I'm a little curious why Coppermine and not Tualatin?

kalohimal wrote on 2020-08-18, 03:59:

I'm a little curious why Coppermine and not Tualatin?

Probably because Coppermine 1GHz is 2000 and Tualatin is 2001/2002...

I've had boards of around that age with bad caps, but if they look good and the board is stable I'd leave them be.
Are you planning on using a 100MHz FSB chip or a 133FSB? For 133FSB the usual caveats (AGP divider) apply.

Why do you want to focus on the CUBX? It seems there's a bit of a hype about this board lately. While it is certainly a good board (I have one myself in a period-correct Y2K build) it seems to be quite overpriced on the usual auction and classifieds sites, so chances are that you overpay... So if you don't own one yet, I would probably look for a different model. Also, 440BX chipset was released in 1998, so for a 2000 build you might as well go with the i815, which would also extend the range of CPUs you can choose from.
Edit: Okay, ISA sound card + i815 will obviously not work, so 440BX would be a legitimate choice.

Short answer: It's a good board for your project.

Long answer:
The Asus CUBX is an overall good stable socket 370 motherboard with a decent layout, useful voltage control and a slight i/o overvolt (3.45V default / 3.6V optional) to further increase stability. It also features a built in UDMA66 PCI IDE controller that'll come in handy when using drives larger than 128GB. Lastly it supports ISA sound cards which as you already know usually have features that make them the better choice for DOS gaming.
Possible weaknesses mostly stem from the 440BX chipset that does not officially support FSB speeds above 100MHz (Even though most late 440BX chipsets run rock stable at 133MHz FSB they only support 1/1 and 1/3 AGP dividers meaning when overclocking the chipset to run at 133MHz you're overclocking the AGP bus to ~88MHz. Some AGP cards can't handle this.) only supports AGP 1.0 (meaning AGP modes 1x and 2x, 3.3V signaling; not an issue with contemporary cards.) and only supports 256MB of RAM per slot (not really an issue, just good to know when choosing RAM sticks). It's also not the greatest overclocker beyond 133MHz and will need an adaptor for Tualatin core CPUs. Also keep in mind that even though the board has six PCI slots some are sharing IRQs.

The capacitor plague only took full effect starting in 2000. ASUS is one of the brands with a reputation of mostly using good capacitors (even though I've had leaky caps on ASUS boards before). Replacing 20 year old caps is going to give you peace of mind if nothing else but replacing FETs simply based on assumption appears unnecessary to me.

Since you mention the Voodoo 5 5500: This card is highly overrated imho and its performance doesn't justify the three figure price tag. A GeForce 2 GTS/Pro will give you comparable performance at a fraction of the cost. The Ti 4200 is going to be bottlenecked by the CPU even. Those cards also have a better chance of handling ~88MHz AGP bus speed than the Voodoo 5 5500. Most late Win9x games look about the same on GeForce and 3Dfx cards. If you want Glide support better hunt for Voodoo 2 cards to populate the shared IRQ PCI slots (Voodoo 1+2 don't use an IRQ). Supposedly they have better overall Glide compatibility anyway. Just a thought/recommendation.

Period correct doesn't mean using paper launched parts that no one had or could even afford.

I don't mean to attack OP. But here it goes.

"For most of you all that will be building systems rather than buying them, the fact that the 1GHz Pentium IIIs won't be available until Q3 is a big downside, potentially a reason to go with the Athlon if you feel that you must have that sort of power soon. " source https://www.anandtech.com/show/500/19

That means for overwhelming majority of people out there running computers in 2000 they were not running 1ghz P3. So 1ghz PIII is not period correct for 2000. Now they might of been over clocking PIII 800s to 1ghz but actual CPU no.

So If you hadn't already build a PC in 2000, and in the fall decided to drop $990.oo US dollars adjusted for inflation $1,489.61 CPU only. source https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

Then you would be a period correct kinda guy. With the rest of your build in total probably costing 6-8 thousand dollars corrected for inflation. Then you are really experiencing life how it was back then.

gex85 wrote on 2020-08-18, 07:39:

Why do you want to focus on the CUBX? It seems there's a bit of a hype about this board lately. While it is certainly a good board (I have one myself in a period-correct Y2K build) it seems to be quite overpriced on the usual auction and classifieds sites, so chances are that you overpay... So if you don't own one yet, I would probably look for a different model. Also, 440BX chipset was released in 1998, so for a 2000 build you might as well go with the i815, which would also extend the range of CPUs you can choose from.
Edit: Okay, ISA sound card + i815 will obviously not work, so 440BX would be a legitimate choice.

yes purely for a year 2000 build i815 and PCI sound makes more sense, but, having the ISA for slightly older games on dos is very helpful, it's a reason why I'm using 440bx with my 98 PC, the limited AGP and being unable to lock to 66 at 133 FSB is the big down side,
the ATA33 is also not great, but the cubx-e has a ata100 controller that seems to work well.

as for Coppermine vs Tualatin, the reason I use Coppermine is that it doesn't require any modifications or adapters and it's cheaper/easier to find, probably fast enough for 98,

440bx boards from Asus are pretty solid from my experience,

Thanks for the help guys. Given me a bit to mull over. Basically from what I see I either run the FSB at full speed, OR the AGP slot. That's not ideal. Plus the board+peripherals I was watching on flea bay which also had a decent price sold a few hours ago so that's put a slight damper on that...

I am also considering an Athlon 1100, but not all VIA KT133A chipset based boards have an ISA slot. A few on this list seem to have them but the "bigger" names don't. The only name I recognise with one is Abit. No idea about EPoX, Soyo, or Soltek.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/786

I also hear that Voodoo works better with AMD anyway due to 3DNow!

Warlord wrote on 2020-08-18, 08:17:

Period correct doesn't mean using paper launched parts that no one had or could even afford.

Fair, but this is about building a dream machine for my 13th birthday had my parents won the lottery :')

CUBX is a nice board, one of the few So370 FPGA i440BX boards. I had one around 2000 (after my AOpen AX6BC died on me, in retrospect probaby of capacitor plague). I initally ran it on my Celeron 366 (@456MHz), later when I could afford it, upgraded to P3-700E. Tried clocking to 933MHz but failed. Probably CPU limitation as it was a very early stepping.

In any event, I'd say it's an excellent choice for any 100MHz FSB P3, and a potentially decent choice for 133MHz too. Don't worry too much about AGP overclocking, most of the cards you would want to use can handle the higher speed easily. Also note that the VGA core/GPU has its own clock, so you're not overclocking that.

But... is it any better than any similar Slot 1 board with a slocket? Not really. Asus used good caps in CUBX, but apart from that it's hardly different to say the P3B-F. The extra IDE controller is a bit of a gimmick, and using it increases boot times. With much newer HDDs it would speed up transfers, but it does nothing for latency, so it's not like you'll really notice the faster performance.

If you can get one cheap, by all means do, but don't overspend.

Vaudane wrote on 2020-08-18, 11:41:

Thanks for the help guys. Given me a bit to mull over. Basically from what I see I either run the FSB at full speed, OR the AGP slot. That's not ideal. Plus the board+peripherals I was watching on flea bay which also had a decent price sold a few hours ago so that's put a slight damper on that...

I am also considering an Athlon 1100, but not all VIA KT133A chipset based boards have an ISA slot. A few on this list seem to have them but the "bigger" names don't. The only name I recognise with one is Abit. No idea about EPoX, Soyo, or Soltek.

There are a couple of interesting choices in the S370 + ISA class:
-Abit BM6 / BX133 RAID
-ASUS CUBX series
-Chaintech CT-6BJM
-Gigabyte GA-6BX7
And there is the Tyan Tomahawk BX but that earned a very poor review by Anandtech.

The Chaintech CT-6BJM is relatively unknown but the one I have here is well made and works like a champ.
They tend(?) to be cheaper than ASUS - there is at the moment one from Moscow for sale on Ebay for 45 dollars.

(AGP slots running at 89Mhz have never caused a problem for me)

There are quite a few more options with So370 + ISA if you drop the i440BX requirement. I have a DFI TA64 with both So370 FC-PGA and Slot 1, universal AGP and an ISA slot - based on Via ApolloPro133a. Clock-for-clock BX is faster, but this can run 133MHz FSB with the rest in-spec, support 1.5V AGP cards etc. I use it as a test system. DFI also has the CA64 boards with Via, So370 and ISA. CA64-TC even adds Tualatin support.

Note that Abit and Chaintech boards from this period tend to have awful capacitor issues.

PARKE wrote on 2020-08-18, 12:33:

There are a couple of interesting choices in the S370 + ISA class: -Abit BM6 / BX133 RAID -ASUS CUBX series -Chaintech CT-6BJM - […]
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There are a couple of interesting choices in the S370 + ISA class:
-Abit BM6 / BX133 RAID
-ASUS CUBX series
-Chaintech CT-6BJM
-Gigabyte GA-6BX7
And there is the Tyan Tomahawk BX but that earned a very poor review by Anandtech.

The Chaintech CT-6BJM is relatively unknown but the one I have here is well made and works like a champ.
They tend(?) to be cheaper than ASUS - there is at the moment one from Moscow for sale on Ebay for 45 dollars.

(AGP slots running at 89Mhz have never caused a problem for me)

The more I read into Abit, the more they sound like the kingpin of the time in terms of the enthusiast crowd. I wonder what happened to them. Either way, Thanks for the list. I can't find the chaintech you mentioned (I guess it sold?) but the Abit BX133 RAID is there for a not extortionate price.

So it appears the contenders are the Abit BX133 RAID vs the Abit KT7-RAID and I need to decide whether to go AMD or Intel. The age old choice...

Vaudane wrote on 2020-08-18, 13:19:

The more I read into Abit, the more they sound like the kingpin of the time in terms of the enthusiast crowd. I wonder what happened to them. Either way, Thanks for the list. I can't find the chaintech you mentioned (I guess it sold?) but the Abit BX133 RAID is there for a not extortionate price.

So it appears the contenders are the Abit BX133 RAID vs the Abit KT7-RAID and I need to decide whether to go AMD or Intel. The age old choice...

The ad comes up here when you google: Chaintech 6BJM ebay.

Abit was focusing on overclockers with their soft menu that supported overclocking with 1Mhz increments which was probably one of the main reasons they had a following.

MSI BX Master.....Is better than all of these boards including the cubx... Dont buy the one on ebay with the blow caps.

what exactly is special about that board? they probably all do just about the exact same thing.

if anything the fact it uses cheap caps unlike ga-bx2000+ (has good caps on VRM at least) and cubx is an argument against it, if significant money is to be spent here.

Vaudane wrote on 2020-08-18, 13:19:

The more I read into Abit, the more they sound like the kingpin of the time in terms of the enthusiast crowd. I wonder what happened to them.

They really were the go to brand for overclocking ever since they came up with their SoftMenu. They got hit by the capacitor plague pretty badly and recalled their boards to rework or replace them. I think they never fully recovered from that. In mid 2000s more manufacturers pushed into the enthusiast/overclocker's market and they didn't sell enough boards so they cooked their books. They got bought up and stopped making motherboards. I think the brand is defunct.

So it appears the contenders are the Abit BX133 RAID vs the Abit KT7-RAID and I need to decide whether to go AMD or Intel. The age old choice...

Imho the only reason not to go AMD for this build would be if you planned on using Voodoo2 SLI. I have never heard of anyone getting it to work right on KT133(A). With a beefy cooler and some tweaking the 1GHz Athlons would often overclock to 1.2GHz and beyond. Main reason to go Intel would be stability and compatibility.

dionb wrote on 2020-08-18, 12:58:

There are quite a few more options with So370 + ISA if you drop the i440BX requirement. I have a DFI TA64 with both So370 FC-PGA and Slot 1, universal AGP and an ISA slot - based on Via ApolloPro133a. Clock-for-clock BX is faster, but this can run 133MHz FSB with the rest in-spec, support 1.5V AGP cards etc. I use it as a test system. DFI also has the CA64 boards with Via, So370 and ISA. CA64-TC even adds Tualatin support.

Note that Abit and Chaintech boards from this period tend to have awful capacitor issues.

The only reason I was sticking with the i440BX was that it seemed to be the chipset that did what I needed. Having a look at the Via chipset now though iirc from [1] they aren't as good.

PARKE wrote on 2020-08-18, 13:27:

The ad comes up here when you google: Chaintech 6BJM ebay.

Abit was focusing on overclockers with their soft menu that supported overclocking with 1Mhz increments which was probably one of the main reasons they had a following.

Huh weird, It pops up for me when I do that. Ebay and ge0-ship were giving nothing though. Looks like it's out of stock though sadly. Are chaintech decent except blown cap stuff?

Warlord wrote on 2020-08-18, 14:02:

MSI BX Master.....Is better than all of these boards including the cubx... Dont buy the one on ebay with the blow caps.

I see there's one for sale in Russia, what makes it better? Just the blown caps? I was planning on poly-modding any motherboard I bought anyway. Also not entirely sold on slot processors, always had socketed, so need a decent reason to go for one.

Doornkaat wrote on 2020-08-18, 14:40:

They really were the go to brand for overclocking ever since they came up with their SoftMenu. They got hit by the capacitor pla […]
Show full quote

Vaudane wrote on 2020-08-18, 13:19:

The more I read into Abit, the more they sound like the kingpin of the time in terms of the enthusiast crowd. I wonder what happened to them.

They really were the go to brand for overclocking ever since they came up with their SoftMenu. They got hit by the capacitor plague pretty badly and recalled their boards to rework or replace them. I think they never fully recovered from that. In mid 2000s more manufacturers pushed into the enthusiast/overclocker's market and they didn't sell enough boards so they cooked their books. They got bought up and stopped making motherboards. I think the brand is defunct.

So it appears the contenders are the Abit BX133 RAID vs the Abit KT7-RAID and I need to decide whether to go AMD or Intel. The age old choice...

Imho the only reason not to go AMD for this build would be if you planned on using Voodoo2 SLI. I have never heard of anyone getting it to work right on KT133(A). With a beefy cooler and some tweaking the 1GHz Athlons would often overclock to 1.2GHz and beyond. Main reason to go Intel would be stability and compatibility.

Ah sucks then. Capacitor company is still probably in operation but thanks to using stolen electrolyte formula, it took down other companies that couldn't take the hit. Good ol' chinesium. got any links for the voodoo2 sli not working on AMD? I'd like to read a bit.

Vaudane wrote on 2020-08-18, 16:03:

[...]

The only reason I was sticking with the i440BX was that it seemed to be the chipset that did what I needed. Having a look at the Via chipset now though iirc from [1] they aren't as good.

Define "good"...

If you take the 694X/D/T, it's not so bad

Three disadvantages:
- require chipset drivers not natively included in Windows 98SE, 2k or XP (it's not true Intel-based chipsets don't require drivers, they just have working drivers included in OS)
- 686B southbridge doesn't play ball with Soundblaster Live! cards
- clock-for-clock slightly slower than i440BX

Four advantages:
- native 133MHz FSB support, incl 1/4 PCI divider and 1/2 AGP divider
- AGP 2.0 (4x), so support for 1.5V cards
- native ISA support
- support for 1.5GB of RAM

The 1.5GB RAM is rather irrelevant for period correct stuff (DOS and Win98 get into trouble over 512MB...), the other three are nice, and no Intel chipset supports all three natively. Rare i815 and i820 boards with PCI-ISA bridge can deliver, but the Asus P3C-E (about the commonest board with it) is very hard to find.

No other chipset gives you this natively. Now, personally I consider P3 too new for DOS, so don't mind giving up the ISA slot if I'm only running Win98SE (which means I have SiS635T, i820 and i840 systems) - but if you want a system that can do both, you want that ApolloPro133A (694X/D/T)

So it appears the contenders are the Abit BX133 RAID vs the Abit KT7-RAID

I hope you like soldering... I once found a BX133 RAID that amazingly didn't have visibly damaged caps. Unfortunately it wasn't fully stable - turns out the caps weren't bulging but were still dying. Needed a full re-cap 🙁

dionb wrote on 2020-08-18, 11:49:

CUBX is a nice board, one of the few So370 FPGA i440BX boards. I had one around 2000 (after my AOpen AX6BC died on me, in retros […]
Show full quote

CUBX is a nice board, one of the few So370 FPGA i440BX boards. I had one around 2000 (after my AOpen AX6BC died on me, in retrospect probaby of capacitor plague). I initally ran it on my Celeron 366 (@456MHz), later when I could afford it, upgraded to P3-700E. Tried clocking to 933MHz but failed. Probably CPU limitation as it was a very early stepping.

In any event, I'd say it's an excellent choice for any 100MHz FSB P3, and a potentially decent choice for 133MHz too. Don't worry too much about AGP overclocking, most of the cards you would want to use can handle the higher speed easily. Also note that the VGA core/GPU has its own clock, so you're not overclocking that.

But... is it any better than any similar Slot 1 board with a slocket? Not really. Asus used good caps in CUBX, but apart from that it's hardly different to say the P3B-F. The extra IDE controller is a bit of a gimmick, and using it increases boot times. With much newer HDDs it would speed up transfers, but it does nothing for latency, so it's not like you'll really notice the faster performance.

If you can get one cheap, by all means do, but don't overspend.

regarding the IDE controller, the boot is still fast, it feels like it takes a couple of seconds additional with it enabled which is pretty fast as far as these sort of thing go and the overall boot time,
the benefit I agree is in reality questionable at best, ata33 is plenty for windows98, but it works, I'm using a 5400RPM HD from 2003 right now with it and it exceeds 33MB/s (at least on the fastest part of the drive), and it can do over 75MB/s buffered read

edit: test result on aida, it's the same hard drive and software just using the Promise ata 100 port and the chipset ata 33 one, clear advantage IMO, and it would be even better with a 7200RPM drive,