Socket 370 is peak Intel to me, especially the Tualatin chips. They run cool and sip power unlike the Athlons and P4s. I've got a 370 Tualatin P3 machine I use a lot. It runs Windows 9x / 3.1 really nicely and the whole machine draws around 20watts of power at the wall. With a decent socket A cooler this chip doesn't even need a fan!

GemCookie wrote on 2025-04-11, 14:27:

I don't get the obsession with ISA on a Pentium III. If you want a fast ISA system, an Athlon XP and a KT133A motherboard will do the trick. If you just want to use ISA cards, a 486 or (Super) Socket 7 build will provide better compatibility and higher flexibility.

Stability? On the one side, you have the legendary 440BX, a chipset renowned for its stability and compatibility. On the other, you have a VIA chipset from a particularly temperamental time...

(Although, then again, stability is less important for a vintage computer than for a daily driver...)

Not to mention - KT133A is just a teeny bit ahead of the time when socket 462 boards were known for their capacitor problems. Wonder how many survivors are out there.

I'd agree with the person who said socket 370 is peak Intel. There are a few periods in history when Intel just seemed to have an overally excellent product, and I would put 370 Coppermine or even more Tualatin in that category. (AMD fans might disagree and argue that the Slot A Athlons were actually one of AMD's best showings...) Another example would likely be Conroe. And then there are periods when they've lost their way, which would include... ummm... the entire HotBurst era, or more recently most of the 14nm debacle.

The problem, though, is whether your retro systems are intended to be museum pieces demonstrating an era when Intel did great, or whether they are intended to be functional systems for running a particular software ecosystem. And if the answer is the latter, then you have to ask yourself - does something else run the same software ecosystem better/cheaper/etc? and does this thing open doors to other software ecosystems that other things can't deal with?

And the non-ISA socket 370, just like the 65nm C2D on PCI-E, doesn't give rise to the right answers. A 440BX coppermine system opens the door to ISA sound, can support more RAM, etc - the main advantage of the socket 370/i815 platform is that the processors are far more plentiful than 700+MHz slot 1 coppermines. But there's no software advantage over the AGP/PATA P4s, VIA socket 462 athlons...

My view would be - if I had a socket 370 non-ISA system that I had owned since new, I would probably keep it just for the emotional value, but I wouldn't acquire one tomorrow...

CC-Adam wrote on 2025-04-11, 22:14:

They run cool and sip power unlike the Athlons and P4s.

Athlon XP had a whole Geode lineup with power consumption in 6-14W range.

I forgot about the Geode, I'd like to have a play with one, I like efficient things! I wonder if the whole system would compete with the 20 watts I get from this P3. I've also tried a Cyrix CPU in this machine and it brings the total system wattage down even more but the performance is awful compared to the Tualatin.

I have strong nostalgia for Socket 370 as it was the platform for the first machine I built myself, so this probably skews my opinion somewhat. I think all socket 370 boards should be treasured, ISA slots or not!

VivienM wrote on 2025-04-12, 00:58:

Stability? On the one side, you have the legendary 440BX, a chipset renowned for its stability and compatibility. On the other, you have a VIA chipset from a particularly temperamental time...

(Although, then again, stability is less important for a vintage computer than for a daily driver...)

My K6-2 build is rock-solid on Windows NT 4.0, 2000 and XP. I believed an Athlon XP system would be a walk in the park to set up in comparison.

Not to mention - KT133A is just a teeny bit ahead of the time when socket 462 boards were known for their capacitor problems. Wonder how many survivors are out there.

The same issue applies to Socket 370, 478 and early 775 motherboards. All of my hardware from 2002–2004 has needed or needs a capacitor replacement.

CC-Adam wrote on 2025-04-12, 07:14:

I forgot about the Geode, I'd like to have a play with one, I like efficient things! I wonder if the whole system would compete with the 20 watts I get from this P3. I've also tried a Cyrix CPU in this machine and it brings the total system wattage down even more but the performance is awful compared to the Tualatin.

A Tualatin's performance is awful compared to a Ryzen...

It's all a matter of what you want to use the build for. I don't like "one build for everything" stuff, but if you put a gun against my head, a C3 Nehemiah So370 build with ISA would be just about the ideal "all DOS" solution, being able to go from XT to Quake decently.

Without ISA you can do DOS, but the compromises involved will affect compatibility (particularly if we're talking a legacy-free i8xx chipset), and in that case Cyrix is slow for a generic Win9x build (although perfectly good if sticking to Win95).

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2025-04-11, 21:11:

There are many PCI sound cards that have driver workarounds to play sound in DOS, as long as the system allows access to internal ISA bus.

So the few PCI sound cards talked about on Philscomputerlab that he says support sound in DOS dont?
Or they do but only on certain systems?

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2025-04-12, 17:52:

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2025-04-11, 21:11:

There are many PCI sound cards that have driver workarounds to play sound in DOS, as long as the system allows access to internal ISA bus.

So the few PCI sound cards talked about on Philscomputerlab that he says support sound in DOS dont?
Or they do but only on certain systems?

Don't they all do the DOS sound using some kind of emulation driver that puts the processor in protected mode?

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2025-04-12, 17:52:

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2025-04-11, 21:11:

There are many PCI sound cards that have driver workarounds to play sound in DOS, as long as the system allows access to internal ISA bus.

So the few PCI sound cards talked about on Philscomputerlab that he says support sound in DOS dont?
Or they do but only on certain systems?

They all can to a certain degree with TSRs, but that only works if the DOS games can work together with the TSRs (i.e. if the TSR uses EMS386, the game needs to be able to run with it loaded, if the TSR eats conventional memory, the game needs to make do with what is left).

There are a whole range of workarounds to not need them, ranging from hardware (SBLINK aka PC/PCI) to various DMA solutions (TDMA, DDMA DS-DMA) that all require some level of hardware support. This is a bit of a rabbit hole, as you need to check what your audio chip supports, what your motherboard chipset supports and sometimes (PC/PCI...) if anybody has bothered to implement it. TLDR, usually only boards with chipsets that could have used ISA support most of these; with i8xx you're SOL.

VivienM wrote on 2025-04-12, 17:56:

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2025-04-12, 17:52:

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2025-04-11, 21:11:

There are many PCI sound cards that have driver workarounds to play sound in DOS, as long as the system allows access to internal ISA bus.

So the few PCI sound cards talked about on Philscomputerlab that he says support sound in DOS dont?
Or they do but only on certain systems?

Don't they all do the DOS sound using some kind of emulation driver that puts the processor in protected mode?

dionb wrote on 2025-04-12, 18:11:

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2025-04-12, 17:52:

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2025-04-11, 21:11:

There are many PCI sound cards that have driver workarounds to play sound in DOS, as long as the system allows access to internal ISA bus.

So the few PCI sound cards talked about on Philscomputerlab that he says support sound in DOS dont?
Or they do but only on certain systems?

They all can to a certain degree with TSRs, but that only works if the DOS games can work together with the TSRs (i.e. if the TSR uses EMS386, the game needs to be able to run with it loaded, if the TSR eats conventional memory, the game needs to make do with what is left).

There are a whole range of workarounds to not need them, ranging from hardware (SBLINK aka PC/PCI) to various DMA solutions (TDMA, DDMA DS-DMA) that all require some level of hardware support. This is a bit of a rabbit hole, as you need to check what your audio chip supports, what your motherboard chipset supports and sometimes (PC/PCI...) if anybody has bothered to implement it. TLDR, usually only boards with chipsets that could have used ISA support most of these; with i8xx you're SOL.

That being the case its a loaded question.
If you remove ISA from the motherboard then you remove part of the reason for doing it unless the P4 board also doesnt have ISA.

Its not that the P4 CPU is better than the P3, its that the board has a feature that is fundamental to DOS gaming.

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2025-04-11, 01:09:

I more think the other way around, I dont like nor see the point of a P4 system with any socket. Win98 and all of its associated […]
Show full quote

I more think the other way around, I dont like nor see the point of a P4 system with any socket.
Win98 and all of its associated games play well on a P3, I prefer the IDE drives and if you want to max out the power of Win98 then you are better off with an E6700, which will rinse the living hell out of a P4 and use less energy doing it.

When I wanted the middle ground I went with AMD Athlon XP, as most people did back in the day. People went with a P4 as it offered a little bit more performance over the Athlon but for a lot more money, but that doesnt count any more as the E6700 killed it dead dead dead.

So what with the retro feel of P3 and the power of a Core2 on skt 775 what is the point in those little space heaters?

Kind of where I stand too.

Edit: Catching up with the talk about ISA and soundcards, I will admit outright that for me only the older slower systems would have ISA, because of course they would. By the time you're talking P3's, you might as well play the games that don't really care and use the emulation from newer cards like SBLive!, Vortex, etc. for the later DOS-titles. I mean, unless this is your only retro-system, why would you even play those reeeally old games that need an FM-synth on it?

It depends on what you're into. There are ways to get most DOS software running on a modern PC, but for me I'm interested in the hardware I could only dream of owning when I was a broke teenager in the 90s. I can finally have all the computer toys I wanted back then but couldn't afford. Computers of every generation will eventually be nostalgic for the people that grew up with or wanting them.

james1095 wrote on 2025-04-13, 02:51:

It depends on what you're into. There are ways to get most DOS software running on a modern PC, but for me I'm interested in the hardware I could only dream of owning when I was a broke teenager in the 90s. I can finally have all the computer toys I wanted back then but couldn't afford. Computers of every generation will eventually be nostalgic for the people that grew up with or wanting them.

One warning - if nostalgia for the machines you grew up wanting but could never afford is your goal (and it's a goal I largely share), you should grab that hardware now if it's still plentiful.

We all know about what's happened in Voodoo land, but you can see similar things with some vintage Macs, etc. Machines that were e-waste 20 years ago (and dreamy high-end machines when new a decade before) can now be worth serious money on eBay when one in decent health turned up. Doesn't help that capacitors, exploding batteries (big problem for 1980s/1990s Macs), etc have destroyed a good number of the survivors.

An example - one of my all time dreamiest machines is a Mac Quadra 840av. High-end model from late 1993, early 1994. A month ago, an effectively untested 840av in Canada (much smaller market) sold on eBay for $650CAD. Someone was willing to spend that kind of money on a machine with zero assurance that the logic board wasn't trash, and without knowing how much RAM, storage, etc was in the machine. There are some tested/restored/etc 840avs on eBay, listed at about $2K USD. Reality is - the time to get one of those was two decades ago, now you either buy one at a collector price on eBay or you have to hope you find one that's been sitting in someone's basement for 20 years and hasn't had the PRAM battery explode and trash the board. And hopefully you have soldering skills to recap it.

I see that trend with lots of things - Voodoo cards, obviously. Various other well-regarded video/sound cards. Higher clock-rate Slot 1 PIIIs. Socket 462 Athlon stuff. The near-unobtainium C2D-capable i865 motherboards that were still available new 6 years ago. High-end CRT monitors. Etc.

(The other observation I will make - now is the time to stock up on late XP stuff while it is still plentiful and cheap...)

james1095 wrote on 2025-04-13, 02:51:

It depends on what you're into. There are ways to get most DOS software running on a modern PC, but for me I'm interested in the hardware I could only dream of owning when I was a broke teenager in the 90s. I can finally have all the computer toys I wanted back then but couldn't afford. Computers of every generation will eventually be nostalgic for the people that grew up with or wanting them.

I guess that is what it all boils down to in the end.

I remember the 486 as a kid and I remember wanting one, and the Pentium family of CPUs all the way up to the Pentium 3, which is where I started to be able to afford to buy computers myself.
by the time the P4 came round it was normal to be able to buy one so I have no feelings of wanting it now because I couldnt have it then like I do with the older CPUs.
Then of course there is the P3 I love because it is reliving my old memories of it in what was for me the early days of computing.
For me the P3 and the ISA slots go hand in hand. It was only the later cost cutting boards for the flip chips that dropped the ISA backwards compatibility.

CC-Adam wrote on 2025-04-11, 22:14:

Socket 370 is peak Intel to me, especially the Tualatin chips. They run cool and sip power unlike the Athlons and P4s. I've got a 370 Tualatin P3 machine I use a lot. It runs Windows 9x / 3.1 really nicely and the whole machine draws around 20watts of power at the wall. With a decent socket A cooler this chip doesn't even need a fan!

YES!

I use a 1.4 in a Asus CUBX-E (powerleap adapter) on a near daily basis to play old games, it's one of my favorite computers.

no isa slot? might as well own a cheap p3 laptop instead. takes up a lot less space and can double as a desktop, usually without a dock. i have a compaq armada e500 p3 800mhz with a rage mobility m1 and 15in sxga screen that i use quite a bit. my p1 system is an nec versa p laptop with the modular screen removed that has an ess 688 soundcard on board. back in the day i used to own the massive dock for this laptop which had 2 isa expansion slots!

otherwise, my other systems are kt133a and amd760 boards with isa slots. i run unlocked athlon mp and xp-m processors in them so i can underclock with both bios and software.

i still have a couple good later era p4 and athlon motherboards, but i don't bother to build anything with them.

Socket 370 motherboards usually support NMI, which some sound cards use in DOS. Starting with Socket 423, motherboards with Intel chipsets are unlikely to support NMI.
Example of the necessity of NMI support: /viewtopic.php?t=32572
This is why I prefer Socket 370 over newer Intel alternatives.

CC-Adam wrote on 2025-04-12, 07:14:

I forgot about the Geode, I'd like to have a play with one, I like efficient things! I wonder if the whole system would compete with the 20 watts I get from this P3. I've also tried a Cyrix CPU in this machine and it brings the total system wattage down even more but the performance is awful compared to the Tualatin.

I have strong nostalgia for Socket 370 as it was the platform for the first machine I built myself, so this probably skews my opinion somewhat. I think all socket 370 boards should be treasured, ISA slots or not!

Geode are literally identical to Athlon xps. Down clock, undervolt, and it'll be identical in every way including wattage.
If you really want to play, hp t5720 thin clients are decent

Early P4 motherboards used the same south bridge which was used on i815E - ICH2. So again, late Intel chipset motherboards is a majority without ISA.