That's a lot of Tualatin-capable boards you have there!

2. I've heard that the service packs on XP can cause differences in performance, particularly with SP3. To avoid this confusion, I'd go with W2K SP4.

3. I like the idea if minimising dependence on HDD speed, so I'd go with the SSD and SATA150.

4. E. Something commonly available with other users, so perhaps some flavour of the the GF 6600 or 6800.

7. Any s-spec Tualatin, unless only a certain s-spec works on a particular board, then use that s-spec on all other boards.

This looks like an awesome project!

I'd go with Win98SE and one of the Nvidia GPUs. The only issue is that the FX 5700 based one uses newer drivers which will affect performance. Perhaps the Quadro 900 which is AFAIK pretty much a Ti 4600, might be a better choice here. Ideally, if you have an FX 5900 based GPU you could use that since it is faster than both cards and can use relatively older drivers too.
Can't wait to see the results!

Unfortunately, I don't have a FX5900 or FX5800-based GPU.

The idea is to have a fast enough AGP-card so that the AGP dos not bottleneck the CPU. Is there a reason why ATI-cards are less in favour?

If I go with the Quadro, which driver version should I preferably use for Win98SE, Win2K and WInXP?

Yeah, in theory it's a great idea, it's just that later drivers, on the Nvidia side at least, will produce more CPU overhead and sometimes will lower performance greatly. It's been a while since I looked into it, but usually, the older the driver, the better. Here's a video to give you a rough idea of what's going on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRhm4aGNI3o
As far as drivers go for the Quadro, again no clue, since I've never owned a Quadro. Have you modded the BIOS so that it gets recognized as a Ti 4600? If so, 45.23 is a good place to start and is often recommended as the go to driver. You might want to try earlier ones as well though, just to see if performance improves. If I recall correctly, GF4 support began somewhere around the 28.xx mark.

The FX 5700 came out in late 2003 along with FX 5950 (which is not nothing more than an OC FX 5900 AFAIR), so the drivers are pretty new. Seeing as the card is not much faster (if at all) than the Ti 4600 when not using AA and AF (which the FX Series handled far better than GF4 cards), perhaps I'd go with the Ti 4600 (or Quadro in your case), but you'll need to look into it a bit further.

I have little experience with ATi cards of that era. The 9800XT is probably more than enough for these systems, unless you're willing to test a much newer game. Thing is, I know for a fact that OpenGL performance is not where it should be, especially compared to Nvidia cards. I'm also not sure how performance is using later drivers. Perhaps someone has tested and found out, but it's an unknown to me due to not having messed around much with these cards.

Hope any of this helps!

Cheers for the information. I tested both a 9700pro and the 9800 AIW (which is a Pro, not an XT as I erroneously thought) on the i815ep platform, and both result in a failed boot. The ATI 9XXX are disqualified as such.

I’ll stick with the Quadro 900, which was released according to Wiki in Feb 2002, which is right within the time frame of the 1,4 Ghz PIII-S.

Ideally, I’d like something a bit more recent. I’ll test the X850 as well, just for fun.

Currently on the test bench:

The i815EP chipset.

Candidate: Asus TUSL2-C

BIOS: 1012, up from the original 1007

AGP: Quadro 4 900 XGL 128MB

Promise TX4-Sata 300 in PCI-slot 3

Win2K is being installed.

The 440bx boards won't run an agp 8x card they are 3.3v electrically which Radeon 9600 and 9800 don't support as well as all ati Xxxx cards

candle_86 wrote on 2020-04-25, 21:27:

The 440bx boards won't run an agp 8x card they are 3.3v electrically which Radeon 9600 and 9800 don't support as well as all ati Xxxx cards

I'd agree on the BX, but the i815ep, being far more modern, suprised me in not running the 9700/9800. It runs the X850 without issues...

I'd be interested to see memory benchmarks for your tests using SiSoft Sandra. When VoodooMan did he tests i posted a Memory Benchmark which i though was mighty impressive for a BX Board at 150mhz With a 1400-S.

By Intel's iron fist, the best chipset for Tualatin never saw the light of the day. 😁

It was the i830GMCH Amador chipsets. It has a much improved SDRAM PC133 memory controller architecture that beat an overclocked 440BX and i815 Solano GMCH. It would take an aggressively overclocked i815 to match the performance of the new memory controller in i830. It was too good for Tualatin and may potentially overshadowed the management's push for Pentium4. It was only released for mobile because Pentium4 mobile power/thermal figures was unattractive in this space at the time when Transmeta had a bold claim on mobile longevity with their upcoming x86 mobile CPU. The i830GMCH also includes the new Intel Extreme Graphics core that was a complete architecture revamp from the previous generation i810/i815 graphics core.

The improved memory controller and graphics core were later reused in i845G chipsets for Pentium4 in desktop with DDR upgrade for the memory controller, the 1st integrated graphics chipsets for Pentium4 to go mainstream without the cost burden of RDRAM.

Results are in for the TUSL2-C [Windows 2K and on Nvidia drivers 45.23]

I don't know why CPU-Z reports that the AGP is at 2X, while 4X is selected in BIOS and the Quadro is clearly an AGP 4X generation.

At FSB 133 , CAS2 consuming 108W (MB, GPU, SATA)

3Dmark2K: 10087
3Dmark01: 9242
Q3Ademo four.DM68: 159,8
Sisoft99: CPU 363 MB/s - FPU 355 MB/s

At 150 FSB, CAS3 consuming 111W

3Dmark2K: 10804
3Dmark01: 9693
Q3Ademo four.DM68: 168,2
Sisoft99: CPU 365 MB/s - FPU 364MB/s

flupke11 wrote on 2020-04-25, 23:21:

Results are in for the TUSL2-C [Windows 2K and on Nvidia drivers 45.23]

I don't know why CPU-Z reports that the AGP is at 2X, while 4X is selected in BIOS and the Quadro is clearly an AGP 4X generation.

You need to relash it with the evil bios. Its a common issue with the vanilla asus bios.

http://www.x86-secret.com/articles/tweak/i815twken.htm

Thx!

I've updated and rerun the tests:

At 150 FSB, CAS3 consuming 108W, with modded BIOS 1011 and Nvidia 45.23:

3Dmark2K: 10847
3Dmark01: 9803
Q3Ademo four.DM68: 174,8
Sisoft99: CPU 377 MB/s - FPU 370MB/s

A nice boost. I'll start testing a second system soon.

Quick test with the same install on the Asus P3B-F

FSB 150; same ram as TUSL2-C, Upgradeware Slot-T, Promise on PCI 4

3Dmark2K: 11552
3Dmark01: 10397
Q3Ademo four.DM68: 185,5
Sisoft99: CPU 447 MB/s - FPU 484MB/s

Impressive results for the oldie of the bunch...

Slight side-question: I might just be receiving that Compaq i840 board in the near future (or otherwise some other Compaq i840 model). It seems to have an ATX-like-but-bigger connector. What PSU are you using? An original Compaq PSU or a generic ATX?

dionb wrote on 2020-04-26, 15:11:

Slight side-question: I might just be receiving that Compaq i840 board in the near future (or otherwise some other Compaq i840 model). It seems to have an ATX-like-but-bigger connector. What PSU are you using? An original Compaq PSU or a generic ATX?

I got lucky, I got an original AP550, so it's using its original Compaq PSU with a 24-pin ATX-style connector and an additional 6-pin.

I would suggest driver version 30.82 or 29.42 for the Quadro 4 900. They should be faster (same as with GeForce 4 Ti 4xxx).

More results before I venture outside:

Results are in for the ECS P6S5AT [Windows 2K, Nvidia drivers 45.23, SIS 121 AGP driver] on DDR.

Chuffed it passed the test of installing Win2K and running all tests without lockups. That means my crude recapping was successful.

At FSB 133 , max about 100W (MB, GPU, SATA)

3Dmark2K: 10638
3Dmark01: 9646
Q3Ademo four.DM68: 168.6
Sisoft99: CPU 441 MB/s - FPU 437 MB/s

Currently, no OC options on this chipset, although the CPU clearly has no issues doing 150 FSB.

It is picky with ram, I had to use 1*512 MT PC-2700U-25330-B1

The Sdram I used on the BX and i815 does not play with the SIS.

bloodem wrote on 2020-04-26, 16:16:

I would suggest driver version 30.82 or 29.42 for the Quadro 4 900. They should be faster (same as with GeForce 4 Ti 4xxx).

I'll give it a go on the TUSL2-C.

flupke11 wrote on 2020-04-26, 16:06:

I got lucky, I got an original AP550, so it's using its original Compaq PSU with a 24-pin ATX-style connector and an additional […]
Show full quote

dionb wrote on 2020-04-26, 15:11:

Slight side-question: I might just be receiving that Compaq i840 board in the near future (or otherwise some other Compaq i840 model). It seems to have an ATX-like-but-bigger connector. What PSU are you using? An original Compaq PSU or a generic ATX?

I got lucky, I got an original AP550, so it's using its original Compaq PSU with a 24-pin ATX-style connector and an additional 6-pin.

AP550_PSU_2.JPG
AP550_PSU.JPG

Lucky!

One last request: could you see if the board boots without the 6-pin? I actually have a 200W Compaq 24p PSU from 1999. If it might boot with just the 24p I can use that to test it. If it's alive I'll shell out on one of those 375W and 1.5x ATX height monsters 😉

Edit: sod it, just ordered the 375W PSU.

FYI I have the P6S5A-T and an i815E system too, so potentially could double-check stuff if needed - although I don't have time to do a full project like you are doing.