I'm partial to the Intel board for overall stability and performance, but the extra RAM and the ISA port may come in hand. I'm still trying to think of a situation where it would be necessary, though.

Are you going for era specific video cards? because if you're doing a 2001 build for example, either the Geforce 3 Ti500 or the ATi 8500 would be your best bets. I've seen them to have a fairly broad support for games too, although if you're going for best in slot, I'd go with a 6800 Ultra from nVidia or an 3xxx or 4xxx agp card from ATi.

Good luck with the build. I'm looking forward to seeing your results.

EDIT: Can you share some pictures?

Yes, of course! Here they are:

I tweaked some settings and it seems that the system (w/QDi board) is stable at 1125MHz and the ram are running at 150-33=117MHz.
At the Intel board it's going to be 1000MHz/100MHz, so I guess now the QDi board has the advantage?

Yeah I want a harmonic system, from the same era. If I want to play more recent than 2002 games, I have my main PC. So it's going to be limited up to then. The memory will grow up to MAX 512MB due to Win98SE use, so the intel limit doesn't harm me 😵
What do you say?

PS: The GF2/3 Ti and radeon pre-9000 are hard to find unfortunately 😒
PS#2: The Intel board has onboard 100mbps LAN, but I'm not gonna use it too.

If you're going to be running 98SE (one of my favorites), you're right in that you won't benefit from excess RAM.
CPU speed isn't the only factor in overall system performance, so keep that in mind. But it does at a quick glance seem that the VIA chipset has the edge with it's features.

I think you have 2 very good boards and a tough choice. The ISA slot for the VIA is a nice feature for older sound cards. Especially if you're going to be running DOS games on it too.
I'm partial to the VIA right now.

OK what video cards do you currently have/can easily obtain? You mentioned the Geforce 3, so if that's available, it would be a good pick.

I'm building a similar system but with the 6oxet board and I've done on previously with my 6oxet-c board so I admit that I am a little partial to the Intel chipsets, but that's mostly because with mine, I have the option to adjust my FSB speed by incriments of 1 MHz... a feature I can't seem to find on any similar boards.

nemesis wrote:

If you're going to be running 98SE (one of my favorites), you're right in that you won't benefit from excess RAM. CPU speed isn' […]
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If you're going to be running 98SE (one of my favorites), you're right in that you won't benefit from excess RAM.
CPU speed isn't the only factor in overall system performance, so keep that in mind. But it does at a quick glance seem that the VIA chipset has the edge with it's features.

I think you have 2 very good boards and a tough choice. The ISA slot for the VIA is a nice feature for older sound cards. Especially if you're going to be running DOS games on it too.
I'm partial to the VIA right now.

OK what video cards do you currently have/can easily obtain? You mentioned the Geforce 3, so if that's available, it would be a good pick.

I'm building a similar system but with the 6oxet board and I've done on previously with my 6oxet-c board so I admit that I am a little partial to the Intel chipsets, but that's mostly because with mine, I have the option to adjust my FSB speed by incriments of 1 MHz... a feature I can't seem to find on any similar boards.

Yes the Intel boards are famous for their hard rock stability but also for not having a single overclock option.
I already have an older AT system for DOS games. This is going to be Win 98SE only! 😀
I have an Nvidia Riva TNT2 M64 and a GF4 MX 4000, which are both crap and easily available. Also GF2 MX, Ati Rage 128 and GF4 MX are easy to obtain but GF whatever Ti is not easy at all.
I think I will run it with the MX 4000 and try some weeks to find something good. It's better than compromising with some of the above forever... Also 320MB of ram for that era is enough in my opinion.
So, may I put in the case the QDi board? 😁

If I'm not mistaken, the Geforce 4 would be a 2002 release. So if you're trying to stay true to the era, that would be perfect.
The 320 MB of RAM should be plenty for 98SE.

It seems to me that the main purposes to building the system are:
1. To play post DOS - pre 2002 games.
2. To have a blast building and tweaking the system.

If this is the case, my vote is the QDi board.

Remember, though, I'm not the most learned person for this field. I just have a lot of fun playing with old hardware. 😀

nemesis wrote:

Remember, though, I'm not the most learned person for this field. I just have a lot of fun playing with old hardware. 😀

Me too. 😀
Exactly what you said. I'm putting in the QDi and beginning CPU test until I find an appropriate vga. Thanks for your answers 😁
Waiting for more opinions also.

The intel 815EP integrated graphics is below Riva TNT speed, using it for games will be disappointing.
As for the graphics card for the VIA board, it is up to your personal preference. There are many options: Geforce 2, MX440, 3, 4, 5, 6 or maybe ATI, Matrox, 3DFX, etc...

I'd go with Radeon 8500 (hardware TRUFORM!!!!) and 2x Voodoo2 for awesome D3D performance with newer games and Glide for older.

Testing CPU with Performance test 5, Sandra 2001, Metabench 0.98, PCMark 2002 at the 2 motherboards. The QDi at 4 settings: CPU/Ram 1125/150, 1125/117, 1000/133, 1000/100 and the Intel at 1000/100 only.
When I find a good VGA I'll try 3D testing with 3DMark99 Max, 3DMark 2001SE, GLExcess 1.2 and some games.

For now, everything seems to be working ok, except that the vga (MX4000) seems to be running at AGP 1x only! Is there anything I can do to see if it's a bug or it's actually running at 1x?

686B southbridge supports UDMA100 too. If you don't plan to overclock and/or install an ISA sound card, you should go with Intel because of it's stability and near-BX memory bandwidth.