So I was reading this article here, about the Tualatin Pentium III:

http://brassicgamer.blogspot.com/2020/10/the- … alatin.html?m=1

And I read in there, basically,that adapters exist, for adapting Tualatins to socket 378.

Now, 99% sure that’s just a typo of 478, but I was intrigued at the possibility nonetheless. I tried to find pictures of such a thing, didn’t seem to find any.

On a very surface level, it does seem plausible. Given both Tualatin’s 370 and socket 478 use AGTL+ signaling.

Converting 478 to 370 seems like the less plausible scenario. I’m sure there’s a myriad of reasons why it wouldn’t work, though, one of which being Pentium 4 chips use basically double the power of virtually every Pentium III. Something something quad pumped bus as well.

Then, 370 to 478 seems like the most plausible scenario. Given that P4s fell flat on its face, as well as adapters existing for Pentium Ms to work on these sockets, I can easily see an interposer being made for 370 to 478 between 478’s introduction to the introduction of the Pentium M. It would be a hell of a unicorn though. Given that there are some P3 boards which support some things that P4s do, like faster AGP, DDR or RDRAM, this seems to be the most likely.

Perhaps also a 370 to 423 interposer exists as well. Even less of an issue in the physical sense since they are of a similar size. Everything I said about 478 should apply here.

Now one wonders, what it would take to do it ourselves… especially given that making PCBs is a lot cheaper than it used to be…