Sorry for the delay on my reply. I somehow forgot I had made this thread after I had to do a bunch of stuff.
gerwin wrote:The system in your signature is pretty close to that already: Intel SE440BX-2, Intel Pentium III SL35E (500MHz). What do you like/dislike about it?
A little while after I made this post, I looked it up, and it turns out that the SE440BX-2 has been available since at least September of 1998, if not earlier. For some strange reason, I assumed it was a board from around '99 or so. I think my particular motherboard was made in 1999, but is the same exact thing as any old 1998 version, with a higher BIOS version. The best part is: you can disable the diagnostic screen, so it just shows the generic "Intel Motherboard" logo on the POST. No BIOS date to be seen! It, of course, uses the latest BIOS released for it in 2000. I will likely keep this motherboard. The original post was created out of some ignorance concerning this board's release date. The motherboard box said it supported Pentium III processors, so I assumed that it was a 1999 only board for some reason.
The more I've pushed for time-accuracy, the more I've realized that it isn't viable beyond a certain point, and if you push too hard, it just becomes idiotic. Just because my motherboard, the same exact motherboard as the 1998 release, was made in 1999, doesn't mean that I need to trade it out for another one over a time period that spans less than one year. Same goes with a processor that is only 50MHz faster than the PIII 450- and the only difference between the PIII 450 and PII 450 is SSE. They perform almost exactly the same. It is beyond likely that a PIII 500 system could have used Voodoo 2 SLI.
The fact that I purchased a stable, brand-new (I got it in the box, and the sticker to open the anti-static packaging hadn't so much as been touched), that has little history of capacitor issues and the like, the first time around, is beyond lucky. Yet I thought that for some reason, I needed one less than a year older. However, I will continue this with the same motherboard and processor- that will save me a Hell of a lot of money.
The SE400BX-2 that I have uses four PCI slots and two ISA slots. I plan to downgrade the following:
- The AW744L-II I own is from somewhere around 2000 or 2001, possibly 2002. I don't want to get parts that push Y2K in this, as I at least want a late 90's build, using parts ranging from '97 to '99. I will lessen my strict standing on time accuracy down from their prior idiotic levels, but I won't go so far as to fully stop being an idiot about it.
- The 32MB TNT2 M64 from 2001 I have. Beyond the age, the performance on this thing is terrible due to the 64-bit memory bus restriction. I actually did have a Rage 128 Pro 16MB from Dec. 1999 that I was using, but I think some of the VRAM was DOA, or, what is most likely, I damaged some of the VRAM while attempting to OC it. I don't think I'll be making the mistake of OC'ing vintage hardware again. When I saw the performance in OpenGL games versus my TNT2, I got a taste of just how bad the TNT2 really is. The Rage 128 was (in my estimates) nearly 2X faster, if not more, than that M64, with half the VRAM! All because of a proper 128-bit memory bus, and the stock VRAM and Clock speeds were also faster. This is where Voodoo 2's may possibly help- I'm thinking about a Matrox G200 for the 2D part, as I've heard very good things about image quality from those.
- The 40GB HDD I have from 2003. I'd really like to get a SCSI Ultra-2 card and stick in one of those massive ~20GB SCSI drives from around 1998-1999. Check this thing out!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/FUJITSU-MAA3182SP-18 … UYTQ:rk:22:pf:0
I don't ever put any important data on these things, so I can continue getting new HDDs as they fail if need be.
- Finally, the PSU: This time, I want a new one- something like an EVGA 450BT. Reliability, and plenty enough wattage to support some of the most power-consuming hardware at the time. I feel anxious using the Dell PSU I have from around 2003, but I'm using it now because I heard very good things about it on a post I made about it a while back. The first thing I will buy when I get the money is a better PSU for the system.