of 133/33. It also seems to be very stable despite the FSB overclock. The downside of the board is that it looks like ‘single sided’ memory modules with 256Mbit DRAM’s are not supported. Luckily one German eBay seller has lots of very cheap (I really wonder whether he gets subsidized 🤣) double sided modules with 128Mbit chips 😊 (i.e. I’ve bought some..).

Another nice board option it seems...looks like no SB-Link though? Could you please check?

boxpressed wrote:

My Intel SE440BX-2 system is my "go to" retro computer. I had all the questions you did, and I bought all the stuff trick it out […]
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My Intel SE440BX-2 system is my "go to" retro computer. I had all the questions you did, and I bought all the stuff trick it out, including a 1000 MHz (100 MHz FSB) P3 as well as a Slotket with a 1300 MHz (100 MHz FSB) Celeron.

It's been running a 550 MHz P3 for a while now.

I just didn't need all that speed, not for the games I was playing (a GF4 Ti4600 helps). I was also a little worried about Intel's warning not to run anything over 700 or 800 MHz.

Some SE440BX boards have a built-in YMF7x4, so you may not need the SB Link if you can find one of those.

Nice, so all that speed was overkill! What sort of games were you running? I've found one of these boards, "new", without the YMF7...I think I'd still want to run a card, just for the hell of it 🤣 Those 1000MHz P3s with 100FSB are SO expensive and rare now 😢 Only two on eBay, $300+ and $900+. The 133FSB ones are cheap as chips 😠

Bancho wrote:

I wouldn't disregard the Athlon route entirely, you can pick up a nice KT133A board for a good price and some boards will accept XP CPUs. There are a few Gigabyte 7IXE4 boards, which combined with a Athlon 1200/1300 mhz CPU would make a nice machine, 2 ISA Slots also.

That is the old board I used to have! A couple going on eBay, so I'll pick one of those up for nostalgia, and may even just use it anyway for the build 🤣

SpectriaForce wrote:

That board has, with the latest BIOS, support for up to an 800MHz clock 100MHz FSB PIII Coppermine. It does not have adjustable FSB, multiplier nor cache settings in the BIOS (I own the board too, but haven’t tried it yet, this is what I understand from the manual). Still, you can use an utility to adjust FSB and caches. What I like about this Intel board is its build quality, extensive documentation and plug ‘n playness. If you’re not interested in overclocking and don’t want to worry about technical details, then this is the board for you.

So that's another one for the SE440BX-2. If the price is right for the board I've found, I'll buy it anyway!

I think 440BX is a little overrated. I think the VT82C694T is the best option there is for a PC to do Dos through late Win98 gaming.

440BX are very common and usually give options to play with multiple ISA cards.

Lawro wrote:

Thanks! These boards could definitely be an option. So this is one of the crucial points of my build: Which scenario would I need more than 1 ISA slot? What is normally used in them for, say, DOS compatibility beyond a single sound card?

When you want more than a single card can deliver. 95% of games can be handled well with anything that is SBPro2 compatible with a real OPL3. But the icing on the cake is the more specific stuff:
- SB16 compatibility (requires a later Soundblaster or one of very few compatible chipsets such as C-Media CMI8330). Note that the SB16 is *NOT* SBPro2 compatible, so is unsuitable for a single-card build.
- Gravis Ultrasound
- Intelligent mode MIDI (for very old Roland MT-32 titles, requires an MT-32 as well).
- Any other obscure stuff you might want (Pro Audio Spectrum, etc etc)

I'm currently considering a 4 ISA card build for that reason (with an Aztech gen 1 card for SBPro2 and Covox, an SB32 for SB16, a Gravis Ultrasound and a MusicQuest intelligent mode MPU-401 clone) - but that's very much "because I can". For a first build this is idiotic overkill. Moreover, a lot of that stuff (intelligent mode MIDI, Covox) will only be relevant for very old games (~1990), so not the sort of things you want in a P2/P3 system anyway. However having at least a second ISA slot available is very nice to have. Once again, all you are sacrificing is another PCI slot, and it's rare indeed that those become the bottleneck.

I've realised you're totally right. I think I'd really be going for two options: an old DOS/3.11 machine that can run speed-sensitive games, and a Slot 1/A system to run 98/2k (as those are actually the two types of systems I had back in the day).

Sensible, makes it much easier to choose suitable components for both systems. For the DOS system I'd recommend an early Pentium or late 486 (with the former being much cheaper and easier to find). You can easily play anything from 386 to some of the very last DOS titles on that - and you will have multiple ISA slots. For the Slot1/A (the latter is difficult to find, pricey and not always stable - consider Socket A instead), the ISA requirement becomes much more relaxed. I'd still recommend a single ISA slot if possible, but with Win2k & later really all the sound goes through DirectSound anyway and hardware is no longer anywhere near as relevant as under DOS.

This is the board I'd probably want most, but they are pretty pricey. In fact I can only find one on eBay with a revision that'll work (in this case 1.12) at 133, going for about £160 just for the board 😲

The problem with the P2B is that it's incredibly well documented so easy to refer to like this - but that makes it disproportionately sought-after too. There are enough other boards out there with similar specs, but they require a bit more digging to figure out. If you're going for two separate systems, you don't want this anyway: better to go for a nice early So7 board and a decent late Sl1/SoA board. Particularly the latter can be picked up very cheap by comparison.

Also: if you're on a budget and not that self-reliant, ignore eBay. The clearly labeled parts will be overpriced, always. Take a look on Amibay instead. Sought-after bits will be pricey, but you can get more run-of-the-mill stuff for very low prices. Plus most sellers are in the EU, so shipping isn't as awful as for stuff in the US.

Another nice board option it seems...looks like no SB-Link though? Could you please check?

Nope, but you only need that if you're running DOS on a system with a PCI sound card. If you want to go for two systems, and the faster one will only do Win98 and later, you can drop the requirement for the PC/PCI (SB-Link). Under Windown 9x and later it doesn't add anything. Conversely, on the DOS system you just want ISA sound cards anyway.

Nice, so all that speed was overkill! What sort of games were you running? I've found one of these boards, "new", without the YMF7...I think I'd still want to run a card, just for the hell of it 🤣 Those 1000MHz P3s with 100FSB are SO expensive and rare now 😢 Only two on eBay, $300+ and $900+. The 133FSB ones are cheap as chips 😠

Again, forget eBay for this sort of stuff. P3 1000E will always be more sought-after than P3-1000EB, as they were far less widely produced and there is more (BX-based) demand. But do you really need the fastest one made? There's an 800E on Amibay at the moment for EUR 5. Chances are you won't notice the difference in speed, but a price difference of at least 60x would be noticeable, even after adding shipping (EUR 2.50 😜 )

That is the old board I used to have! A couple going on eBay, so I'll pick one of those up for nostalgia, and may even just use it anyway for the build 🤣

Be careful that the GA-7IXE4 doesn't have a KT133A chipset, but an AMD 750 'Irongate', which only supports up to 100MHz FSB, so you have a similar limit with Athlon CPUs - most of the Athlon 1200 CPUs are 1200C (133MHz) not 1200B (100MHz).

So that's another one for the SE440BX-2. If the price is right for the board I've found, I'll buy it anyway!

Be careful that Coppermine support depends on exact board revision (as with the P2B and many other early BX boards). Also, if you're going for separate DOS and Win98/2k systems, this is just as illogical as the P2B.

if you buy motherboard intel 440bx chip just be carefull with pentoum3 bios. after one version of bios it wont let you use pento3 600mhz or more. and with older version of bios you can use pentium 700mhz for example.

hapened to me after a newer bios flash..a nasty mesage on boot appeared telling cpu not supported , when on older bios it worked

There are literally thousands of types of boards with the i440BX, and your story is pretty unusual. Generally CPU support tends to improve with newer BIOSes. Exactly which board are you referring to?

Yes, BLockOUT's observation is a typical example of anecdote that should not be taken as a general concept.

dionb wrote:

When you want more than a single card can deliver. 95% of games can be handled well with anything that is SBPro2 compatible with […]
Show full quote

When you want more than a single card can deliver. 95% of games can be handled well with anything that is SBPro2 compatible with a real OPL3. But the icing on the cake is the more specific stuff:
- SB16 compatibility (requires a later Soundblaster or one of very few compatible chipsets such as C-Media CMI8330). Note that the SB16 is *NOT* SBPro2 compatible, so is unsuitable for a single-card build.
- Gravis Ultrasound
- Intelligent mode MIDI (for very old Roland MT-32 titles, requires an MT-32 as well).
- Any other obscure stuff you might want (Pro Audio Spectrum, etc etc)

I'm currently considering a 4 ISA card build for that reason (with an Aztech gen 1 card for SBPro2 and Covox, an SB32 for SB16, a Gravis Ultrasound and a MusicQuest intelligent mode MPU-401 clone) - but that's very much "because I can". For a first build this is idiotic overkill. Moreover, a lot of that stuff (intelligent mode MIDI, Covox) will only be relevant for very old games (~1990), so not the sort of things you want in a P2/P3 system anyway. However having at least a second ISA slot available is very nice to have. Once again, all you are sacrificing is another PCI slot, and it's rare indeed that those become the bottleneck.

Thanks for clearing that up. I think that's beyond my scope, especially immediately, so 1 or 2 ISA slots will do me fine. I grew up in South Africa, where costs on imported tech (it was, and still is, ALL imported) are high. We never had particularly sophisticated systems as a result, combined with my parents' computer illiteracy. Although, when we got the AMD K7 800 Slot A machine, it was cutting edge for SA at the time (although we were always about 6 months behind the West): GeForce256, SBLive, 768mb RAM, 20gb HDD, and a Ricoh DVD player that could also burn CDs, WOW!! It also had Windows 98...we were always a few years behind on OS, and missed out Win95 entirely! 🤣

dionb wrote:

Sensible, makes it much easier to choose suitable components for both systems. For the DOS system I'd recommend an early Pentium or late 486 (with the former being much cheaper and easier to find). You can easily play anything from 386 to some of the very last DOS titles on that - and you will have multiple ISA slots. For the Slot1/A (the latter is difficult to find, pricey and not always stable - consider Socket A instead), the ISA requirement becomes much more relaxed. I'd still recommend a single ISA slot if possible, but with Win2k & later really all the sound goes through DirectSound anyway and hardware is no longer anywhere near as relevant as under DOS.

Sounds like this is what I'm after. I'm still tempted to go for the Slot A now over the So7, purely because it's what I used to have. If I can't get a reasonably-priced Slot A setup, I'll go for a Slot 1. The Slot A motherboards aren't too bad, but those CPUs are pretty rare, especially anything over 700MHz.

dionb wrote:

The problem with the P2B is that it's incredibly well documented so easy to refer to like this - but that makes it disproportionately sought-after too. There are enough other boards out there with similar specs, but they require a bit more digging to figure out. If you're going for two separate systems, you don't want this anyway: better to go for a nice early So7 board and a decent late Sl1/SoA board. Particularly the latter can be picked up very cheap by comparison.

Also: if you're on a budget and not that self-reliant, ignore eBay. The clearly labeled parts will be overpriced, always. Take a look on Amibay instead. Sought-after bits will be pricey, but you can get more run-of-the-mill stuff for very low prices. Plus most sellers are in the EU, so shipping isn't as awful as for stuff in the US.

Thanks for this! I never knew about Amibay until now. I do find it a little hard to search though, is there any specific way to search correctly? Half the time my simple searches come up with no results (e.g. IBM yields nothing), but when I search on Amibay via Google it comes up with loads of results, just not filtered in any way. I only ever filter by date, nothing special to restrict results.

dionb wrote:

Nope, but you only need that if you're running DOS on a system with a PCI sound card. If you want to go for two systems, and the faster one will only do Win98 and later, you can drop the requirement for the PC/PCI (SB-Link). Under Windown 9x and later it doesn't add anything. Conversely, on the DOS system you just want ISA sound cards anyway.

Ah right, so I probably didn't need that AOpen PCI sound card with SB-Link header in the end! 😵

dionb wrote:

Again, forget eBay for this sort of stuff. P3 1000E will always be more sought-after than P3-1000EB, as they were far less widely produced and there is more (BX-based) demand. But do you really need the fastest one made? There's an 800E on Amibay at the moment for EUR 5. Chances are you won't notice the difference in speed, but a price difference of at least 60x would be noticeable, even after adding shipping (EUR 2.50 😜 )

Gosh that is cheap! Do you have a link? (due to my Amibay search woes...just tried "Pentium 800E" and just "800E" to no avail 😢 )

dionb wrote:

Be careful that the GA-7IXE4 doesn't have a KT133A chipset, but an AMD 750 'Irongate', which only supports up to 100MHz FSB, so you have a similar limit with Athlon CPUs - most of the Athlon 1200 CPUs are 1200C (133MHz) not 1200B (100MHz).

Just checked, it's the Irongate. The question is, does the "double data rate" making the FSB essentially operate at 200MHz live up to its marketing hype? I highly doubt it 🤣

dionb wrote:

Be careful that Coppermine support depends on exact board revision (as with the P2B and many other early BX boards). Also, if you're going for separate DOS and Win98/2k systems, this is just as illogical as the P2B.

I tend to agree with your sentiment on this one, it's needless. Thanks so much for your specific input, very much appreciated!

I think what I'll probably aim for now is to recreate, as best as possible, the systems (for all their shortcomings) I had as a kid/teen to relive the gaming experience I had with those, and then build something beyond those if I crave for something more sophisticated (I suspect probably something like you have with 4 X ISA slots, purely for the sound experience as I'm an audiophile and ex sound engineer).

Lawro wrote:

Just checked, it's the Irongate. The question is, does the "double data rate" making the FSB essentially operate at 200MHz live up to its marketing hype? I highly doubt it 🤣

The FSB on all AMD K7s is "double-pumped" in this way. VIA KT133A and AMD751 and even nForce2 are no different in this regard. I would imagine there would be a bottleneck on higher-clocked Athlons if the bus was stuck at 50MHz (100MHz effective) but I've not seen this tested...

SW-SSG wrote:

Lawro wrote:

Just checked, it's the Irongate. The question is, does the "double data rate" making the FSB essentially operate at 200MHz live up to its marketing hype? I highly doubt it 🤣

The FSB on all AMD K7s is "double-pumped" in this way. VIA KT133A and AMD751 and even nForce2 are no different in this regard. I would imagine there would be a bottleneck on higher-clocked Athlons if the bus was stuck at 50MHz (100MHz effective) but I've not seen this tested...

Right, but I mean more in terms of it being new at the time. I wonder if its performance gain was significant given the software and games coming out?

Lawro wrote:

This is the board I'd probably want most, but they are pretty pricey. In fact I can only find one on eBay with a revision that'll work (in this case 1.12) at 133, going for about £160 just for the board 😲

I think that you're better off with a P3B-F and not a P2B-F. The P3B-F supports more (and faster) PIII CPU's and is much easier to overclock. Yes, some versions only have one ISA slot, but that is really enough unless your name is dionb and care about 4 antique ISA sound cards 😉 Both boards have capacitors from the top brands, so you don't need to recap the board (but the disadvantage of that is the higher purchase price).

Lawro wrote:

Nice, so all that speed was overkill! What sort of games were you running? I've found one of these boards, "new", without the YMF7...I think I'd still want to run a card, just for the hell of it 🤣 Those 1000MHz P3s with 100FSB are SO expensive and rare now 😢 Only two on eBay, $300+ and $900+. The 133FSB ones are cheap as chips 😠

Again, just get an Asus P3B-F or an AOpen AX6B and an Intel SL4BS (like I've done 😊 ).

Lawro wrote:

Thanks for this! I never knew about Amibay until now. I do find it a little hard to search though, is there any specific way to search correctly? Half the time my simple searches come up with no results (e.g. IBM yields nothing), but when I search on Amibay via Google it comes up with loads of results, just not filtered in any way. I only ever filter by date, nothing special to restrict results.

Searching there is something of an art. Most important thing to know is that the search engine ignores any search terms with three or less characters, so that explains your IBM.

Also when you do find something with it it will tend to be 10 years old from a user not heard of for almost as long. Better idea: just browse through the first couple of pages of the 'Hardware for Sale - Other' category. A lot of stuff is in large topics with multiple items.

Gosh that is cheap! Do you have a link? (due to my Amibay search woes...just tried "Pentium 800E" and just "800E" to no avail 😢 )

Linking to external offers is frowned upon here, but if you look around the end of August for "tons" of CPUs you might just find something 😉

Just checked, it's the Irongate. The question is, does the "double data rate" making the FSB essentially operate at 200MHz live up to its marketing hype? I highly doubt it 🤣

Despite whatever marketeers like to claim, DDR doesn't make the clock tick any faster, it just transfers data twice per clock tick. So if you compare the bus to a car that can do 120km/h. DDR doesn't suddenly accelerate it to 240km/h, it adds a second seat next to the driver. If there's more data to be transferred, it's a lot faster, but it doesn't affect the latency (as that depends on the real clock speed which is unchanged).

In the case of an Athlon, as already mentioned they all do DDR. The relevant bit here is purely that a board limited to 100MHz (200MT/s if you want to emphasize the DDR aspect), so it can't run 133MHz CPUs (or not at full speed in any case). The difference between 100 and 133MHz is significant but not huge - an Athlon 1200B is still faster than an Athlon 1000C.

I think what I'll probably aim for now is to recreate, as best as possible, the systems (for all their shortcomings) I had as a kid/teen to relive the gaming experience I had with those, and then build something beyond those if I crave for something more sophisticated (I suspect probably something like you have with 4 X ISA slots, purely for the sound experience as I'm an audiophile and ex sound engineer).

Oh dear, that way lies madness 😎

If you want to explore the audiophile end, a whole new world of stuff opens up. In any event, be very wary of original Creative Soundblasters, they tend to be awfully noisy, and frequently have MIDI bugs too (it varies from model to model, sometimes even per chip used on a given model - there's more than enough to read up on this if you want to). Fortunately I'm more into network engineering, which leads me to run the weirdest network stuff, but keeps sound cards limited to what's needed for the level of gaming compatibility I want...

SpectriaForce wrote:

I think that you're better off with a P3B-F and not a P2B-F. The P3B-F supports more (and faster) PIII CPU's and is much easier to overclock. Yes, some versions only have one ISA slot,

Er no. All P2B/P3B boards essentially support exactly the same CPUs at a given revision. A late-revision P2B (with 3 ISA and 4 PCI slots) supports exactly the same CPUs as a P3B-F (with 1 ISA and 6 PCI slots). The only difference between P2B, P2B-F and P3B-F is that slot config.

but that is really enough unless your name is dionb and care about 4 antique ISA sound cards 😉 Both boards have capacitors from the top brands, so you don't need to recap the board (but the disadvantage of that is the higher purchase price).

True, but you also get that with say Tyan boards (and the Intel SE440BX which was mentioned too), and despite them also commanding a premium they tend to go for less than a P2B/P3B.

And hey, I care about 4 antique ISA sound cards in exactly one build, which is rather pre-Slot-1. My only Slot 1 build has all of 1 ISA, 3 PCI (one shared with the ISA slot) and no AGP. But with Voodoo3 onboard that's not a major issue 😜

dionb wrote:

better to go for a nice early So7 board and a decent late Sl1/SoA board. Particularly the latter can be picked up very cheap by comparison.

A 'nice' (super) socket 7 board, which I translate to well built with a rich feature set, is probably not cheap either (although that's subjective). I would avoid socket 462, because it's hard to find a well built board and power supply.

dionb wrote:

Also: if you're on a budget and not that self-reliant, ignore eBay. The clearly labeled parts will be overpriced, always. Take a look on Amibay instead. Sought-after bits will be pricey, but you can get more run-of-the-mill stuff for very low prices. Plus most sellers are in the EU, so shipping isn't as awful as for stuff in the US.

One reason why eBay prices are in general higher is because most sellers are more professional than private sellers (on local websites). And yes, as a buyer you pay for that well advertised item (which increases transparency, so you know what you buy). I don't see that as 'overpriced'.

Amibay is really only a nice place to buy if you accept their bible of forum rules and make friends with the moderators. I absolutely would not recommend it.

It took 14 years (since I started in this hobby) for me to find a free Asus P3B-F 😀

If you want cheap hardware, then look elsewhere and be patient.

dionb wrote:

Be careful that Coppermine support depends on exact board revision (as with the P2B and many other early BX boards). Also, if you're going for separate DOS and Win98/2k systems, this is just as illogical as the P2B.

The Intel SE440BX-2 is a great choice, indeed a whole list of revisions exist, but the documentation can be easily found.

dionb wrote:

Er no. All P2B/P3B boards essentially support exactly the same CPUs at a given revision. A late-revision P2B (with 3 ISA and 4 PCI slots) supports exactly the same CPUs as a P3B-F (with 1 ISA and 6 PCI slots). The only difference between P2B, P2B-F and P3B-F is that slot config.

Let's suppose that's the case, then why did Asus take all the effort to design a new board?

https://www.asus.com/supportonly/P2B-F/HelpDesk_CPU/

https://www.asus.com/supportonly/P3B-F/HelpDesk_CPU/

I doubt your claim and would like to see a source 😊

http://homepage.hispeed.ch/rscheidegger/p2b_p … pgrade_faq.html

What this page doesn't mention is which s-spec CPU works on a certain motherboard revision. Sure some late rev. 1.12 P2B's support the Coppermine 133MHz, but also a 1GHz version or only up to 800MHz?

SpectriaForce wrote:

A 'nice' (super) socket 7 board, which I translate to well built with a rich feature set, is probably not cheap either (although that's subjective)

Who said "super" socket 7. If you are already doing a Slot1/SlotA/SoA system, no need to push the upper limit of So7. DOS stuff runs just as well on an early Pentium, which also gives you the I/O options (like lots of ISA slots...) for older stuff. In fact, some late SS7 boards seem so focused on PnP and Windows that doing things like IRQ and DMA reservation in BIOS is painful (I downgraded from Asus P5A to Intel AN430TX out of frustration with that in one build...). If you're patient you can get a lot like this cheap enough.

I would avoid socket 462, because it's hard to find a well built board and power supply.

Early SoA was right in the middle of the capacitor plague, but Asus and Gigabyte boards tended to be well-build and reliable. In any event, Slot A certainly wasn't any better in this respect. As for power supplies - so long as you ensure enough on the 5V line (25A or so would be enough for most builds if you don't want major overclocks or dual CPUs), not a major problem. There are a lot of good FSP PSUs out there that still go nicely.

One reason why eBay prices are in general higher is because most sellers are more professional than private sellers (on local websites). And yes, as a buyer you pay for that well advertised item (which increases transparency, so you know what you buy). I don't see that as 'overpriced'.

Well-advertised items with a clear return policy are worth more, but not as much more as you frequently see on eBay, particularly because a lot of stuff in this category is sold with no warranties and 'as-is, no questions'. Exactly what are you paying for then?

Amibay is really only a nice place to buy if you accept their bible of forum rules and make friends with the moderators. I absolutely would not recommend it.

Not sure what bad experiences you had, but the rules are pretty straight forward (express interest on forum before PM, no haggling and compulsory feedback after a deal, that's about it really) and if you stick to them the moderators don't bother you. Even if that weren't the case, there's lots of stuff there you can't find elsewhere, or only for excessively inflated prices. It'd still be worth it. I've bought and sold lots there, and my only negative experience has been with shipping companies losing parcels, delivering excessively late, delivering to other addresses with no information for addressee or sender, or just mangling cards in transit (DHL in all cases 🙁 ).

It took 14 years (since I started in this hobby) for me to find a free Asus P3B-F 😀

Not bad 😀

I doubt your claim and would like to see a source 😊

http://homepage.hispeed.ch/rscheidegger ... e_faq.html

What this page doesn't mention is which s-spec CPU works on a certain motherboard revision. Sure some late rev. 1.12 P2B's support the Coppermine 133MHz, but also a 1GHz version or only up to 800MHz?

That's exactly my source - combined with having run all kinds of stuff (years back, basically anything I threw at it) on a late-revision P2B-LS

S-spec is only an issue with a BIOS that whitelists specific CPUs (i.e. gives an "unknown CPU" error and refuses to boot if it doesn't know what it has). Asus never did that on the P2B-series. Apart from S-spec, all the CPUs of the same stepping are identical, so if the board runs one, it will run them all. The only exception is listed specifically on the site:

If you want to upgrade to a cpu which has a multiplier of 11, 12 or 14 and a board of the P2B family, you MUST use bios version 1014 beta 3 because of a bug in all earlier bioses (with an earlier bios you could only boot at 66Mhz FSB if the cpu has multiplier 11 or 12, and not boot at all if it has multiplier 14). The recommended flash utility is aflash. If the downloadable version doesn't work on your P2B board (error message "unknown flash chip" or similar), try the version which was on the cd included with the motherboard. If you can't find the cd or this version doesn't work neither, you could use a flash program called pflash2.exe, which was also available at ftp://ftp.asuscom.de but apparently no longer is (pflash.exe will probably not work).
The latest 1014 beta 3 bios for p2b family boards does not contain microcode for the newest stepping tualatins (tB1). You can ignore the warning or patch your bios.

The only difference between the boards is really the number of slots. And why did Asus take the trouble to re-engineer the board so many times? Apart from marketing (nothing like a new name to get customers buying a new board), it was changing demands. In mid 1998 when the first P2B hit the shops, ISA was still pretty mainstream for things like modems, nobody used PCI for sound cards and the chances of anyone needing more than 4 PCI cards was negligible.

By late 1999 and the P3B-F, the world had changed. DOS-compatibility was an afterthought (note the lack of PC/PCI SB-Link connector) and PCI was used for just about everything. Lots of PCI. Just consider an enthousiast build around then:
- nVidia TNT2 AGP card
- 2x Voodoo2 PCI
- PCI modem
- PCI NIC
- PCI TV card, or an ATA-66/100 controller
- Maybe a PCI sound card too...

That's 6 cards. Having 6 PCI slots was really seen as a necessity for a short period around 1999/2000. Once Voodoo2 went the way of the dinosaurs and people moved from dial-up modems on a PC to modems integrated on routers and LAN in the home, slot requirements dropped fast.

dionb wrote:

a lot of stuff in this category is sold with no warranties and 'as-is, no questions'. Exactly what are you paying for then?

It's off topic again: some of those sellers offer worldwide shipping. Most of them accept Paypal which does give you a safeguard against loss or non-conformity. Apart from that the eBay website makes shopping easy (unless you want to search for bargains), not everyone wants to spend 3 hours searching for a bargain to save €€€.

dionb wrote:

Not sure what bad experiences you had, but the rules are pretty straight forward (express interest on forum before PM, no haggling and compulsory feedback after a deal, that's about it really) and if you stick to them the moderators don't bother you. Even if that weren't the case, there's lots of stuff there you can't find elsewhere, or only for excessively inflated prices. It'd still be worth it. I've bought and sold lots there, and my only negative experience has been with shipping companies losing parcels, delivering excessively late, delivering to other addresses with no information for addressee or sender, or just mangling cards in transit (DHL in all cases 🙁

I can assure you that if that's a 'nice' place to sell and buy, then I would jump on it. It however is not (it's not just rather my opinion), it is worse than eBay and Marktplaats, that I also try to avoid as much as possible. Their many rules, some of them you mention, make it a pain to do business. I can also assure you that if everyone would think and act like you do (i.e. bottom feeder mentality, spend hours, days or years to find that bargain), then I wouldn't have any customers and probably even less people would want to sell their old hardware (why sell if you can't get any decent money for it? Most people are not charities, get subsidized nor get social benefits).

With regard to shipping experiences: I send hundreds of parcels every year. Yes some do get lost, but that's 1%. In my case even less arrive damaged. I have experience with all major shipping companies. I would say Postnl is the worst one out there (take a look at Trustpilot.nl), with UPS at second place. None of them are perfect, but if you pack well and use the right materials, then it rarely goes wrong. Unfortunately most private sellers don't use good packaging materials and their packing efforts are not up to my standards.

dionb wrote:

The only difference between the boards is really the number of slots. And why did Asus take the trouble to re-engineer the board so many times? Apart from marketing (nothing like a new name to get customers buying a new board), it was changing demands. In mid 1998 when the first P2B hit the shops, ISA was still pretty mainstream for things like modems, nobody used PCI for sound cards and the chances of anyone needing more than 4 PCI cards was negligible.

How about the BIOS (jumper free) overclocking features, does the P2B also have those? I know it has lots of jumpers.

If you are right, then the official source, the Asus website, is missing a lot of facts (e.g. take a look at the supported CPU lists). It's also weird that I can't download the latest manuals of both boards to verify all claims that (not only you) people make all over the internet.

SpectriaForce wrote:

If you are right, then the official source, the Asus website, is missing a lot of facts (e.g. take a look at the supported CPU lists). It's also weird that I can't download the latest manuals of both boards to verify all claims that (not only you) people make all over the internet.

There are still many manuals available on the Tekwind site:

ftp://ftp.tekwind.co.jp/pub/asustw/mb/slot1/440bx/

Lawro wrote:

Nice, so all that speed was overkill! What sort of games were you running? I've found one of these boards, "new", without the YMF7...I think I'd still want to run a card, just for the hell of it 🤣 Those 1000MHz P3s with 100FSB are SO expensive and rare now 😢 Only two on eBay, $300+ and $900+. The 133FSB ones are cheap as chips 😠

I wanted to run late DOS games such as Duke 3D and Blood in high resolution (1600x1200) as well as Windows 95/98 games that could use Aureal A3D. It turned out that those Blood glitches out too often at that resolution, and I ended up liking 1024x768. So the ISA slot is important for OPL3 and General Midi for those later DOS games.

The SE440BX is really good for this era and maybe a little earlier. Any Windows 98 game that doesn't need A3D would probably run better under XP anyway, and then you can go as fast as you need with the CPU.

The SB Link could be useful if you want to use the YMF7x4 for OPL3. Then you could use an ISA slot for a GUS. But I don't like the SE440BX for early 90s DOS games and before. It's just too fast, even when I drop in a 233MHz P2. Unless you run a patched game, Tyrian and Jazz Jackrabbit will not run at all. So a GUS (and its superiority with Epic games like Jazz) would be a better fit for a SS7 build, where you can use SETMUL to drop the CPU to 486 speeds.

Also, I picked up my 1000 MHz (100 MHz FSB) Slot 1 P3 a few years ago after reading a thread on Vogons about someone selling them NIB for a reasonable price. Maybe $70? I bought a couple.