VOGONS


First post, by waterbeesje

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One of my systems has an Asus P3B-F motherboard, v1.03 and latest bios from the Asus website. I'm assuming to get maximum performance out of this board.
Currently it is running 512MB PC133 Ram and a 933MHz P3 CPU (133MHz FSB on a BX 😁 )
Some PCI cards sound blaster live, Lan, usb2, some phone modem)

The one thing holding back performance is the Diamond V770 TNT 2. It's father than any GF2MX I have, but I think is still bottlenecking.

In my stuff I have some other graphics cards;
GF Ti 4200
GF Ti 4600
GF Ti 4800
Some GF4 Mx cards
ATI 9200
ATI 9600
ATI 9800 (with molex connector for power)

All but the mx's and 4200 are untested, but I'd like to go with the 4800 if it works.
Would my board support the needed current? Or would the board melt?
Does the 4800 still support AGP 2x?

If the 4800 is out of the question, what would be my best aim?

Also: I'm running a P3-933 coppermine now. It's stuck on a random nameless slotket without vrm. Vcore is 1.70v now.
In my stuff there is a tualeron 1300, which would be a little faster (but require 1.5v).
I read somewhere the tualatin works with rev 1.05 of the board and a modified bios.
Would rev 1.03 of the board support the 1.5v needed?
If so: Where can I find an updated version of the bios too support tualeron?

I may get either a p3-1000 coppermine or p3-1400 tualatin eventually...

Do you have some more opinions on maxing out the P3B-F?

Stuck at 10MHz...

Reply 3 of 18, by vetz

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Tualatins work fine in the P3B-F v1.03 without voltage adapters, see my own build:
Time for a new case: My 440BX Tualatin system

3D Accelerated Games List (Proprietary APIs - No 3DFX/Direct3D)
3D Acceleration Comparison Episodes

Reply 4 of 18, by SPBHM

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is your GF2 MX a 64bits SDR model? because outside of that I don't see how it could be slower than a tnt2u!?

the ti 4800 should be compatible with AGP2x, and as far as I know respect the power specs, but it's probably near the limit.

Reply 5 of 18, by PARKE

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waterbeesje wrote on 2020-09-01, 11:26:

The one thing holding back performance is the Diamond V770 TNT 2. It's father than any GF2MX I have, but I think is still bottlenecking.

The TNT is from 1999 - the GF2 is from 2000/2001. I wonder if you compare them in 3DMark2000 or 2001 if your TNT is still performing better. Comparing these cards on low resolution in 3DMark99 may give a less than useful impression.

Reply 6 of 18, by waterbeesje

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vetz wrote on 2020-09-01, 11:52:

Tualatins work fine in the P3B-F v1.03 without voltage adapters, see my own build:
Time for a new case: My 440BX Tualatin system

Thanks! Your system appears to have a modified tualatin. What kind of mod is it? Do I need it too?

SPBHM wrote on 2020-09-01, 12:05:

is your GF2 MX a 64bits SDR model? because outside of that I don't see how it could be slower than a tnt2u!?

the ti 4800 should be compatible with AGP2x, and as far as I know respect the power specs, but it's probably near the limit.

So the 4800 it will be! Gonna test it soon!

I think I will retest my stuff with a newer version of 3d mark then. My v770 gives some 5600 3d marks on a 933mhz CPU and 2 gf2's gave me about 6050. CPU in both setups just under 14000 😀

My gf2 cards definitely are not high end, mostly mx200 and mx400 but no high end.

Stuck at 10MHz...

Reply 7 of 18, by vetz

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waterbeesje wrote on 2020-09-01, 13:41:

Thanks! Your system appears to have a modified tualatin. What kind of mod is it? Do I need it too?

No if you have a slotket that supports the Tualatin. If you don't have that (they are kind of rare and expensive), then you must have a pin modded Tualatin or modded socket. If you don't want to do it yourself, they are still sold on Ebay (search for 'Tualatin include Socket Adapter')

Last edited by Stiletto on 2020-09-01, 16:58. Edited 2 times in total.

3D Accelerated Games List (Proprietary APIs - No 3DFX/Direct3D)
3D Acceleration Comparison Episodes

Reply 8 of 18, by Oetker

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waterbeesje wrote on 2020-09-01, 13:41:
vetz wrote on 2020-09-01, 11:52:

Tualatins work fine in the P3B-F v1.03 without voltage adapters, see my own build:
Time for a new case: My 440BX Tualatin system

Thanks! Your system appears to have a modified tualatin. What kind of mod is it? Do I need it too?

Yes, you will need to mod your slotket, find an interposer (e.g. lin-lin or PowerLeap PL-370/T), or buy a pre-modded Tualatin/Tualeron (the Korean guy on eBay sells both).
Or as Vetz says a Tualatin slotket, but those are rare. UpgradeWare Slot-T is an example.

Reply 9 of 18, by Robin4

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The Serpent Rider wrote on 2020-09-01, 11:38:

4800 should work fine.

4800 is a rebrand from the 4600.. They will perform the same.

4600 use AGP x4
4800 use AGP x8.

4800 looks faster on the digits, but actually it performs the same. There isnt really a performance difference between AGP x4 / AGP8x.. Or isnt noticable.

The bottleneck is really the motherboard.
Personally i would go with a board thats having an AGP 4x slot. Yes there is difference between AGP 2x and x4.

~ At least it can do black and white~

Reply 10 of 18, by paradigital

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Robin4 wrote on 2020-09-01, 15:52:
4800 is a rebrand from the 4600.. They will perform the same. […]
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The Serpent Rider wrote on 2020-09-01, 11:38:

4800 should work fine.

4800 is a rebrand from the 4600.. They will perform the same.

4600 use AGP x4
4800 use AGP x8.

4800 looks faster on the digits, but actually it performs the same. There isnt really a performance difference between AGP x4 / AGP8x.. Or isnt noticable.

The bottleneck is really the motherboard.
Personally i would go with a board thats having an AGP 4x slot. Yes there is difference between AGP 2x and x4.

Not strictly true. The 4800 is a rebadged 8x 4200. The 4800SE is an 8x 4600.

I’ve got a Tualatin 1133 running at 150fsb in my P3B-F (in a PowerLeap iP3/T), and have tried it paired with everything from a TNT2 Pro through to an FX5800 (actually a Quadro FX 1000, but modified), and the sweet spot for the CPU was the GeForce 3 or Voodoo 5 5500.

Reply 11 of 18, by SPBHM

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paradigital wrote on 2020-09-01, 17:13:
Robin4 wrote on 2020-09-01, 15:52:
4800 is a rebrand from the 4600.. They will perform the same. […]
Show full quote
The Serpent Rider wrote on 2020-09-01, 11:38:

4800 should work fine.

4800 is a rebrand from the 4600.. They will perform the same.

4600 use AGP x4
4800 use AGP x8.

4800 looks faster on the digits, but actually it performs the same. There isnt really a performance difference between AGP x4 / AGP8x.. Or isnt noticable.

The bottleneck is really the motherboard.
Personally i would go with a board thats having an AGP 4x slot. Yes there is difference between AGP 2x and x4.

Not strictly true. The 4800 is a rebadged 8x 4200. The 4800SE is an 8x 4600.

I’ve got a Tualatin 1133 running at 150fsb in my P3B-F (in a PowerLeap iP3/T), and have tried it paired with everything from a TNT2 Pro through to an FX5800 (actually a Quadro FX 1000, but modified), and the sweet spot for the CPU was the GeForce 3 or Voodoo 5 5500.

from what I recall the ti 4800SE replaced the 4400, and the 4800 the 4600,

Reply 12 of 18, by waterbeesje

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Ok, so without modification my slotket probably won't support the unmodified tualatin. It's pretty much the most basic thing you can imagine. The tualeron or Pentium 3s will be an upgrade for another time then 😀

Wikipedia tells us this:

A Ti4800SE replaced the Ti4400 and a Ti4800 replaced the Ti4600 respectively when the 8X AGP NV28 core was introduced on these.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_4_series

Choosing a 'better' s370 board is not the thing I'm after now.
I already have an IBM NetVista based on S370 with support for agp4 and an Asus CUSL2 as well. Those also run fast coppermines, as they intend to. Also with fast AGP cards. This BX thing is just to see how far I can push it 😀

I don't have any gf3 cards to test, no top line gf2 and no top line gf5/6. So the 4600/4800 would be my best options for now.

I'll keep this thread updated for the Geforce Ti4800 😀

Stuck at 10MHz...

Reply 13 of 18, by SpectriaForce

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I assume that the small AGP 2x bandwidth is going to be the bottleneck, because the Ti4800 was designed with AGP 8x in mind. You're probably not going to see a lot of improvement compared to e.g. an AGP 4x MX440 with 128 bit memory interface (does this even exist?).

I have a similar system, but with the Ti4600. It's fast enough for games like Serious Sam at 1024x768. I don't use it a lot though. I want to build something which is faster because NFS Porsche doesn't achieve the high frame rates at 1024x768 which it needs.

Reply 14 of 18, by SPBHM

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SpectriaForce wrote on 2020-09-02, 09:41:

I assume that the small AGP 2x bandwidth is going to be the bottleneck, because the Ti4800 was designed with AGP 8x in mind. You're probably not going to see a lot of improvement compared to e.g. an AGP 4x MX440 with 128 bit memory interface (does this even exist?).

I have a similar system, but with the Ti4600. It's fast enough for games like Serious Sam at 1024x768. I don't use it a lot though. I want to build something which is faster because NFS Porsche doesn't achieve the high frame rates at 1024x768 which it needs.

I don't think that the 8x Geforces 4 really acts differently than the 4x ones when it comes to the 2x bandwidth,
the 2x bandwidth is a limitation, but you are mostly CPU limited anyway with a P3 and 4 ti (but you can make it hard for the GPU with AA and resolution certainly)

for the first months pretty much all 440s were 4x and 128bit (with decent clocks and all), for a while just the 420 and a little later 440SE had the slow memory, so there are plenty of good 440s out there.
if you want porsche at locked 60FPS you might need a faster CPU (decent, p4 or fast athlon XP I would think), I personally am satisfied with the performance of the p3 coppermine 1.1 + FX5900 on Porsche at the moment, but it's certainly not a locked 60 experience, even if I rarely notice the FPS variation (mostly the FPS is much lower at starts but still over 30)

Reply 15 of 18, by waterbeesje

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Of course there's no way to utilize the full speed these cards were designed for. It's just a matter of finding where the AGP/CPU bottleneck will be maxed I guess?

This asks for some more testing with a bunch of GF cards :p
I also have a 5200 and a 6200 somewhere, so those may also get to the test. Not sure if they still support AGP 2x though...

Stuck at 10MHz...

Reply 17 of 18, by waterbeesje

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chrismeyer6 wrote on 2020-09-02, 21:20:

I've used a 6200 and a 5200 in my dual P3 system it is a 440bx based supermicro motherboard

Nice! Testing will be done 😁

Stuck at 10MHz...

Reply 18 of 18, by waterbeesje

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So this build had reached its final stage for now.

I found 3x spare 128MB 7ns SDRAM and put it in. Set bios timings to 2-2-2-8.
Tried a bit with a single 6ns one but that one seems lazy and didn't want to go any faster than the 7ns ones. So I put it in as well, now running 4x128MB @2-2-2-8

Having the Pentium 3 933 installed, I managed to get the bus speed up to 150MHz. At first the CPU responded a bit asthmatic, but with vcore up to 1,85v it seems happy enough. And I've added a bigger sink.

For graphics: my TI4800 won't show any image. My next choice was the FX6200, then the FX5200 and finally the "MX480" labelled "point of view MX440 with AGP 8x" as its bios tells on boot. These three all seemed to perform equally in benchmarks, so I kept the last one I tested: the MX440. Nice detail, since the chipset is also a 440 😀

The P3B-F has got the 1/4 PCI divider so PCI runs at 37,5MHz now, which should be fine. AGP probably hits 100MHz, but can't check it to know for sure. The graphics card likes it 😀

For testing stability I only had 3d mark 99/2000/2001 running. Standard / default benchmark timings 4 times in a row and then switched to three next one.

I also had a few races in need for speed 2se and all went fine.

As for them benchmarks.

At 133MHz bus speed:
3D mark 99: 7224 3D marks, 14989 CPU msrks
3D mark 2000: 6167 3D marks
3D mark 2001: 3663 3D marks

At 150MHz bus speed:
3D mark 99: 7616 3D marks, 16053 cpu marks
3D mark 2000: 6923 3D marks
3D mark 2001: 4029 3D marks

So running a BX system at higher bus speeds definitely proves itself again. That is, if your hardware can handle the extra stress of running way out of spec. Fortunately my stuff can 😀

[Edit] added a few pics

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Stuck at 10MHz...