dont use ide/sata adapters. they don't work. just use a pci sata card. I recommend the Promise TX4 card. It works great with everything. Its sata 2, and while you might not think that matters, if you get an SSD, its likely not compatible with sata 1. Dont forget to disable the onboard IDE to make life easier on win9x.

This system is going to be a BIT fast for DOS games. Even with the p3-500.

Start with the 500, one stick of ram, the G200 and the audigy PCI. These are EASY and SIMPLE parts with lots of documentation and easy to find drivers.

1) That network card, even though its based on Intel chips, might have issues. Sometimes, cards with pci-pci bridges, like that dual nic, can have config issues.
2) As much as I am COMPELLED to put as much ram as physically possible into a system, DOS can only see 64mb, AND win9x tends to get "unhappy" when you have >256mb.
3) Voodoo 3 would be the 2nd card i'd play with, as it will look great in UT and Quake3. ^.^ the G200 is going to be the best for DOS. Its 2D performance and quality are unmatched.
4) raid is worthless unless you want to have fun. (which card, btw? I love raid!)
5) I've heard mixed things about the Yamaha. But when you mentioned DOS, I'd give it a pass until you are more familiar with your system. The SB16 is great, HOWEVER it's not suited for the windows games like UT/Q3 that you mentioned.
6) If you use the 933mhz cpu, it's highly likely you will have speed issues with DOS games. Q3/UT is going to like it with the voodoo3, on the other hand.
7) Don't be afraid to dual boot. (there are tutorials out there) The voodoo 3 will have driver complexities with 2000/xp but it's a much more stable OS.

Thanks for this. I don’t have a problem tweaking bios settings and down clocking the CPU, if that would help with DOS accuracy? I’m realizing I might not have an ideal all in one system without making some sacrifices. But I have enough parts here that I would just need to spend a bit to actually build two machines out of these parts, and one could have the G200. What’s the fundamental difference for DOS games between the G200 and the voodoo 3?

I’m also not entirely clear on what the cooling situation is for the Pentium III chips. The 933 chip has a massive, passive heat sink slapped onto it. No fan. The 500 MHz chip has an Intel heat sink and fan included.

Sounds like the stock cooler for that 500. You can squeeze hard on the plastic ends and the fan section can be removed for 'easy' cleaning. Be careful not to break the plastic pins that hold the aluminum to the cpu die. That's not a fun path to go down. The 500 doesn't make a massive amount of heat, so you shouldn't need to redo the paste. I wouldn't touch it unless I knew for sure it needed replacement. The same advice for the 933. But you should keep a fan pointed to the heatsink unless your case has a large amount of airflow past the cpu. (likely not) worst case scenario, a series of bolts, nuts, springs can get you back from disaster.

As for speed, I don't honestly have a lot of experience. I have a garage full of hardware, so I haven't had this issue personally. Intel chips of this era were pretty much multiplier hard locked. you're limited to changing the FSB. I'm sure if I'm wrong someone will correct me.

I'd point you here: https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/List_of_ … sensitive_games

Another dumb question, if I didn’t want to dual boot, and got a Sata pci card, could MS-DOS run from the hard drive or would it be looking for IDE?

The card will let you boot into dos just fine.