Reply 20 of 47, by dormcat
- Rank
- Oldbie
flupke11 wrote on 2022-05-13, 10:38:Is there really a reason, other than nostalgia, to choose SS7 over a Slot 1 (BX)-based board? I would not recommend newcomers in this hobby to hunt SS7-boards, given the current prices. Depending on what games they want to play, I'd go for a cheap LX-based board (good for DOS) or a P4-based AGP system (win98/early XP).
IMHO there are FIVE major eras of PC gaming:
1. Early DOS (320x200 w/o 3D)
2. Late DOS (VESA-compatible 640x480 and/or 3D acceleration)
3. Win9x
4. NT5 (Win2K/XP)
5. NT6+ (Vista and beyond)
Sure, there are even earlier pre-VGA era but let's put it aside for now.
Building a retro rig spanning two eras is not problematic at all, as those were actually faced by users and manufacturers when both software and hardware progressed. Building a rig spanning THREE eras, however, requires more specific (and rare) hardware. A good SS7 MB like GA-5AX with a late K6 CPU can deal with games of the first three eras quite nicely. There are methods of toggling cache on a Slot 1 system but it's trickier than most S7 / SS7 MB with this function readily available in BIOS.
For the record, IMHO the best options for eras 2-4 and 3-5 are "Tualatin-S 1.4GHz + a compatible MB with ISA slot" and "C2Q / C2X Kentsfield with ASRock 775i65G R3.0," respectively. I don't own and don't intend to own them as being the "best" systems spanning three eras easily push their prices high. With the same money one can build multiple rigs spanning two eras each.