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If it's a 66Mhz bus version a 440LX board will be fine, you can count the number of them that will even do 83Mhz stable on the fingers of one ear. A 100Mhz fsb 350 though, you might make a rocketship out of if you can get the BX up to 133.

The Asus P2B and Abit BH6/BX6 were pretty much the boards to have for PIIs. But especially with the Abits you'd probably need to recap the whole thing.

Thanks guys! I have an IBM 360 desktop which I wanted to use for old games, but the damn thing won’t use a PCI video card, only the onboard graphics. I compensated for this with an orchid righteous, but I would still like to be using something like a Matrox card. A pentium 2 system should recreate what I had in around 1997-1998.

I'd say go with anything with a 440BX chipset, look for AGP, ISA and maybe SB-LINK connector. THG did a massive review of such boards in 1998 which can still be found here:
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/review-s … chipset,67.html
On the last page the recommended boards are:
- Asus P2B
- MSI MS-6119
- AOpen AX6B
- Chaintech 6BTM
- DFI P2BXL
- Soyo SY-6BA
- Tyan Thunder 100 Pro S1836D

But IMO it's not stritly necessary to go with one from this list, just use whatever you can get for a reasonable price.

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To me there's another board that comes to mind, if it's a 66MHz bus CPU: the Asus P2L97.

It's not the ultimate most fastest super board evah, but it's decent. It's cool to see your P2 66fsb on a board that's actually ment for it instead of the usual suspects that'll take the BX fsb to 133 without hesitation.

Also this board will be ok with any Mendocino Celeron up to 433MHz, still with oc potential to an fsb of 83, if you want to toy with it some more. That will beat up the P2-400 in its own game.

If you search for a specific board, it's going to be expensive. Just buy any 440BX slot 1 board if you want 100Mhz FSB or 440LX if you're happy with 66-83. For 440LX the best CPU will be overclocked Celeron in slotket. Mendocino Celeron is Pentium 2 with reduced cache.

AlexZ wrote on 2021-10-01, 16:00:

Mendocino Celeron is Pentium 2 with reduced cache.

Better than that, it has only got a quarter of the L2 cache but it's on the die and running at core speed on the Mendocino.👌

True, in some circumstances that favour fast cache but don't need a whole lot of it, they will pace low end PIIIs, especially the early ones, but run out of breath if SSE is required of course.

What P2 do you have? The are good boards outside of the usual Asus, Gigabyte and Abit.

Supermicro made some nice boards. DFI is often forgotten. Also consider Intel and FIC.
I have a P2L97 but my DFI P2XLX is also rock solid.

Aopen AX6BC was another popular one.

The reason Abits were so nice is because they were jumperless. Especially on the BH6 and BX6 (rev 2), you could control pretty much everything in the BIOS.
I'm not sure how long it took other manufacturers to catch up, but for a while it seemed like it was rare to find a board that let you set the core voltage in the BIOS.

My ECS P6BXT-A+ also allows selecting voltage and FSB from BIOS setup - both 1.3 and 2.2 revision. Not many options to choose from though. Budget manufacturers were slowly catching up.

Anyone recommend a good slot 1 mobo for a Pentium 2 cpu?

ASUS P3B-F

AlexZ wrote on 2021-10-01, 16:00:

If you search for a specific board, it's going to be expensive. Just buy any 440BX slot 1 board if you want 100Mhz FSB or 440LX if you're happy with 66-83.

I would second this and would add boards with later VIA chipsets...the very most oft them are sufficient for your project. If needed, there's often the possibility to mod the BIOS with certain tools.

kind regards
soggi

Which exact P2 CPU do you have?

There are so many Slot 1 boards made which will work with a P2, it's usually better to first see what is available for you and then look up the board.
I would however, in your case perhaps, try to get one that will work with Coppermine, just in case 😀
However, if your CPU is one of the 66MHz FSB ones then basically any working Slot 1 should suffice for your needs.

soggi wrote on 2021-10-03, 05:30:

AlexZ wrote on 2021-10-01, 16:00:

If you search for a specific board, it's going to be expensive. Just buy any 440BX slot 1 board if you want 100Mhz FSB or 440LX if you're happy with 66-83.

I would second this and would add boards with later VIA chipsets...the very most oft them are sufficient for your project. If needed, there's often the possibility to mod the BIOS with certain tools.

Yup there's like a $250 fine for getting a retro-b0ner for a specific part number. 🤣

BitWrangler wrote on 2021-10-03, 16:58:

Yup there's like a $250 fine for getting a retro-b0ner for a specific part number. 🤣

Definitely. 🤣

All want to have the best boards like the ABITs and the ASUSes and then you have to pay the retro /vintage fine. But many of the other brands and boards are also good and some are even equal when you mod the BIOS (f.e. unhide hidden options or with BIOS patcher), because the ABITs and ASUSes always have already optimized BIOSes.

kind regards
soggi

For me the brand doesnt matter.

I follow these rules.

+ I would never go with LX chipset, only if you cant find anything better..
+ If you go for BX then 100Mhz FSB would be supported as well.

Further it depends on the cpu you want to use.. If its a 100 FSB one, any board should work fine. (bx only)
If its a 66 FSB one, would recommend for an earlier BX board, and dont look on the brand only on the features you what to use.

I dont like to use celeron processors, why ? A second hand pentium II wouldnt be much expensiver and it is a lot smoother on operation.

A Pentium II 450 Mhz isnt worth for me, it consumes a lot more power, but it isnt much faster over the 400Mhz counter part.
If you want something faster, skip P2 and go on with P3.