FGB wrote:

Don't forget the hardware T&L engine of the Radeon and Geforce cards! Although a K6-2/3 will be limiting those cards, some games take profit from the hardware T&L engine.

That's right, fact is that with my mvp3 board I couldn't see any benefit from different previous cards in D3D and OGL in terms of speed. The Radeon chipset until now gave me some speed boost in bench (ok I know) where T&L can be tested. Certainly deeply limited but anyway I can befefit high ramdac and 2D quality and still light drivers package. I always liked the original Radeon chipset but also the Geforce was a great big gpu for its days. And to save sound noise I preferred the passive SDR one.

What is everyone's opinion of the ATi Rage Fury Maxx? Looks like a powerful card. Would it work with a K6-III+?
Also, if I were to run a Voodoo 5, ATi Radeon 9200, or Nvidia Geforce 4 card, what would the CPU of choice be? Those cards are about the upper limit for me year-wise. Nothing newer.

Don't count on getting a voodoo 5 cheaply these days unless you get crazy lucky on a lot or find a local deal, one can almost buy a RX 480 for the price of a Voodoo 5 which is real sad that it wasn't that long ago they would go for under $20 a pop but now days they often go for $150 sometimes a little more.

Just go for common cards that are really good for the price as building these rigs from scratch can be costly especially when local sources have dried up. Rage Fury maxx works in period correct boards but not newer ones at all, lost on one last night to a sniper running a bot (placed three bids in less than two seconds).

Jupiter-18 wrote:

What is everyone's opinion of the ATi Rage Fury Maxx? Looks like a powerful card. Would it work with a K6-III+?
Also, if I were to run a Voodoo 5, ATi Radeon 9200, or Nvidia Geforce 4 card, what would the CPU of choice be? Those cards are about the upper limit for me year-wise. Nothing newer.

Considering how rare they are I would not use it to be limited just like a much older and cheaper one. And it's often not easy to setup plus the double noise fan are something to consider too. It's one of my cards I prefer of the past but I would not put it with a K6.

386SX wrote:

Considering how rare they are I would not use it to be limited just like a much older and cheaper one. And it's often not easy to setup plus the double noise fan are something to consider too. It's one of my cards I prefer of the past but I would not put it with a K6.

Ok then. What card would you guys recommend for a K6-III+ PC?

voodoo 3 is cheap and easy. do that. its very good on dos and windows, Its the perfect card to cut your teeth on.

luckybob wrote:

voodoo 3 is cheap and easy. do that. its very good on dos and windows, Its the perfect card to cut your teeth on.

Sounds good!

I built many many rigs for many people. So I can tell from first hand experience. Please consider other options than the Voodoo 3 card. Voodoo 3 cards run very hot, draw a lot of power and offer only 16-Bit color depth in 3D mode and also have their image quality weakness in comparison to the TNT2 cards for example. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad card, but I think there are better alternatives. Ask yourself which games in particular you have that are GLIDE ONLY - because this is the one and only reason to go with a Voodoo 3 card, apart from the nostalgic - hipster - "must have, because others say its cool" - factor!

Regarding the Rage Fury Maxx - it is a rare card and believe me - a K6-2/3 is not even close to fuel this card. This really fast card with its strong 32-bit performance profits massively from higher CPU clock speeds. If you want to max out the Fury Maxx, use nothing less than 1000MHz of CPU power.
Apart from benchmarks, Quake3 engine based games profit from a hardware T&L implementation. It is worth to go with a Geforce / Radeon? Maybe yes! Otherwise I would recommend a good TNT2 card. It offers the best overall performance, featureset and also price. And if you want a glide capable card for Glide only games - add a single Voodoo2 as backup.

Just my few cents, gents!

For the power usage the Voodoo3 is certainly running really hot but anyway any cards of that period aren't easy on temps and wattage. In past for this reason considering all these aspects for the 350Mhz cpu I would have bought a Savage4 board saving the money I spent for a retail Voodoo3.

Savage cards, well.. yes.. no.. ummm... Image quality is great, drivers are a mess but even the Savage 4 Pro chips are a bit slower than you might want. These are really cool cards to play around with, but I wouldn't recommend it as your main card in your K6-2/3 rig.

FGB wrote:

Savage cards, well.. yes.. no.. ummm... Image quality is great, drivers are a mess but even the Savage 4 Pro chips are a bit slower than you might want. These are really cool cards to play around with, but I wouldn't recommend it as your main card in your K6-2/3 rig.

At that time I had the K6-2 350 on Ali chipset and buying the Voodoo3 even if it was a big jump from the S3 Trio3D (!), I think I did an error buying it, for the game there're in that time a Voodoo2 or a Savage4 would have been enough (Quake1/2, HL, Thief1/2 etc..).
I remember both the Voodoo1 and Voodoo2 retails new in the shops close to the just released Voodoo3 box. And the Savage3D and 4 was available even in the commercial shops where you buy food (really 😁) in those cheaply built pcb and box. Those were good times for pc hobby.

Jupiter-18 wrote:

Ok then. What card would you guys recommend for a K6-III+ PC?

There is a lot of good cards out there, and reading between the lines, I guess money is not really the issue here.
So my recommendations are the following, when choosing a GFX sollution.

1: Voodoo3-3500 or Voodoo3-3000.
2: TNT2-Ultra + Voodoo2-SLI.
3: Matrox G400-MAX + Voodoo2-SLI.
4: Geforce256 + Voodoo2-SLI.
5: Matroc G550 + Voodoo2-SLI.

No V5 on this list, and no GF2 on it eighter. They need more CPU power.

This is exactly what I needed! Thanks so much!

Jupiter-18 wrote:

This is exactly what I needed! Thanks so much!

Should I also write a list without any explanation to get a "thank you" ? 🤣

brostenen wrote:

and no GF2 on it eighter. They need more CPU power.

Instead of GF256, you can also use GF2-MX. They are at same performance level. And MX cards are really cheap, to find a cheap GF256 is more difficult...

By the way, i have only K6-2 500 which has a few percent less performance than the K6-3.
And I've downgraded from GF2-MX400 to RivaTNT. This card works quite well.

The Diamond 128bit TNT cards are nice. I have a PCI version.

I think my GPU options are pretty much covered. Thanks for the help guys!
Back to the original topic, what does everyone think about motherboards? My choice will likely be the Gigabyte GA-5AX rev 4.1 or higher, but I have heard some good things about Asus motherboards of the time. Thoughts? Looking for ISA, PCI, and AGP.

Jupiter-18 wrote:

I think my GPU options are pretty much covered. Thanks for the help guys!
Back to the original topic, what does everyone think about motherboards? My choice will likely be the Gigabyte GA-5AX rev 4.1 or higher, but I have heard some good things about Asus motherboards of the time. Thoughts? Looking for ISA, PCI, and AGP.

I own these.... Gigabyte GA-5AX, Asus P5A. All good boards.

Then I have an FIC PA-2013, wich has 1024kb cache.
Downside of this board is a crippeled AGP port, wich means that large power drawing cards will kill it.
TNT2 cards can run without problems, just not a V3. It is just as stable or possible more stable
than the other two boards.

Perhaps this can help you a bit for other brands....
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/socket-7- … ly-1998,79.html

Well, judging by the reviews and benchmarks I've seen, I don't think I will ever be using a V3. SS7 only supports up to AGP 2x, correct?

Voodoo3 lack's most AGP features, hence the PCI version being as fast as the AGP version.
AGP x2 uses 3.3volt keyed slot's and so does Voodoo3-AGP cards.