Good point.
I declared those old enough to interest me two years ago and bought three of them BIN / best offer for today's equivalent of 15 USD and that already looked like a good price then.
So 20 is probably a pretty good deal.
Though I doubt that these buggers will reach 80:
https://www.ebay.de/itm/284758373139
(no affiliation whatsover!)
Probably not worth the shipping cost for you, though.
Good hunting!

Honestly, I don't see the point of using one of those. It's too slow for Win9x games released in '98 and later and too fast for the most speed sensitive DOS games like Wing Commander, even with both caches disabled and loosened memory timings.

Also, you will run into the dreaded "runtime error 200" in a bunch of games like Jazz Jackrabbit, Tyrian, Terminal Velocity etc. Using an MMX 166 is much more DOS friendly and it still has enough power to run most late DOS and early Win9x games. And if you really need to play Quake at 640x480 via software rendering, just go with a Pentium 2 or higher.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-04-13, 12:09:

Honestly, I don't see the point of using one of those. It's too slow for Win9x games released in '98 and later and too fast for the most speed sensitive DOS games like Wing Commander, even with both caches disabled and loosened memory timings.

Also, you will run into the dreaded "runtime error 200" in a bunch of games like Jazz Jackrabbit, Tyrian, Terminal Velocity etc. Using an MMX 166 is much more DOS friendly and it still has enough power to run most late DOS and early Win9x games. And if you really need to play Quake at 640x480 via software rendering, just go with a Pentium 2 or higher.

Yes, but it's the final word from Intel and maybe I don't want to sully my bespoke ASUS P55T2P4 or Gigabyte 586HX with some foreign processor, do I?

Sometimes you need to think logical with these things.

I have a bunch of Intel 430TX boards and I'm brainstorming what would be a good matchup for them. The onboard cache for this chipset only caches up to 64MB of memory, so an optimal setup would need to be built conservatively.

I thought I remembered seeing a CPU matrix somewhere that showed relative performance of various models with and without cache enabled, etc, but I can't seem to find it. I would like to find an optimal setup for Wing Commander for this system.

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-04-13, 12:02:

Probably not worth the shipping cost for you, though.

I see a lot of bent pins. And the seller does not ship to the USA. 🙁

I think for the cache issue, the ultima ratio are the K6-2+ and III chips, as they bring their own L2 cache with them. But they ought to be reserved for the super boards.

TX chipset and the 233 both being the pinnacle of Intel's P5 line, I think they go along nicely.
Recently bought an Asus TXP4 that came with a beautiful IBM 6X86-200. Some OEM authenticity to the set, but still, just doesn't seem right.

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-04-13, 12:33:

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-04-13, 12:02:

Probably not worth the shipping cost for you, though.

I see a lot of bent pins. And the seller does not ship to the USA. 🙁

Many don't. Too much hassle, legal pitfalls, bad German service.
And AFAIK, cost is rather prohibitive.

The pins, well, as long as he's honest enough to mention them in the description and provides a decent photo?
Simply means he probably did not test them. But he appears to move those things in bulk, don't think there's an increased risk to it, no bad feedbacks in his profile.
Probably gonna regret my BIN purchase, but that was on impulse, it happens.

I have a P1 MMX 233, and an Intel TX board. I don't think I paid one cent for it in '98. It had a problem, which was fixed by a BIOS update. It worked pretty well for me until I upgraded to a K6-3 SS7. So the MMX chip and board I hung on to, but unfortunately I had to let go other things over the years.

I don't either.
I do have two 100mhz non mmx ceramic package chips, and I have a 166mmx ceramic chip. But no 233mmx.
I guess I'll have to turn my card in as well.

So one thing to remember about the P1 MMX (I'm sure you all realize) is that it was actually in middle of alot of socket 7's at a time where technology advanced very quickly, even though it is the last of the Intel variant, the platform continued on for some time. Not long after its release, P2's were starting to come down in price and late K6 and super socket 7s came around. It doesn't surprise me that people quickly forgot about them. After all, I ended up with a pile of old socket 7 stuff by the end of 2000, trashed by people who upgraded to the next gen stuff.

So while it is representative of an end of a generation, it was quickly forgotten then as it is sort of overlooked now, because it really wasn't the end or the best for that platform. However, I'm glad I kept mine as it is at least one thing that's kind of cool.

I upgraded to Pentium 200 MMX from 386 (was good enough to learn the basics) and had to upgrade to K6-2 350 in a year as the technology was advancing so quickly. Pentium 233 MMX was fastest therefore will always be most expensive. Not a very good item to collect if you do not intend to use it. Pentium 200 MMX can be easily overclocked to 225Mhz reaching practically speed of 233 due to faster bus. That's what I did back then.

The Pentium MMX 233MHz is a nice chip and has good overclocking potential (think 250MHz for a 100MHz FSB, but this chip should be able to go higher).
It runs cool, doesn't easily get damaged. It has good performance for a Socket 7 CPU. And it's not rare.

I got plenty of these chips, don't remember exactly how many but should have a lifelong supply 😜

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-04-13, 12:02:

Good point. I declared those old enough to interest me two years ago and bought three of them BIN / best offer for today's equiv […]
Show full quote

Good point.
I declared those old enough to interest me two years ago and bought three of them BIN / best offer for today's equivalent of 15 USD and that already looked like a good price then.
So 20 is probably a pretty good deal.
Though I doubt that these buggers will reach 80:
https://www.ebay.de/itm/284758373139
(no affiliation whatsover!)
Probably not worth the shipping cost for you, though.
Good hunting!

Doesn't seem to ship to The Netherlands 😐

The 233MMX is the last Intel s7 chip for desktops (not counting the 266 laptop cpu). So yes, it does have collection value. Preferably the retail version with glued Intel sink/fan.

If it's for speed, many and many 200s and 166s actually run fine at higher speeds too.
In fact, I've put a 200MMX on a super 7 board (pc chips M577) and ran it at 250MHz (100x2,5) for quite a while. Lots of s7 boards support 75 or 83MHz fsb which makes the 200MMX oc to 225 or 250MHz at stock multiplier, in case the cpu is multiplier locked.

Intel did cripple them down to lower speed ratings due to market demands, but quite a lot could have been rated 233 or higher in the first place.

waterbeesje wrote on 2022-04-13, 17:37:

The 233MMX is the last Intel s7 chip for desktops (not counting the 266 laptop cpu). So yes, it does have collection value. Pref […]
Show full quote

The 233MMX is the last Intel s7 chip for desktops (not counting the 266 laptop cpu). So yes, it does have collection value. Preferably the retail version with glued Intel sink/fan.

If it's for speed, many and many 200s and 166s actually run fine at higher speeds too.
In fact, I've put a 200MMX on a super 7 board (pc chips M577) and ran it at 250MHz (100x2,5) for quite a while. Lots of s7 boards support 75 or 83MHz fsb which makes the 200MMX oc to 225 or 250MHz at stock multiplier, in case the cpu is multiplier locked.

Intel did cripple them down to lower speed ratings due to market demands, but quite a lot could have been rated 233 or higher in the first place.

The boxed versions of these chips don't seem to be common at all btw. In some regard this is a good thing as I vastly prefer to work with the non-heatsinked versions of these CPUs because I don't like not being able to mount my own cooler and because the flued-on HSF makes it more complicated to store (I'm using CPU trays, mostly).

Indeed, the downward locked MMX chips were also a thing, which imo is just an additional reason to get a couple of the OEM 233MHz ones 😜

These CPUs were real workhorses and were legendary in their own right. I really like them and I think any person who's into retro computers really can't go wrong getting a couple of these chips 🤗

They are neat chips to have around.
I will always prefer the K6 stuff because that was what I had back in the day.
A good fast k6-2 was then and still is cheap in comparison, and if you can score a + model (in either 2 or 3) and your board supports it (almost always a way) you are miles ahead.

Jasin Natael wrote on 2022-04-13, 17:53:

They are neat chips to have around.
I will always prefer the K6 stuff because that was what I had back in the day.
A good fast k6-2 was then and still is cheap in comparison, and if you can score a + model (in either 2 or 3) and your board supports it (almost always a way) you are miles ahead.

True. Only downside is that your board needs to support the lower voltages, which most of the older ones don't (think some 430TX, virtually all 430VX and 430HX and all prior)

Tetrium wrote on 2022-04-13, 18:11:

Jasin Natael wrote on 2022-04-13, 17:53:

They are neat chips to have around.
I will always prefer the K6 stuff because that was what I had back in the day.
A good fast k6-2 was then and still is cheap in comparison, and if you can score a + model (in either 2 or 3) and your board supports it (almost always a way) you are miles ahead.

True. Only downside is that your board needs to support the lower voltages, which most of the older ones don't (think some 430TX, virtually all 430VX and 430HX and all prior)

Yeah, in that event is is better to be looking for SiS/ALI/VIA chipset board. But then you do get into the what defines "Super" in the SS7 argument.