Horun wrote on 2021-12-11, 03:28:

Sounds like a good board ! Asrock did make some good ones. It has only two DIMM sockets so make sure you match the ram...it does only support one floppy (but many back then did 🙁 )

The plan is to use two 1GB sticks, hopefully the same make and module. Not sure how XP64 will be with 2GB, but as it's the first x64 Windoze, hopefully it will be OK. If not, I have a pre-activated copy of XP32.

One floppy is plenty for this build, as it'll primarily be for testing CPUs.

Hoping wrote on 2021-12-11, 11:56:

Since nowbody mentioned it, I'll do it, all the nvidia chipsets fron that era are afected by the bumpgate problem, so wachout for the NB temperature, because if not it will die, soner than late.
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=94383
Nvidia admited the problem only on the most problematic chips, but they used the same process for all the chips they made during that era.

NB and SB both have good heatsinks on the board I bought, so hopefully there won't be a problem. SB is the original, but NB cooler is more chunky, so possibly added by a previous owner for this reason.

luk1999 wrote on 2021-12-10, 16:16:

debs3759 wrote on 2021-12-10, 00:36:

Thanks for all the suggestions. I just bought an ASRock K8NF4G-SATA2. It has

GeForce 6100 NB
nForce 410 MCP SB (which I'm guessing is nForce 4 ?)

Nope, it's GeForce 6100, a newer chipset with iGPU.

Wrong. It's both. The Geforce 6100 was the IGP of choice for the nForce4 chipsets that had an IGP, including the nForce 400-series.

WDStudios wrote on 2021-12-12, 08:55:

luk1999 wrote on 2021-12-10, 16:16:

debs3759 wrote on 2021-12-10, 00:36:

Thanks for all the suggestions. I just bought an ASRock K8NF4G-SATA2. It has

GeForce 6100 NB
nForce 410 MCP SB (which I'm guessing is nForce 4 ?)

Nope, it's GeForce 6100, a newer chipset with iGPU.

Wrong. It's both. The Geforce 6100 was the IGP of choice for the nForce4 chipsets that had an IGP, including the nForce 400-series.

That's good to know, thanks. I suspected that when I bought it, but am not an expert in much 😀

WDStudios wrote on 2021-12-12, 08:55:

luk1999 wrote on 2021-12-10, 16:16:

debs3759 wrote on 2021-12-10, 00:36:

Thanks for all the suggestions. I just bought an ASRock K8NF4G-SATA2. It has

GeForce 6100 NB
nForce 410 MCP SB (which I'm guessing is nForce 4 ?)

Nope, it's GeForce 6100, a newer chipset with iGPU.

Wrong. It's both. The Geforce 6100 was the IGP of choice for the nForce4 chipsets that had an IGP, including the nForce 400-series.

Are you sure about nForce 4 and GF6100? Could you pls provide an example of motherboard that has both GF6100 and nF4 (not nF 4xx series, as this is a separate line)?

I thought it was a 6150, ( "Do you find the 6200 slow and unbalanced? It's your lucky day, do we have the solution for you! To restore balance to this pennypinchers favorite, we also shot it in the other foot! " 😉 )

luk1999 wrote on 2021-12-13, 21:31:

Are you sure about nForce 4 and GF6100? Could you pls provide an example of motherboard that has both GF6100 and nF4 (not nF 4xx series, as this is a separate line)?

I consider the nForce 400 to be a subseries of the nForce 4 series.

The nForce400/405/410/430 refer to nForce4 based southbridges which are used together with GeForce 6100/6150 series northbridges to form a chipset with integrated graphics. The combination is a follow-up to the popular nForce2 IGP chipset.

-> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NForce4#Southbridges
-> https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_nForce4#Ausstattung

BTW the German Wikipedia is much more detailed when it comes to SB/NB/IGP.

kind regards
soggi

So... I was mostly right?

If Wikipedia says that, then I'm wrong. 😀

But even early nF4xx are different than regular nF4 chipsets (like 4x, Ultra etc.). There's obviously a difference in feature set, but if you'll choose nF4xx, you won't be able to use tools to overclock HTT that works with regular nF4 boards (like Clockgen for NF4).

Perhaps "same generation of chipsets" would have been the better way to put it?

WDStudios wrote on 2021-12-16, 07:11:

So... I was mostly right?

WDStudios wrote on 2021-12-18, 08:20:

Perhaps "same generation of chipsets" would have been the better way to put it?

Sounds good! 😀

kind regards
soggi

I want to build the earliest possible system on 754+nforce3(late 2003). So I need nforce3 150 motherboard. Has anyone ever seen such boards? Are they really that rare? The funny thing is that I found one of these in Russia but it turned out to be non-working. It's not even on retroweb (gigabyte ga-k8n).

Can anyone name any other NF3-150 boards that are not on this list? for search queries.

I actually had one of those boards and threw it away because no one wanted to buy it off for the price of shipping locally.. 🙁

debs3759 wrote on 2021-12-11, 23:35:

Horun wrote on 2021-12-11, 03:28:

Sounds like a good board ! Asrock did make some good ones. It has only two DIMM sockets so make sure you match the ram...it does only support one floppy (but many back then did 🙁 )

The plan is to use two 1GB sticks, hopefully the same make and module. Not sure how XP64 will be with 2GB, but as it's the first x64 Windoze, hopefully it will be OK. If not, I have a pre-activated copy of XP32.

One floppy is plenty for this build, as it'll primarily be for testing CPUs.

I own one of these "overkill" machines with i5 3470 and 8GB of ddr3 ram and it works perfectly fine with xp64. I can even play youtube super smooth 1080p thanks to MyPal 68 (release is available on github).

I managed to get hold of Gigabyte GA-K8NE and I'm in the process of upgrading my MSI K8T Neo V to that. It's a PCIe board which is very rare for socket 754. This unlocks the possibility to use newer graphics cards so I bought a GeForce 9800 GT. These cards are much cheaper than 7800 GT AGP.

3D Mark 2000 comparison with Athlon 3400+ in 1024x768 32bit

• FX5600 - 7176
• 7600GT - 21145
• 9800GT - 23503

Minimal gain.

3D Mark 2001 comparison with Athlon 3400+ in 1024x768 32bit

• FX5600 - 8548
• 7600GT - 18569
• 9800GT - 27622

The system is CPU bottlenecked and unable to fully benefit from 7600GT or even 9800GT, but it does lead to some improvement. If you can find a 7800GT AGP cheap then you should be fine.

With all due respect the system is not bottlenecked by the CPU! In fact the geforce 7600gt is already bottlenecking the system in many scenarios; in all benchmarks and games at high resolutions and settings even the geforce 7800gs is a bottleneck! Testing some 3dmark at low resolutions and settings does NOT tell the whole story.
I am in the process of testing most socket 754 chipsets - all Abit boards for the socket - with different Athlon 64's - Clawhammer, Newcastle, Venice and the geforce 7800gs is showing its limits in some tests. Also different tests/games reacts differently: Farcry 1 can be played at max settings on a Athlon 64/2gb DDR/ geforce 7800gs at max settings including AA while in Doom3 you can forget about AA; 3dmark 2000 is indeed strongly bottlenecked by the CPU - no drop in the scores as the resolution and level of detail is increased - while in 3dmark 2001 the combination of Athlon 64 and Geforce 7800gs is quite balanced - big drop in scores as the resolution and level of detail increases; in 3dmark 2003 the geforce 7800gs is already the bottleneck!

For completeness here are the results for newer 3D Mark versions:

3D Mark 2003, Athlon 3400+, 1024x768 32bit

• 9800GT - 29511

3D Mark 2005, Athlon 3400+, 1024x768 32bit

• 9800GT - 10787

3D Mark 2006, Athlon 3400+, 1024x768 32bit

• 9800GT - 6172

I didn't run the benchmarks on 7600GT unfortunately as that rig no longer exists. In 3D Mark 2005 and later FPS is frequently in the 30s range and not sufficient for smooth gaming. I also have GeForce 480 but its power requirements are beyong the capability of my 500W PSU.

I sent a PM.

I got a more powerful 800W PSU for my Athlon 64 rig and tested out GeForce GTX 480. There is very little benefit over 7800 GT except for lower noise. On system boot 7800 GT runs fans on max until Windows starts. GTX 480 is the stock version with single fan, suprisingly quiet. I may get a GTX 770 as well. There are no GTX 780 available.

3D Mark 2001, Athlon 3400+, 1024x768 32bit

• 9800GT - 27622
• GTX 480 - 28250

3D Mark 2003, Athlon 3400+, 1024x768 32bit

• 9800GT - 29511
• GTX 480 - 40326

3D Mark 2005, Athlon 3400+, 1024x768 32bit

• 9800GT - 10787
• GTX 480 - 10733

3D Mark 2006, Athlon 3400+, 1024x768 32bit

• 9800GT - 6172
• GTX 480 - 6276