I think ALI's Super7 motherboard is the best, GA-5AX, P5A etc

Do you have access to all possible motherboards for late So7? If so, this question makes sense. But in the real world, you probably only have access to a limited number of options. It makes a lot more sense for you to say which boards you have access to and let us suggest which of those will be the most stable.

Also, is that G200 an AGP or PCI card?

Thx.
G200 is a AGP Card.

I search a MB on ebay...

and if possible, a motherboard produced in 1998 to respect my 1998 retro config !

alphaaxp wrote on 2024-10-25, 11:41:

I think ALI's Super7 motherboard is the best, GA-5AX, P5A etc

Agree, not sure you'll find a better SS7 ATX board layout than the Asus P5A and Gigabyte GA-5AX rev 4+. For Baby AT check out the P5A-B and GA-5AA.

You'll be better off getting a full ATX MB instead of a baby as adding interfaces can take up slots on the back of your case which could be used for more valuable hardware like, graphics, audio, compact flash reader etc

The ASUS P5A is a good choice, but then I am biased 😁

Don't forget you can use Socket 7 with 6x multiplier and 66Mhz FSB for 400MHz CPU, or 75MHz FSB for 450MHz CPU. Preferably something with 430TX chipset so you could use SDRAM memory. Many of these boards support 2.2V.

Paar wrote on 2024-10-26, 08:00:

Don't forget you can use Socket 7 with 6x multiplier and 66Mhz FSB for 400MHz CPU, or 75MHz FSB for 450MHz CPU. Preferably something with 430TX chipset so you could use SDRAM memory. Many of these boards support 2.2V.

Yes 430TX in an excellent option too. A bit inferior due to not having 100Mhz FSB and AGP but good performance wise, and way cheaper.

As OP wants to use an AGP card, his best option I think too is buying an Ali Aladdin V board.

You don't have to attach yourself to expensive Asus or Gigabyte, there are other options that can be cheaper or easier to find. Jetway 542C comes to my mind, for example, a basic but reliable board.

Regarding chipset revisions, I'm not an expert on that: the majority of M1542 northbridges are revision E, but you can find revision G or even H if I'm not mistaken.

The latter revisions allow you to have full memory cached, but may have problems with K6+ cpus, some say.

In my experience, never had any issue with latter revisions, especially with plain K6-2.

It would be interesting to see how much slower is 75Mhz vs 100MHz with K6-2 CPU. My guess is the difference would negligible as K6 CPUs don't need 100Mhz FSB to unleash their potential. My two cents.

Paar wrote on 2024-10-26, 08:58:

It would be interesting to see how much slower is 75Mhz vs 100MHz with K6-2 CPU. My guess is the difference would negligible as K6 CPUs don't need 100Mhz FSB to unleash their potential. My two cents.

Haha fully agree. Also, 430TX is rock solid.
Main drawback for what OP wants to do is lack of AGP, unfortunately.

And this is a big drawback 🙁

Ok thx for yours replies
I will choose between GA-5AX and P5A

zic wrote on 2024-10-25, 11:39:

Hello, […]
Show full quote

Hello,

Im working on a new retro machine based on the K6-2 400Mhz , Matrox G200 and voodoo 2.

For you the best MB ? not for overcloking, i search the stability only !

Thx !

The tyan s1564 is pretty stable with Jan’s v4 bios. Even supports drives up to 750gb but onpy 128gb shows in bios

and the Chaintech 5AGM2 ?

I have now good results with Aopen AX59 PRO 1MB Rev 1.04 (Latest bios 2.36). Best Via 4in1 can be tricky.

https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/aopen-ax59-pro

zic wrote on 2024-10-25, 17:53:

Thx.
G200 is a AGP Card.

I search a MB on ebay...

Even on eBay you don't have hundreds to choose from.

Also eBay can be very expensive, particularly if you are fixated on specific well-known and well-liked boards such as the P5A and GA-5AX. Those boards are excellent (unless they die on you, like my P5A v1.04 did :'( ) but as a lot of people also thing so, good deals will be snapped up very quickly and open auctions will have high bidding.

Many other boards out there are just as good, but not as fashionable. As my P5A died, my main So7 AGP board now is a Tekram P5MVP-A4. Its most interesting feature is that - unlike most other boards of this age - all CPU settings are still done by jumper, so no messing around in BIOS, and you can potentially connect external switches to the jumper headers. It's also rock-solid and there's BIOS available with >128GB and K6plus support. It's highly unlikely anyone would have recommended it before I bought it, but that kept the price low. The same could apply to any number of other boards with Aladdin V or MVP3 chipsets. So I really would recommend waiting until you see one for a good price, then asking specifically if that one is considered good&reliable and fits your needs. That will save you a huge amount of money vs hunting P5A or 5AX while ignoring perfectly good alternatives.

Paar wrote on 2024-10-26, 08:58:

It would be interesting to see how much slower is 75Mhz vs 100MHz with K6-2 CPU. My guess is the difference would negligible as K6 CPUs don't need 100Mhz FSB to unleash their potential. My two cents.

There are benchmarks out there that show a good deal of scaling still on K6-2:
https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/Super_So … Demo_Timedemo_1

25.3fps at 300MHz (66MHz FSB) vs 30.8 fps at 300MHz (100MHz FSB) vs 38.1fps at 500MHz (100MHz FSB) with same CPU in same system.

So going from 66MHz to 100MHz FSB (50% increase) gives you a pretty significant 21% increase in performance, almost as much as you get with the 23% increase when boosting CPU speed by 67% from 300-500MHz, but keeping FSB the same. So I don't thingk 75MHz would be negligible, it would probably lose you about 18% of performance vs same core speed at 100MHz FSB.