GPU: probably Tseng Labs ET4000.
Sound card: Sound Blaster 16 ASP.

Isn't ET4000 from 1989?

i have it, but i also have an Trident 9400GXi

CPU is probably the DX2-66

vetz wrote:

CPU is probably the DX2-66

Yes and a VL-bus motherboard. The final specifications for the PCI bus wouldn't be released until 1993 and it wouldn't become commonplace in consumer motherboards until a few years later.

I have DX 2 66MHz and i want to use the Symphony VL motherboard i have.

But all the IDE HDD controllers i have are crap, i have one that seems to be quite good but i need to replace two capacitors. I also have Adaptec 1542B SCSI and Floppy controller.

Soundcard : Gravis Ultrasound maybe?
CPU : Definitely the DX2/66

F2bnp wrote:

Soundcard : Gravis Ultrasound maybe?
CPU : Definitely the DX2/66

I was thinking maybe Pro Audio Spectrum 16 for the sound card. The only Gravis UltraSound that would have been available in 1992 would have been the classic and that didn't come out until late fall.

The first SB16 came out in 92, but I reckon an SB Pro2 would be better in terms of game support.

The Sound Blaster 16 ASP wasn't widely available until about the last week of December '92, and is hardly the "best" of anything.

I'd suggest the Roland SCC-1 and Turtle Beach MultiSound as being "top hardware" in 1992.

Top for 92 would have been a VL/EISA motherboard with either DX/2-66 or DX-50. A big SCSI HDD, 16MB RAM. Graphics card would have been debatable. I'd probably say something like a Mach32 or S3 928 with at least 2MB VRAM. If you wanted to get really fancy you would have had something like a TIGA chained to your VGA. Soundcards and CD-ROMs weren't overly common at that time, and I can't recall what was available back then.

I see, well, when it comes to exotic hardware such as SCC-1 / Turtle Beach MultiSound i have no such thing.
I do have multiple SB16 with ASP, as well as Pro Audio Spectrum 16.

Ii do have AMD DX 2 66, IBM UltraStar 2GB / 4GB , Quantum Fireball SCSI 3GB.

As for RAM i have 4x8MB 30Pin SIMM 50ns.

TIGA is not really that interesting for me in this build. But for the UM486 board it sounds cool.
But i am interested into placing an Mach32 in there.

What about cache memory and external SCSI devices?

According to http://www.vgamuseum.info/index.php/history-tree Anonymous Coward is right about Mach32 or S3 928.
Other options: ET4000/W32, WD90C31 (only 1MB, don't know if it's ISA only).
Your Trident is probably from 1993. I remember Trident as mediocre.

I remember reading Tseng Labs ET4000AX having far better performance than WDC WD90C31.

Anonymous Coward wrote:

Top for 92 would have been a VL/EISA motherboard with either DX/2-66 or DX-50. A big SCSI HDD, 16MB RAM. Graphics card would have been debatable. I'd probably say something like a Mach32 or S3 928 with at least 2MB VRAM. If you wanted to get really fancy you would have had something like a TIGA chained to your VGA. Soundcards and CD-ROMs weren't overly common at that time, and I can't recall what was available back then.

In 1992, 50mhz motherboards were still unreliable and spewed RF interference all over the place. I'd stick with a 33mhz motherboard and DX2-66.

I didn't mean to imply that a DX50 was a good idea, just that it was still cutting edge in 1992.

A lot of common 486 boards did have problems with 50MHz, but surely the 50MHz EISA boards from Mylex, AMI, Micronics and Tyan were half decent.

I remember reading Tseng Labs ET4000AX having far better performance than WDC WD90C31.

I dunno about that... my 90C30, which is essentially the same as a 90C31 but without the GUI acceleration, seems to be pretty much the same speed as my ET4000 card in DOS. And in Windows, the 90C31 would be significantly faster than the ET4000, simply because the WD is an accelerated card (though it still isn't up to the level of a Mach32 or S3).

How about a solid source of info like a December 1992 PC Magazine issue.
http://books.google.com/books?id=F6anv43MXVcC … %201992&f=false

Holy shit. I went through more than 500 pages in that magazine. I stand by mostly what I said, but I was a little off on the memory. While in theory you could have had 16 or even 32MB of DRAM in 1992, I didn't see anything equipped with more than 8MB. It seems 4MB was standard, and 8MB was for power users. I guess 4MB SIMMs were absurdly expensive back then.

For hard drives 200MB IDE was standard, and 400-500MB SCSI drives were for power users. They cost a cool $1000. If you really wanted to over do it you could get a Seagate 1.42GB SCSI drive for $2100. Throw in an EISA caching SCSI controller with a few megs to really over do it.

As others pointed out, SB16 wasn't out yet so SB Pro was the best you could get from creative labs. If you wanted 16-bit you could get a Pro Audio Spectrum 16 or a Windows Sound System card.

CD-ROM drives were basically non existent. None of the computers reviewed in that issue had CD-ROM drives and didn't even list an option for one. However, aftermarket packages did exist, including the SB Pro 1X kit. The only 2X drive I saw in the magazine was an NEC Multispin, which was bleeding edge at that time. It would have been SCSI of course.

14" VGA displays were standard. 15" with digital controls for power users, and 17" for professionals.

I see, awesome stuff!
I will construct an list from all the info here into what to trow in the board. The Texas Instruments thing is a bit overkill for me, never seen such a thing 😀

I do wonder which HDD controllers would you recommend for the overkill? The only VLB controllers i saw were some crappy IDE ones.
I have an NEC MultiSpin 4x SCSI CD rom, but i think that is from 1993-1994.

As for sound cards, i used to have SB PRO, but it kinda died on its own. But i do have PAS 16 (with out wavetable header).