Sphere478 wrote on 2022-06-03, 04:46:

What was the best chipset for dual 370?

What was the best motherboard? Best performing? Most overclockable?

All the leading candidates (skt 370 + slot 1 / sloket combos like the OR840) likely get a mention here - Dual PIII-S Tualatin 1.4 GHz Success Stories - but the respective chipsets all had their strengths / weaknesses, so I guess 'best' might differ depending on your intended usage / POV

What do you want to do with it indeed?

For pure features/stock power, I'd say it's a toss-up between i840 and Serverworks IIIHE (i.e. OR840 and Thunder 2500, even if both are Slot1 boards). But if you want to OC, you might be better off with a flexible dual Via 694D board.

I had this idea of trying to use it for internet, pcb cad, and playing videos. daily kinda stuff. maybe some halo and doom here and there, we'll see.

Obviously, it's some seriously dated hardware so I was gonna push it to its limits. 1.4ghz was the fastest right? 512k? was that the best?

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-06-03, 08:46:

I had this idea of trying to use it for internet, pcb cad, and playing videos. daily kinda stuff. maybe some halo and doom here and there, we'll see.

Obviously, it's some seriously dated hardware so I was gonna push it to its limits. 1.4ghz was the fastest right? 512k? was that the best?

In the right UP setup, the 1400 / 512 / 133 / 1.45 will possibly do between 1750 - 1800MHz (see Overclocking Pentium III / Celeron: Coppermine and Tualatin cores - Socket 370) - with SMP maybe a bit more modest.

Also, what about slot mix - the very best Serverworks-based baords will be flavours of PCI only (on multiple independant buses) so no AGP or ISA, will support 6GB dual-channel PC133 but have really poor IDE so figure OB or card-based SATA / SCSI. Overclocking options (if any) may be limited - @luckybob did plan on trying on his Asus TRL-DLS...not sure how that went.

Intel OR840 & clones (Compaq AP550 / IBM Intellistation) are good options - slot 1 / 2GB RDRAM with AGP and can support dual PIII-S on modified slokets, though again no ISA.

Via-wise, as @dionb says look at the 694D chipset or maybe even the later DDR based Pro266T boards like the MSI MS-9105

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote on 2022-06-03, 11:45:

[...]

Also, what about slot mix - the very best Serverworks-based baords will be flavours of PCI only (on multiple independant buses) so no AGP or ISA, will support 6GB dual-channel PC133 but have really poor IDE so figure OB or card-based SATA / SCSI. Overclocking options (if any) may be limited - @luckybob did plan on trying on his Asus TRL-DLS...not sure how that went.

There's a reason I specifically mentioned the Tyan Thunder 2500 -8GB RAM, AGP Pro and an ISA slot for good measure, as well as all the 64b PCI slots you might ever need.

Still has Serverworks' buggy IDE interface, but there are lots of nice 64b PCI PATA, SATA and SCSI options to solve that 😉

Noted re ISA / AGP, and although I do like dual boards, given its current price (1000 bucks!) its a bit out of my eyeline & price range 😀 ...does seem to work with Tualatins though - https://www.wimsbios.com/forum/cpu-isn-recogn … 1867-t2868.html

I have the Supermicro P3TDE6 which is an impressive board, both feature-wise and on stability. But! The AGP implementation is buggy, and I need more time than I can spare to max out any videocard with both natively supported 1,4 Tualatins (and 4GB of registered dual channel SDR-Sdram 😀).

If ever I need to name my favourite dual PIII board, it will probably be this one.

I adore my Abit VP6.
Can't do Tualatins tho.
I didn't use VIA Apollo Pro back in the day, but now after using VP6 and VH6-II its quickly becoming a favorite of mine.