ncmark wrote:

I was wondering what you guys think about this motherboard:

http://cgi.ebay.com/MSI-Pro266TD-Master-LR-Mo … 653789089760451

Seems liked a nice board - but what would be the point? You could probably get the same performance out of a single Athlon XP.

Yes, but whats the point of any old computer?
We have compatibility mode and things like dosbox, right? 😜

That motherboard is the ultimate Tualatin board in a way

You could probably get the same performance out of a single Athlon XP

Well, depends on what you're doing with it. If you're just running older games then yeah, an AthlonXP would be a bit faster, since most older games could only use one CPU... but as a general purpose 2k/XP system, a the multithreading ability of the dual Tualatin should give a noticeable performance boost, even though the individual CPUs are slightly slower.

As cool as it looks, though, I'm not sure if I'd want a DDR PIII system... the faster memory gives no performance advantage on that platform, and I understand that the DDR PIII chipsets had some issues.

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

As cool as it looks, though, I'm not sure if I'd want a DDR PIII system... the faster memory gives no performance advantage on that platform, and I understand that the DDR PIII chipsets had some issues.

This is true, but a major advantage of PIII DDR boards is that DDR is much easier to come by. Finding 512MB DDR is much easier (and cheaper 😉 ) then finding 512MB SDRAM 😉

I suppose that's true. I'll admit that I tend to overlook such factors, since I have several dozen gigs worth of both types... 🤣

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

I suppose that's true. I'll admit that I tend to overlook such factors, since I have several dozen gigs worth of both types... 🤣

Now that's a lot of memory!

Even if I had that much memory, I keep forgetting where I put it...😜

Thanks for the input on this 😀 It might be fun to build, but wouldn't really fill a niche for me. I would probably win up using it for Linux, and there are probably better boards for Linux.

That looks like a really good board if you can get it cheap. I'd like to see that benched against the Aopen DX34R-U that I'm getting soon (for pocket change), but this board would probably beat it off the mark with 2x the ram (if you plan on using an OS that can support that much) and a much newer chipset (VIA PRO 266TD vs. VIA PRO 133T).

If anyone else has more info or if you buy this board, I'd be interested in how it works out.

Edit: Were you planning on putting P-IIIs 1.4 chips in there?

ncmark wrote:

Thanks for the input on this 😀 It might be fun to build, but wouldn't really fill a niche for me. I would probably win up using it for Linux, and there are probably better boards for Linux.

AM2 or LGA775 would be in the same price range and offer much better performance, so yes.

This board has a certain charm though.

Well thanks to everyone for the feedback 😀

Until recently I always dreamt of building a dual Tualatin system, but that compulsion has been temporarily set back by preoccupations of building other setups. Can't have them all unfortunately!

I'd use a dual Tually as a fun box with maxed out ram, a really overpowered video card, raid-0, basically just crazy maxed out and running win2000/ XP/ Vista/ 7 or one of the big, fat distros like Mint/ Sabayon/ Ubuntu (take your pick).

It's basically a "hey, it plays Crysis, ijustfreakinshatmyselfwatchinthis" kinda builds for me.

These boards are junk, I've had 2 of them (both dead), and they are plagued by bad .tw cap disease. also.. if anyone is thinking they can OC these boards well.. WRONG.. the dual CPU action will limit your FSB.. i could never get over 140 FSB stable.. and remember, the via chipset isnt really using these DDR rams as DDR.. at least you can get 3 Gigs ram without ECC. ...... forget populating all memslots without ECC ram.. NOT GONNA HAPPEN. Additionally 98se/2k/xp can have issues with the right HAL on install, which requires messing with the installation sequence by hand to force dual CPU layer.

The BIOS leaves much to be desired. Nice f***** incompatibility with tB1 Tualatins that has to be fixed with tB1 microcode injection. This means adding tB1 microcode to the bios yourself and reflashing, because MSI didn't update it for you.. .. or maybe you can trust some modded bios on the net... ~~rolls eyes~~

RoyBatty wrote:

These boards are junk, I've had 2 of them (both dead), and they are plagued by bad .tw cap disease. also.. if anyone is thinking they can OC these boards well.. WRONG.. the dual CPU action will limit your FSB.. i could never get over 140 FSB stable.. and remember, the via chipset isnt really using these DDR rams as DDR.. at least you can get 3 Gigs ram without ECC. ...... forget populating all memslots without ECC ram.. NOT GONNA HAPPEN. Additionally 98se/2k/xp can have issues with the right HAL on install, which requires messing with the installation sequence by hand to force dual CPU layer.

The BIOS leaves much to be desired. Nice f***** incompatibility with tB1 Tualatins that has to be fixed with tB1 microcode injection. This means adding tB1 microcode to the bios yourself and reflashing, because MSI didn't update it for you.. .. or maybe you can trust some modded bios on the net... ~~rolls eyes~~

Wow, that sounds pretty bad. But thanks for the input 😉

Yes thanks for the input! But I had pretty much decided not to mess with it anyway. it you're going to go dual processor, I think dual Athlon would be a much better choice.

I have an ABit VP6 and it's not the best motherboard to choose for gaming. It only supports Coppermine but the operating systems for non-professional users and games of that time period weren't multi-processor aware, so you have to have a multi-processor aware OS and apps to really use the second processor. Multi-processor boards from back then were better for servers and workstations than for home use. Athlon MP based systems would be much the same. You'd need an OS that recognizes the second processor and apps that use more than 1 processor or else the second CPU would just sit there doing nothing.

RoyBatty wrote:

These boards are junk, I've had 2 of them (both dead), and they are plagued by bad .tw cap disease. also.. if anyone is thinking they can OC these boards well.. WRONG.. the dual CPU action will limit your FSB.. i could never get over 140 FSB stable.. and remember, the via chipset isnt really using these DDR rams as DDR.. at least you can get 3 Gigs ram without ECC. ...... forget populating all memslots without ECC ram.. NOT GONNA HAPPEN. Additionally 98se/2k/xp can have issues with the right HAL on install, which requires messing with the installation sequence by hand to force dual CPU layer.

The BIOS leaves much to be desired. Nice f***** incompatibility with tB1 Tualatins that has to be fixed with tB1 microcode injection. This means adding tB1 microcode to the bios yourself and reflashing, because MSI didn't update it for you.. .. or maybe you can trust some modded bios on the net... ~~rolls eyes~~

Thanks for the input there, it's good to see all potential problems before getting involved.

I had no plans of overclocking anyway for myself though, as it is an intel build and intels of that era weren't very overclock friendly. That and I did kinda wonder about the drawbacks of OCing a dual cpu build.

Well hopefully the board I'm getting isn't cursed with all the same problems. 😒

ncmark wrote:

I was wondering what you guys think about this motherboard:

http://cgi.ebay.com/MSI-Pro266TD-Master-LR-Mo … 653789089760451

Seems liked a nice board - but what would be the point? You could probably get the same performance out of a single Athlon XP.

I deleted my post here and updated another post to reflect my response.
Dual PIII-S Tualatin 1.4 GHz Success Stories
Refer to, EDIT: 19 December 2012

Hey I just I sold one of these boards, couldn't keep though i wanted to. I wanted to try win 7 on it.

RoyBatty wrote:

These boards are junk, I've had 2 of them (both dead), and they are plagued by bad .tw cap disease. also.. if anyone is thinking they can OC these boards well.. WRONG.. the dual CPU action will limit your FSB.. i could never get over 140 FSB stable.. and remember, the via chipset isnt really using these DDR rams as DDR.. at least you can get 3 Gigs ram without ECC. ...... forget populating all memslots without ECC ram.. NOT GONNA HAPPEN. Additionally 98se/2k/xp can have issues with the right HAL on install, which requires messing with the installation sequence by hand to force dual CPU layer.

The BIOS leaves much to be desired. Nice f***** incompatibility with tB1 Tualatins that has to be fixed with tB1 microcode injection. This means adding tB1 microcode to the bios yourself and reflashing, because MSI didn't update it for you.. .. or maybe you can trust some modded bios on the net... ~~rolls eyes~~

Rotting caps are found on many different boards of the time period that haven't already been recapped. It is not unique to one particular board maker or family of boards.