You dont really need to worry too much about steppings, stepping are just very minor revisions in the silicon to correct errata that doesn't affect the CPU itself. in this case I'm guessing the revision was to the power management of the CPU which adjusted the voltage slightly, likely to provide better stability to the vcore. (The earlier revisions may have had slight issues under heavy load or they wanted to bring the vcore inline with the other Coppermine CPUs)

If the earlier steppings work fine in your board then the later ones will also work fine.
If you are worried then stick with the stepping you know your BIOS supports, you wont notice any difference.

The only time I have seen steppings matter is with later model Pentium 4 CPUs where a chipset version may not support later steppings, the P4 was a different beast from the Pentium 3 though.

You dont have all that many options for 1Ghz PIII, I would be surprised if you could find both on sale easily because of the 100MHz FSB.
They aint common because they werent popular, everybody seemed to have preferred the 133FSB over the 100 but many did go to industrial PCs, as I have seen dozens and dozens of them used in that way over the years.

I would roll with cDo myself but not because of anything more than it would be easier to find it, as opposed to cCo stepping version. The former does pop up on ebay from time to time, but the cCo is rare.

Trashbytes wrote on 2023-12-03, 07:45:

You dont really need to worry too much about steppings, stepping are just very minor revisions in the silicon to correct errata […]
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You dont really need to worry too much about steppings, stepping are just very minor revisions in the silicon to correct errata that doesn't affect the CPU itself. in this case I'm guessing the revision was to the power management of the CPU which adjusted the voltage slightly, likely to provide better stability to the vcore. (The earlier revisions may have had slight issues under heavy load or they wanted to bring the vcore inline with the other Coppermine CPUs)

If the earlier steppings work fine in your board then the later ones will also work fine.
If you are worried then stick with the stepping you know your BIOS supports, you wont notice any difference.

The only time I have seen steppings matter is with later model Pentium 4 CPUs where a chipset version may not support later steppings, the P4 was a different beast from the Pentium 3 though.

Thank you very much for the information.

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-12-03, 10:02:

You dont have all that many options for 1Ghz PIII, I would be surprised if you could find both on sale easily because of the 100MHz FSB.
They aint common because they werent popular, everybody seemed to have preferred the 133FSB over the 100 but many did go to industrial PCs, as I have seen dozens and dozens of them used in that way over the years.

I would roll with cDo myself but not because of anything more than it would be easier to find it, as opposed to cCo stepping version. The former does pop up on ebay from time to time, but the cCo is rare.

I'm only looking at the 133 version (sorry I should have mentioned this). There are plenty of cCo's and cDo's available, but I can get a cDo for half the price of a cCo. I thought maybe there was a reason why the cDo was so much cheaper but it sounds like they are pretty much the same. Looks like I'll go for the cDo as it's cheaper and its's the newer stepping.

Well in that case the reason is a lot more simple.
The price difference is because of the massive supply of some S Specs to OEMs like Dell and some started in retail boxes, and they are less common so command a higher price even though there is no real world use difference between the two, thought in a technical sense there is a slight difference.

What are the S Spec codes youre thinking about?

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-12-03, 10:49:

Well in that case the reason is a lot more simple.
The price difference is because of the massive supply of some S Specs to OEMs like Dell and some started in retail boxes, and they are less common so command a higher price even though there is no real world use difference between the two, thought in a technical sense there is a slight difference.

What are the S Spec codes youre thinking about?

Very interesting. I was looking at a SL4MF (cCo) and a SL52R (cDo)

zuldan wrote on 2023-12-03, 11:03:

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-12-03, 10:49:

Well in that case the reason is a lot more simple.
The price difference is because of the massive supply of some S Specs to OEMs like Dell and some started in retail boxes, and they are less common so command a higher price even though there is no real world use difference between the two, thought in a technical sense there is a slight difference.

What are the S Spec codes youre thinking about?

Very interesting. I was looking at a SL4MF (cCo) and a SL52R (cDo)

Yeah I thought so... As I said above.

They are both much of a muchness for what you are looking to do. The SL52R was very common in Dell and HP systems so they are very common for retro builds due to the price.

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-12-03, 11:19:

Yeah I thought so... As I said above.

They are both much of a muchness for what you are looking to do. The SL52R was very common in Dell and HP systems so they are very common for retro builds due to the price.

What I find interesting is that the slotkets to go with these cheap CPUs are rare as hens teeth 🙁 Took me 2 months to find the one I have.

Yes the slockets do seem to have become quite rare.
But on the other hand im not so sure they were all that common back in the day slot 1 was common, because the slot 1 cpu was common.

It depends on how you define ' common'. Over time I have been able to collect data on well over 50 different Slotket manufacturers with well over 150 different models/revisions that were issued between early 1999 and mid 2000. Here for example an (translated) article with a slotket review from a september 1999 dutch computer magazine.

PARKE wrote on 2023-12-03, 14:15:

It depends on how you define ' common'. Over time I have been able to collect data on well over 50 different Slotket manufacturers with well over 150 different models/revisions that were issued between early 1999 and mid 2000. Here for example an (translated) article with a slotket review from a september 1999 dutch computer magazine.Computer UK.doc

Common would be their total use in relation to all the other systems that are capable of using them but dont.

For instance if there are 100 slot 1 motherboards in total that were ever produced then more than 50% of them would need to have been using a slocket adapter for them to start to be considered common.
And of course there are a lot more than 100 slot 1 motherboards that were produced.

Dont get me wrong Ive see many slocket adapters used over the years, but in relation to the sheer volume of slot 1 systems that didnt use them then I would say their use isnt common.

There are some big enough differences between the two to cause go/no-go conditions on some boards.. CC0 Pentium III vs CD0 P3 ... CPUID 6-8-10... are there real differences???
So it's possible cD0 could cause problems.

PARKE maybe forgot he had confirmed a specific cD0 S spec to work on his P-3B though..

PARKE wrote on 2020-12-10, 17:49:

My P3B-F runs with a 1 GHz (SL5QV) on an Iwill slocket (see photo) and I have the same slotket on a P2B-S rev. 1.03 with an 1100 Celeron. But this is not a slotket brand that you will run into often on ebay , or so it seems. As said, there are plenty slotkets that support Coppermine fsb 100 cpu's. Some are better than others but in general they will provide an affordable solution when the real thing cannot be scored.Iwillv20.jpg

That SL5QV is an fsb 100 version.
But I can confirm that an SL52R fsb 133 stepping cD0 that I have also runs on the P3B-F revision 1.03 with latest BIOS via slotket.

PARKE wrote on 2023-12-03, 16:18:

That SL5QV is an fsb 100 version.
But I can confirm that an SL52R fsb 133 stepping cD0 that I have also runs on the P3B-F revision 1.03 with latest BIOS via slotket.

Thanks for the confirmation. That gives me a bit of hope.

Is your P3B-F stable at 133mhz? Many are, but some aren't.
You are probably already aware of this but if not, the chips themselves are multiplier locked, so the 133FSB ones will only guarantee 1GHZ if your board/slotket can run at 133mhz.
Like said, you probably already know that, but it's worth mentioning.

Jasin Natael wrote on 2023-12-04, 18:52:

Is your P3B-F stable at 133mhz? Many are, but some aren't.
You are probably already aware of this but if not, the chips themselves are multiplier locked, so the 133FSB ones will only guarantee 1GHZ if your board/slotket can run at 133mhz.
Like said, you probably already know that, but it's worth mentioning.

Well, my p3b-f will happily run at 150 fsb, but only with the right hardware.
- Board should be happy at fsb150 ofc
- CPU should like 150fsb; mild overvolting to 1,85 or something like that)
- ram should be happy with it (pc150 sdram exists)
- PSU should be stable at the 5v and definitely not under 5.00v
- AGP card should cope with a 100MHz AGP port (tricky! Cherry picking)

This as a side note 😀

waterbeesje wrote on 2023-12-04, 19:09:

Well, my p3b-f will happily run at 150 fsb, but only with the right hardware. - Board should be happy at fsb150 ofc - CPU should […]
Show full quote

Jasin Natael wrote on 2023-12-04, 18:52:

Is your P3B-F stable at 133mhz? Many are, but some aren't.
You are probably already aware of this but if not, the chips themselves are multiplier locked, so the 133FSB ones will only guarantee 1GHZ if your board/slotket can run at 133mhz.
Like said, you probably already know that, but it's worth mentioning.

Well, my p3b-f will happily run at 150 fsb, but only with the right hardware.
- Board should be happy at fsb150 ofc
- CPU should like 150fsb; mild overvolting to 1,85 or something like that)
- ram should be happy with it (pc150 sdram exists)
- PSU should be stable at the 5v and definitely not under 5.00v
- AGP card should cope with a 100MHz AGP port (tricky! Cherry picking)

This as a side note 😀

So you can get an SL52R PIII to overclock on that board?

I had my 933 up to 1050MHz (150MHz fsb, AGP at 100MHz), along with a Gf mx480. One of the few agp cards that went ok with the highly overclocked AGP bus. Eventually I put in a Ti4200 but that didn't like a 100MHz AGP bus, so I'm back at 980 (140 fsb, agp at 93MHz) with that CPU.

I dont have a 1GHz at the moment, but I'm pretty sure that it it's a good one it would get to a fsb 140MHz too

waterbeesje wrote on 2023-12-05, 21:26:

I had my 933 up to 1050MHz (150MHz fsb, AGP at 100MHz), along with a Gf mx480. One of the few agp cards that went ok with the highly overclocked AGP bus. Eventually I put in a Ti4200 but that didn't like a 100MHz AGP bus, so I'm back at 980 (140 fsb, agp at 93MHz) with that CPU.

I dont have a 1GHz at the moment, but I'm pretty sure that it it's a good one it would get to a fsb 140MHz too

That's pretty sweet. I've got a handful of Coppermine chips both PII's and Celerons. But my two 440BX boards are Intel ones and overclocking is a no dice game for me unfortunately.
I do plan on doing a little benchmarking to compare some of my faster slot 1 CPUs on the same boards against the faster Celerons, just as a curiosity someday.