If you wanna do something cheap, Biostar M6VLQ v2.3 .. you get an ISA slot but no AGP, then whack a PCI 6200 (Avail NIB on eBay recently) in it and an 8MB Voodoo2 alongside that plus your favorite ISA soundcard. Has Via chipset so those ACPI throttle progs should work great, and you get to avoid all the Via AGP probs. I guess if something falls between V2 and GF6200 you can always hone up the cyberblade onboard and give that a swish.

Ironically (When todays retrogeek is looking for something to put a FAST tualatin in) back in the day, as far as prebuilts went, tualatin capable boards seemed to turn up in budget systems with a 1.1 or 1.2 Ghz Tualatin celeron. I guess that config was a bit of a range gapfiller for a year or so, when high end was P4, but P4 class celeron wasn't out yet and everyone had got to know how relatively horrible the coppermine celeron was and wanted better than 66mhz bus.

Just curious since no one asked yet, what are you going to be using the system for? What games do you intend to play on it?

Normally the cheapest ones to find are intel OEM boards, they don't over clock but oh well.

I came across a very old forum where people were saying there was a line of Dell business machines that had intel boards with b-step chips in them and they were listing the markings on which boards they were. I can not confirm what they were saying but I was going to buy one of those boards to see if it was true but never got around to it.

I did buy a gateway board for parts for about $10 and it is working and has a b-step chip in it and does run Tualatin processors but the kicker is they never put to agp slot on it.

Lastly if you do a lot of homework you can find boards that came out of industrial applications that will support Tualatin. I got a cheap industrial version of a Tyan tomcat that overclocks just fine and pcpartners board with the via T chipset just because it had an Isa slot on it. Both of those boards were poorly marked and very cheap.

brian105 wrote on 2022-03-22, 06:47:

Slight hyperbole, but I've looked through eBay for Socket 370 motherboards for a while now and the only Tualatin compatible ones are at least $80. And that's including the poor chipsets like the 815 B -step and 820, which are apparently pretty slow for 370. Does anybody know if a model which doesn't break the bank exists? I'd like AGP 4x (2x is ok I guess) and of course Tualatin support. DDR would be a dream but that's not happening with these prices.

(yes, I'm aware of this list https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/List_of_ … 70_motherboards )

DDR for s370 is overrated anyway and were always hard to find, so you're not missing out on much by not going for s370 DDR. It has few merits, perhaps the best one being that DDR is much easier to come by in larger and faster modules.

I only ever found a single s370 DDR board and it doesn't even have official support for Tualatin. And needs a repair.

i820 and official Tualatin support, does this even exist? Still seems like an interesting combo, but unsure how practical it would be. I imagine it being of comparative performance to contemporary SDRAM systems.

You may be out of luck unless you get a lucky find. Tualatin boards were never that common and due to its many good properties it's been a popular system amongst retro computer fans.

The other tips here basically give sound advice, you might be better off getting either lucky, or getting a P4.
Regarding s423 and s478, it may be harder to find decent HSFs for these sockets though. LGA775 should be much easier but comes with its flaws (mostly it's on the modern side for win9x due to multiple reasons). sA also has its flaws, mostly (but not limited to) bad caps and poor choices when it comes to PSUs due to the higher 5v requirements.

Tetrium wrote on 2022-03-22, 19:51:

DDR for s370 is overrated anyway and were always hard to find, so you're not missing out on much by not going for s370 DDR. It h […]
Show full quote

brian105 wrote on 2022-03-22, 06:47:

Slight hyperbole, but I've looked through eBay for Socket 370 motherboards for a while now and the only Tualatin compatible ones are at least $80. And that's including the poor chipsets like the 815 B -step and 820, which are apparently pretty slow for 370. Does anybody know if a model which doesn't break the bank exists? I'd like AGP 4x (2x is ok I guess) and of course Tualatin support. DDR would be a dream but that's not happening with these prices.

(yes, I'm aware of this list https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/List_of_ … 70_motherboards )

DDR for s370 is overrated anyway and were always hard to find, so you're not missing out on much by not going for s370 DDR. It has few merits, perhaps the best one being that DDR is much easier to come by in larger and faster modules.

I only ever found a single s370 DDR board and it doesn't even have official support for Tualatin. And needs a repair.

i820 and official Tualatin support, does this even exist? Still seems like an interesting combo, but unsure how practical it would be. I imagine it being of comparative performance to contemporary SDRAM systems.

You may be out of luck unless you get a lucky find. Tualatin boards were never that common and due to its many good properties it's been a popular system amongst retro computer fans.

The other tips here basically give sound advice, you might be better off getting either lucky, or getting a P4.
Regarding s423 and s478, it may be harder to find decent HSFs for these sockets though. LGA775 should be much easier but comes with its flaws (mostly it's on the modern side for win9x due to multiple reasons). sA also has its flaws, mostly (but not limited to) bad caps and poor choices when it comes to PSUs due to the higher 5v requirements.

I have a sis635t based Tualatin board with ddr but it lacks ISA it’s also been recapped. Very solid board with what is regarded as the fastest chipset for Tualatin. All that aside it’s a boring board as they never fleshed out the bios for it and it lacks a lot of the features for overclocking.

I honestly enjoy using my slot 1 P3 more.

Just remembered that my Dell box also fully supports Tualatin but being a Dell machine it’s not the most exciting system around.

I second the suggestion of a 775 P4.

mrzmaster wrote on 2022-03-22, 17:23:

Just curious since no one asked yet, what are you going to be using the system for? What games do you intend to play on it?

It'll mostly be used for games from 2000-2004 which my K6-2+ would be too slow for, like Halo CE, Doom 3 (this one is probably too much for a P3 so the P4 would be better), Diablo 2, Max Payne, Quake 3/4, Deus Ex, and Half Life.

brian105 wrote on 2022-03-22, 23:51:

mrzmaster wrote on 2022-03-22, 17:23:

Just curious since no one asked yet, what are you going to be using the system for? What games do you intend to play on it?

It'll mostly be used for games from 2000-2004 which my K6-2+ would be too slow for, like Halo CE, Doom 3 (this one is probably too much for a P3 so the P4 would be better), Diablo 2, Max Payne, Quake 3/4, Deus Ex, and Half Life.

Why not just get a P4 then

It wasn't that long ago where AliExpress had some decent Socket 370 motherboards, but it seems they are no longer selling them.

darry wrote on 2022-03-22, 07:22:

IMHO, if you don't need ISA slots or compatibility with AGP (3.3V) Voodoo 3 cards, I don't see the point in seeking out a Tualatin.

100% agree here.
The main reason to get a Tualatin is to combine a powerful CPU+GPU with ISA sound cards for backward compatibility. Makes a nice combo machine.
But since you already have a Super Socket 7 machine (which can underclock even further and therefore has even better DOS compatibility), there is no point in getting ISA slots and therefore no point in getting a Tualatin.

If you don't care about period accuracy ("yOu nEeD tO uSe sLoWaSs hDd'S fOr dA tRuE rEtRo fEeLiNg!"), you can go much faster than a Tualatin.
If you care for 3.3V AGP (required for 3dfx cards), then an Athlon XP 3200+ with a KT333CE mainboard would be the best choice. The 333FSB variant of the 3200+ is quite rare and expensive, so you might want to downgrade to the 3000+. Can be bought for around 10 bucks. If you want to overclock, you need one that was produced in week 38 of 2003 or earlier. All Athlons which were produced after this date have locked multiplier.
For the mainboard, the holy grail would be the Epox 8K5A3+. But that one isn't gonna cost you less than a Tualatin board. Haven't seen a single one pop up within more than half a year. At this point I would be desperate enough to pay a high price for it, if I ever see one for sale.
There are cheaper alternatives, but you should be aware that there are a few boards which use the VT8235 southbridge (intended for KT333CF/KT400). More PCI bandwith, integrated UDMA133 and integrated USB2. Most manufacturers didn't bother to release boards with KT333CE+VT8235 . There are no boards from Asus or Gigabyte that match these criteria.
But MSI has one: KT3 Ultra2. I managed to snatch one for 20€. My buddy Hirsch recently got the Raid variant for 44€.
There are a few other boards with these chips from Elitegroup, Biostar and others. If you're interested, I can give you a list. Should still have the link somewhere.

If you don't care about 3dfx and 3.3V, you can go even faster than that.
ASRock continued to release AGP boards for many years. Late Pentium 4, Core 2 Duo, AM2, AM3... Most (if not all) of them still have Win98 support.
Holy grail would be the ALiveDual-eSATA2 (Phenom II X4) or 4CoreDual-SATA2 (Core 2 Extreme). Both quite expensive and highly sought after. An alternative would be the AM2NF3-VSTA. Hirsch did snatch up two of them for around 20 bucks each. But it does only have SATA1 and no PCIe slot. With the ALiveDual you can use a SATA3 controller in the PCIe slot for extra swag.
4GHz quad core, 4GB DDR2 @1200MHz, SATA 6GB/s SSD Raid combined with old GeForce cards. 😁

Another option that will work for most games of the early 2000s:
LGA1155 (Sandy Bridge) + GeForce GTX 285.

DDR is mostly useless on Pentium 3, due to limited bus speed.
815 boards usually didn't have ISA slots, which negates the whole reason for having Tualatin setup.

brian105 wrote on 2022-03-22, 23:51:

mrzmaster wrote on 2022-03-22, 17:23:

Just curious since no one asked yet, what are you going to be using the system for? What games do you intend to play on it?

It'll mostly be used for games from 2000-2004 which my K6-2+ would be too slow for, like Halo CE, Doom 3 (this one is probably too much for a P3 so the P4 would be better), Diablo 2, Max Payne, Quake 3/4, Deus Ex, and Half Life.

Then I'd suggest to go either s478 (IF you can find a decent CPU cooler for it) or Athlon 64 (personally I'd go with an AGP A64 board, but PCI-E is possibly also fine depending on what you end up using?).
If you decide to go with PCI-E you can go Core2 (as Core2 boards with AGP appear harder to find than Tualatin boards with ISA 😜 ) or newer, but then again if you decide to go with Windows XP, you will broaden your options by a lot anyway and will be limited by WinXP drivers. This will be faster, cheaper, more readily available and easier to build. And as a bonus a fitting case will probably also be somewhat easier to find (because tbh ATX cases, even black ones, with PSU mounted at the top and with external and internal 5.25in and 3.5in bays are becoming harder to find).

RaiderOfLostVoodoo wrote on 2022-03-23, 01:47:

100% agree here. The main reason to get a Tualatin is to combine a powerful CPU+GPU with ISA sound cards for backward compatibil […]
Show full quote

darry wrote on 2022-03-22, 07:22:

IMHO, if you don't need ISA slots or compatibility with AGP (3.3V) Voodoo 3 cards, I don't see the point in seeking out a Tualatin.

100% agree here.
The main reason to get a Tualatin is to combine a powerful CPU+GPU with ISA sound cards for backward compatibility. Makes a nice combo machine.
But since you already have a Super Socket 7 machine (which can underclock even further and therefore has even better DOS compatibility), there is no point in getting ISA slots and therefore no point in getting a Tualatin.

If you don't care about period accuracy ("yOu nEeD tO uSe sLoWaSs hDd'S fOr dA tRuE rEtRo fEeLiNg!"), you can go much faster than a Tualatin.
If you care for 3.3V AGP (required for 3dfx cards), then an Athlon XP 3200+ with a KT333CE mainboard would be the best choice. The 333FSB variant of the 3200+ is quite rare and expensive, so you might want to downgrade to the 3000+. Can be bought for around 10 bucks. If you want to overclock, you need one that was produced in week 38 of 2003 or earlier. All Athlons which were produced after this date have locked multiplier.
For the mainboard, the holy grail would be the Epox 8K5A3+. But that one isn't gonna cost you less than a Tualatin board. Haven't seen a single one pop up within more than half a year. At this point I would be desperate enough to pay a high price for it, if I ever see one for sale.
There are cheaper alternatives, but you should be aware that there are a few boards which use the VT8235 southbridge (intended for KT333CF/KT400). More PCI bandwith, integrated UDMA133 and integrated USB2. Most manufacturers didn't bother to release boards with KT333CE+VT8235 . There are no boards from Asus or Gigabyte that match these criteria.
But MSI has one: KT3 Ultra2. I managed to snatch one for 20€. My buddy Hirsch recently got the Raid variant for 44€.
There are a few other boards with these chips from Elitegroup, Biostar and others. If you're interested, I can give you a list. Should still have the link somewhere.

If you don't care about 3dfx and 3.3V, you can go even faster than that.
ASRock continued to release AGP boards for many years. Late Pentium 4, Core 2 Duo, AM2, AM3... Most (if not all) of them still have Win98 support.
Holy grail would be the ALiveDual-eSATA2 (Phenom II X4) or 4CoreDual-SATA2 (Core 2 Extreme). Both quite expensive and highly sought after. An alternative would be the AM2NF3-VSTA. Hirsch did snatch up two of them for around 20 bucks each. But it does only have SATA1 and no PCIe slot. With the ALiveDual you can use a SATA3 controller in the PCIe slot for extra swag.
4GHz quad core, 4GB DDR2 @1200MHz, SATA 6GB/s SSD Raid combined with old GeForce cards. 😁

Another option that will work for most games of the early 2000s:
LGA1155 (Sandy Bridge) + GeForce GTX 285.

Tualatin with ISA is definitely interesting, but not the main reason to go for Tualatin if only because the vast majority of Tualatin compatible boards never had ISA (like ASUS TUSL2-C), but are still wanted for being able to use the most powerful (official) Pentium 3 ever made. Pentium 3 is quite the popular processor and Tualatin is the fastest one. Tualatin-s 1400 is basically a Pentium 3 Ultra in a way 🤣 😜
On top of that, Tualatin boards come with a whole array of advantages which helped make it popular. It's relatively cool and has relatively low TDP, so a modern PSU is usually compatible despite Tualatin being mostly 5v.
Because s370 is compatible sizewise with sA, it's much easier to find a suitable HSF for it because despite the good sA HSFs being no longer easy to find, a crummy sA HSF will still make a great (in cooling terms!) Tualatin cooler after some work like bending the metal clamp and after having got a HSF with clamp with 3 holes on each side and not just 1 hole.
This makes it easier to keep cool and more flexible when it comes to case cooling requirements and lets not forget also makes it easier to build a system for people who like to keep the system noise down.
Tualatin has universal AGP support (think 3DFX) combined with the Pentium 4 Intel chipsets not having real universal AGP and P4 chipsetted boards with non-Intel chipsets being relatively scarce compared to the Intel chipsetted ones, making Tualatin the (virtually almost) fastest universal AGP platform for which you can use a modern 12v-centered PSU.
And Tualatin platform is also relatively stable and flexible when it comes to OS preference, with WinXP being a possibility but Win95 should also run (and DOS even though this is where ISA comes in etc). WinXP will run arguably slow, but not at snailpace like on my barely overclocked P1 MMX system a friend of mine used to have XP on 🤣 and holy shat it crawled 🤣
But it will work with Win95 to WinXP. And one more reason the Tualatin platform is good is because of the VIA C3, even though VIA C3 should be compatible with Coppermine boards as well (though I always found VIA C3 support somewhat scetchy tbh).
With VIA C3, your Tualatin capable board supports a whole range of CPUs. Btw not all Tualatin boards will be compatible with Mendocino, but C3 is probably a better pick for a slower Tualatin board based system anyway in case you run into some software that won't work at these higher clock speeds.

Some disadvantages of the Tualatin platform include the ambiguously higher prices and relative scarcity of Tualatin boards (Coppermine boards have always been much more common), the lack of ISA on almost all Tualatin boards (not a great loss but a decidedly important reason why someone might go with a Coppermine or even a Slot 1 board instead) and the Intel chipsetted ones maxing out at 512MB which is a small deal for Windows XP.
One thing everybody here probably is aware of is that most HSFs will need some bending of the metal clamp to prevent the socket tabs from breaking due to sheer force applied to the socket tabs when trying to mount the HSF on top of Tualatin's (elevated) heatspreader, but this bending of the clamp may not be possible for literally all s370/sA cooling solutions.

And yes, a maximized Voodoo platform is the story of an entire book by itself 😜

RaiderOfLostVoodoo wrote:

More PCI bandwith, integrated UDMA133 and integrated USB2

KT333CE does not use different to vanilla KT333 V-Link spec, which is only 266 Mb/s. KT333CF (gimped KT400 without 8x AGP) is required to fully utilise VT8235 new 533Mb/s V-Link bus. UDMA133 is useless and most good KT333 boards had external USB 2.0 integration. Although some KT333CE+VT8235 motherboards also had integrated LAN, which is nice.

P.S.
PCI is always limited to 133 Mb/s (+bus overclocking), but V-Link will affect integrated into south bridge components - like UDMA channels or dedicated LAN channel.

Some Dell GX150 motherboards support Tualatin. It's a proprietary form factor though, it needs a matching Dell case unless you just want to lay it on a table or try to come up with a clunky way to rig it in an ATX.
The front panel connector is also a Dell ribbon connector - the power switch pins are part of that.
No ISA, but they do have AGP.
They use standard ATX power.
I had a cheap bulk lot of those boards a long time ago. Of the boards I had, all the ones with removable VRMs were Coppermine only. The 4 boards I had with the VRM permanently soldered all supported Tualatin. But I don't know if that's a totally reliable indicator. Clearly Dell stopped using socketed VRMs on the later boards, but I don't know if that change aligns perfectly with when they started using Tualatin chipsets.

There are also some Compaq Deskpro EN systems that will do Tualatin, but those don't have AGP. Probably the only way those would be cheap though is if it was an incomplete system and shipping would still be significant. I got mine from a thrift store which had 1.13GHz marked on the tag, so that made it obvious it ran Tuallys.

You might be able to find deals on Tualatin boards that have had heatsink hooks broken off and/or need caps replaced. Only a good deal if you can deal with those problems though, and obviously it would have to be an "as-is" sale.
Anything that comes with a guarantee will be more expensive than as-is, because nobody wants to deal with potential returns on something that's cheap, but has non-trivial shipping costs involved.

Last year I made a 1.4Ghz Tualatin build based on a TUSL2-C board, an ATI 9600 Pro and a SB Audigy 2 Platinum EX - it quickly became my favourite computer. For games from the late 90's to 2003 it really is the best experience I ever had in a Win9x style system. I opted for WinME to give it a try and was amazed with the stability and performance after all the hindsight and drivers that we had since that time.

I enjoyed it so much that I'm on the way to completing another similar build. Took a little longer because of the progressive scarcity of the boards, but it's still definitely possible to get it at reasonable prices (for now at least). Pentium IV builds were mentioned in this thread which makes sense. But I truly believe you will appreciate the Pentium III-S build a lot more. There's just something about the Win9x experience that ticks a lot of nostalgia boxes, from the various OS to games, and to see the Pentium III platform perform at its peak is just marvelous. Get a Logitech Pilot Wheel USB mouse and a Microsoft Natural Keyboard and the smoothness and performance will feel fantastic. I will never play Mafia, Quake III, Max Payne or GTA III on any other computer, that's for sure.

If you start now you'll be able to get all of the components without breaking the bank, even if it takes searching and patience. The second build took me 3 months give or take. Get the easier stuff out of the way (Case, cables, HDD, RAM...) and go for the cooler from the start. I used Titan socket A 462 ones for both builds and was very satisfied, you can still find them easily and sometimes even complete in box. Oil it up and it will barely make noise (for a cooler of the era). The Pentium III-S CPU is the one item I would get from Ebay as I've never found it elsewhere, but the board doesn't have to come from there. For example, a lot of central or eastern european hardware stores (small local ones with websites) still have a lot of hardware from the era, and a lot of times they price an item on their home site at a perfectly reasonable price, and then place the same item on Ebay or AliExpress at much higher prices like I'm sure you saw. Although there are many Tualatin compatible boards the TUSL2-C really is the most common and probably cheaper to come by.

Again, if you want to go for it you better start searching now, but it's definitely still possible to find affordable stuff. And you can always build or get a Pentium IV PC for nothing or next to nothing at any time anyway, as it's the current generation that is going through the "trash" phase, before it starts becoming "vintage" and "collectible" in the future. As for ISA, just make an older and more period correct build, in my opinion. Good luck!

I personally went with the Asus P3c-E with a Lin Lin + Slocket so I could use my 1.4S with an Intel Chipset + ISA.

I went with a GA-6OXT, 1.4GHz Tualatin-s and GF3 ti 200 (some OEM card which probably one of THE slowest GF3s out there 🤣) with Windows ME. I don't remember why I chose this motherboard over the TUSL2-c though, but I guess because of the GA-6OXTs pretty blue colors 🤣 and I already had so many ASUS boards used in other rigs (including P2B, VC-820, A7V, A7V133, A7V333 (or at least I think it was an A7V333 which I ended up ruining by accident 🙁 ), M2N, A7V600, maybe some A64 board but forgot the model number and I'm pretty sure I messed with more ASUS boards, they were all over the place here in NL).

The mATX ones, mostly coming out of OEM desktop computers of the time, usually don't cost too much. However, a good deal of them are i810 and lack an AGP port so there is that..

You can also say FUCK Intel and go with VIA's 133T chipsets, which are also very good in my experience. Those usually don't have the stupid price premium i815 boards do, and they also come with ISA slots.

I got lucky and got offered a GA-6OXT (i815EP) for free. I run it with a P3-1.2GHz Tualatin and a GeForce 4 Ti4200 (which I will downgrade to a GeForce 3 Ti 200 soon). It is a very good Windows Me PC for me.

I also have a FIC FR33E (PLE133T) I was donated, and I keep it in case I find a working VIA C3 CPU some day - it would make a fantastic mATX DOS build with great speed control..

dionb wrote on 2022-03-22, 15:56:

rasz_pl wrote on 2022-03-22, 15:42:

The cheapest option is BX slot1 board and modded socket adapter

Cheapest is whatever you happen to find locally at a thrift shop...

BX boards are hardly cheap anymore either.

brain aneurysm, I meant to write cheapest actually fast option 😀. Alternatives are so bad you might as well not bother with tualatin at all. 810 and SiS is pathetic, most VIA 133 boards still have stability/AGP problems. I think only Pro 266 was refined enough to not be destined for bottom feeder supermarket builds. 815E/815EP are optimal, but rare, expensive and therefore hard to get. Modded BX board running at 133MHz with carefully selected PCI/AGP cards will deliver same speeds in majority of workloads while being problem free (minus the getting OC stable part).

rasz_pl wrote on 2022-03-24, 14:56:

dionb wrote on 2022-03-22, 15:56:

rasz_pl wrote on 2022-03-22, 15:42:

The cheapest option is BX slot1 board and modded socket adapter

Cheapest is whatever you happen to find locally at a thrift shop...

BX boards are hardly cheap anymore either.

brain aneurysm, I meant to write cheapest actually fast option 😀. Alternatives are so bad you might as well not bother with tualatin at all. 810 and SiS is pathetic, most VIA 133 boards still have stability/AGP problems. I think only Pro 266 was refined enough to not be destined for bottom feeder supermarket builds. 815E/815EP are optimal, but rare, expensive and therefore hard to get. Modded BX board running at 133MHz with carefully selected PCI/AGP cards will deliver same speeds in majority of workloads while being problem free (minus the getting OC stable part).

Running a 1.4GHz Tualatin-S at 1050MHz with a 100MHz FSB on a 440BX can be an option too. That extra cache really makes a difference . See Re: Tualatin Celeron vs Williamette Celeron