k9cj5 wrote on 2022-08-31, 06:54:
Meatball wrote on 2022-08-29, 02:15:
If that video card is an original with the tower, you might have a TNT2 Ultra Viper V770! Even if it's the regular V770, it's still a nice card. Find out before you make any changes. Unless your plan is to max out this tower, period be damned, and the card is a V770, I would keep that card and look for a Voodoo2 (or two Voodoo2's if you want to spend the money) to pair with the Diamond.
With that said, I have one of these towers except it is the T550 (if you upgrade your CPU to 550, it will also become a 550 in the BIOS automatically) with a Voodoo3, which was a factory option for this tower. You would be keeping in the spirit of the tower if you were able to nab a Voodoo3. As for performance, if you upgrade to a PIII 600MHz Slot-1, you'll max out the Voodoo3 at resolutions of 1024x768 and play lower resolutions more than comfortably. PIII 600MHz Slot-1 CPUs - Katmai or Coppermine should cost about the same at 600MHz. Alternatively, you are not limited to 1000MHz Slot-1 CPUs. If you plug in a 133MHz FSB Pentium III, it will run at its 7.5 multiplier but with a 100MHz FSB @750MHz. You can still grab the Slot-1 versions for under $60. Unless you have most of the parts, a Slotket, 1GHz Socket 370 PIII, and fan will cost about the same (I'm using eBay pricing, by the way, and not considering patience for a deal to pop up). I know these 133MHz Pentium III's work on other 100MHz FSB 440BXs I own, but I haven't tested in the Dell. I could test this out if you like.
I need to check it again but I'm pretty sure it's not a V770. Since I closed it back up I can't seem to get it open. Out side is ok shape but inside is pretty dirty. I know for sure it had 16 megs, it was a diamond card and I thought it said tnt on it. Either way super cool to have. I thought about getting a voodoo 2 but I don't know much about them. I recently saw a voodoo 2 8 meg go for 99 but the 12 meg card go for close to 200. Kinda neat if you can run both those cards in the same machine. If you did how do you chose which card will render the game? So you could run 2 voodoo 2s in sli and run a tnt in the agp slot? That sounds like it would be an awesome setup.
So the 133mhz fsb CPUs will work on this board? So if I got a 850 mhz p3 with 133fsb what would the clock be? If you have some that you could test that would be awesome. As much as I would like to buy a bunch of slot 1 CPUs to test I can't. I did pick up a 266 pentium 2 "Klamath" core for maybe making this into a awesome dos machine. I've heard those have a unlocked multiplier and you can jump between 133 to 300 by adjusting the fsb multiplier. Not sure if this Dell motherboard will support this but it was 10 dollars so I couldn't pass it up. Thanks again for everyone responses.
You might have the M64 version then, which is like a regular TNT2, but only 64-bit memory interface (compared to TNT2/TNT2 Pro/TNT2 Ultra at 128-bit) - still OK for games which aren't demanding or at lower resolutions and it's good for DOS.
There are no 850/133MHz Pentium IIIs from the factory. It would be 866/133MHz. 850MHz is only for Slot-1 with 100MHz bus. Anyway, the multiplier on the 866MHz Pentium III is 6.5. So, on a 100MHz FSB limited motherboard, it would run at 650MHz (6.5 x 100).
Yes, you can run 2 Voodoo2 cards in SLI with the M64 (or any card, for that matter).
When you have a Voodoo2 installed, there is a tick box for DirectX. It's enabled by default. If you untick the box, then the Voodoo2 will no longer perform DirectX functions. Your main card, the TNT2 M64 in this case, would perform as primary for DirectX3D. The Voodoo2 will ALWAYS perform Glide operations.
For the 266MHz Pentium II, it is compatible with the Dell Board, but there are no jumpers or BIOS options to control the multiplier or Front-side bus (OEMs didn't want you playing back then). This 440BX board is a vanilla Intel SE440BX-2. On the Intel (non-Dell version) SE440BX-2, there is a single jumper to set for configuring a Pentium II in the bottom corner of the board, but I don't know about this Dell - I have to check. If you have an unlocked Pentium II, you MIGHT be able to set it to a lower speed. I don't know for sure as I never tried it in this Dell. Otherwise, whatever the CPU is specified for operation at the factory, this is how it will perform in this machine. The exception could be the 133MHz FSB Pentiums. Because this board is limited to 100MHz, they will be downclocked (IF they work, I haven't tested in this Dell yet, but like I said, P3's normally work downclocked in other motherboards just fine).
