Hello, sorry for forgetting to introduce myself in the first place. I will try my best to fix it now. But first, I would like to thanks all of you for all the interesting things I learnt and read here,
it really helped me during my first years of playing and configuring retro hardware parts 😊

Interested in IT since our first family computer in 97 at the age of 9 (k6 233 / 32 MB EDO RAM / MS-5120 / S3 Virge DX / AWE 64 Value / 2 GB HDD),
I discovered PC games with Lucas Arts point'n click (Monkey Island 2 and The Dig) and FPS like DOOM, DUKE NUKEM 3D, ROTT... Instantly loved music of those
titles and was amazed by the fact that music sounded different by selecting other sound devices in the games setup, (faced my first "playback failed
due to invalid or conflicting IRQ or DMA" at that time xD) managed to get AWE emu instead of SB16 OPL3 was a real punch (it really sold me to pc gaming and tweaking).

Won my first PC in 99 in a contest offered by an obscure educationnal game called "Galswin" a shining new k6-2 350 with an ATI Rage Pro 8 MB, 64 MB SDRAM PC100, 4GB HDD,
Creative Sound Blaster PCI 64 (a new punch in the face with its soundscape emulation) and a DVD-ROM reader (shipped with the DVD version of Blade Runner) Damn that was a revolution 😁
That was my main gaming pc up to 2003 :
final specs where 192 MB RAM, 3D Prophet 4000XT 32MB, an another 4 GB HDD and a lot of time to tweak and optimise all that xD

Games that won't play on it or really slow (Max Payne 1, Soldier Of Fortune and NOLF on mind) were rock smooth with the family PIII 800 bought in 2001, but it was always in use or so xD
Added a GF4 MX 440 SE 64 MB (original card was a tnt2 Pro 32 MB) and a 512 MB PC133 ram stick in 2003 to this PIII and that changed it into a fu****g rocket LMAO.
A War machine that was powerfull enough for playing games likes GTA III, Unreal Tournament 2003, Will Rock... with a good level of details.

Then it's escalating quickly with an AMD Athlon Xp 2400+ (becoming the familial one and get the PIII), Opteron 146 o/c @ FX57, Core2Duo E6750 o/c @ 3.6 Ghz (bought in late 2007) replaced by a Q6600
graciously given by a neighbour early this year (day and night for encoding animes DVD 😳).
Continued playing all my old games with my first computers during all that time, I really fully get into retro hardware in 2010 (year that I made my first Voodoo 2 SLI) and always tried to made da
ultimate roxxor trve killing retro machine xD

Computers taking more and more space I limited my pc collection to 6 retro rigs, the rest was packed in anti-static bag and bubble wrapped into boxes :

-A dead silent AMD 386SX33 with NO CACHE (have a powerful DX40 with cache, but BIOS is so limited that I can't use CF, and once you are used to it you can't go back... hate old hdd hissing noize)
OCTEK Panther 2 Mobo
8 MB SIMM30 60 NS
SB16 CT 2230 TSENG LABS
ET4000AX (Prodesigner /e)
Goldstar Prime 3 HDD/FLPY controller
128 MB CF
Generic silent CD-ROM reader
3.5" Floppy drive
//USED for point'n click, platform games and early shooters.
Note : Without HDD led Blinking I would not be able to tell if the computer is turned on or off (because fans are really inaudible)

Not really count as a definitive rig :
-An Intel 486DX2 66 @ 83 Mhz WT
Generic UMC 491F Mobo with 256KB 15NS CACHE WT only
8 MB SIMM 30 60 NS
SB16 CT2290
S3 805 VLB 0 WS
UMC ISA controller
2 GB CF
//USED only for sh*it and giggles, just to see how much you can squeeze from a old DX2 66 xD
Plays Duke3D and Doom just fine Exhumed seems to be smooth as well but it's really short for hexen.
DOOM demo3 => 32.12 fps
3DBENCH2 => 59.2
PCPBENCH => 12.6

-An Intel 486 DX4 Overdrive ODP100 WT
Asus 486SV2GX4 with 256 KB 20NS CACHE In WB
48 MB SIMM 72 FPM 60 NS Yeah must be a rest of the prehistoric time where I was using smartdrv (useless with CF it even degrad performances) and absolutely wanted my 32 MB free 🙄
Winbond VLB controller
2 GB CF
Cirrus Logic GD5428 VLB
SB16 CT1747
Roland RAP-10
//USED for late dos games

-An Intel 166MMX (will change it for a 233 if I really want to enjoy my Matrox M3D, because a 166 seems to be a big bottleneck in quake 2 😵)
Matsonic MS-5120
128 MB EDO 60 NS (32 MB are used for the SWAP and all windows temp including ie)
Matrox Mystique
Matrox M3D (removed ATM)
3DFX VOODOO 1
Realtek 10/100 PCI NIC
16 GB MicroSD into an Msd/CF adapter into a CF/IDE adapter 😁
AWE 64 Value
Windows 95 OSR2
//USED for early 3D accelerated games. Loves the Matrox Mistake render in Jedi Knight it's more lively 😁

Why MicroSd ? Because it's easier to find and it may be around longer than CF will do, it's cheaper for high capacity (even with the msd/cf adapter price added, it cost less than the CF alone).
It is maybe slower than CF (even with class 10 uhs 1) but its perf are nowhere near a classic HDD.
Tested it on Win95 with UDMA limitations VS a first gen WD 40 GB SATA drive on a modern system and it beat the f****g shit out of it 🤣
Easy for backup saves and file trasnfert, just put the msd into a msd/usb key adapter and you are set (ideal for HDD Raw Copy Tool).
CONS : Requiere at least a socket 7 motherboard for correct detection and don't work on 486 boards... but that not really an issue because
for small capacity CF is the best performer here, that's not targetted for the same usage.

Note : it's surpriseling easy to switch between graphic cards acceleration under Win95 with the propriety cards tabs.
The motherboard have USB support, letting you to install CD emulation devices... that's really the sh*t, don't have to move my ass for playing games, just
have to read the iso's I made (and it preserve the original medias at the same time 😎 ) from my network file sharing computer 😁

-An Intel PIII 800 Mhz EB
Asus CUV4X
256 MB PC133 RAM (64 MB used for SWAP and TEMP)
Geforce 4 MX 440 SE 64 MB
Creative 3DFX Voodoo 2 12 MB SLI
32 GB MicroSD
Realtek 10/100 PCI NIC
Creative Sound Blaster PCI 128
Windows 98 SE
//USED for maxing early and demanding 3dfx games and play first gen T&L games

-An AMD Duron 850 Mhz
Asus A7V133
256 MB PC133 RAM (64 MB used for SWAP and TEMP)
3DFX Voodoo 3 3000 with customized rad
32 GB MicroSD
Realtek 10/100 PCI NIC
Creative Sound Blaster PCI 128
Windows 98 SE
//USED for the sake of 3dNow and 3dfx 😀

Life is good with the HDD/CF/MSD images 😎 I don't have to edit config files anymore and waste time into long install (Drive Overlay already set) and configuration (games are already installed and ready to play).
Perfect for speed testing 486 computers or rebuild a similar computer from parts. The negative part is after one year of doing this you're losing what you have learned bit by bit.
I could contiune like this for an eternity, but I think you're already collapsing in front of your computer trying to read this huge block of approximative english text. 🤣

Edit: corrected some spelling mistakes and typos 😁