Are you aware that a GA-7IXE doesn't support Athlon XPs?

It's a great board, stable and solid, but overclocking options are limited. If you're into overclocking, look for an Asus K7M.

The fastest Athlon for this board is a Thunderbird 1GHz, but that's a bit of a unicorn. VIA northbridges can have issues with Thunderbirds (full speed L2 cache).
See if you can find a 700MHz Pluto/Orion then, these have 'perfect' 50% L2 cache speed.
(850MHz has 40% L2 cache, and 1000MHz 33%)

To answer your question 😜 A Voodoo3 3000 is a perfect match for a P3 or Athlon based system, let's say 500~700 MHz. At these speeds, the Voodoo3 is already becoming a bottleneck.

PD2JK wrote on 2024-04-22, 07:20:

Are you aware that a GA-7IXE doesn't support Athlon XPs? […]
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Are you aware that a GA-7IXE doesn't support Athlon XPs?

It's a great board, stable and solid, but overclocking options are limited. If you're into overclocking, look for an Asus K7M.

The fastest Athlon for this board is a Thunderbird 1GHz, but that's a bit of a unicorn. VIA northbridges can have issues with Thunderbirds (full speed L2 cache).
See if you can find a 700MHz Pluto/Orion then, these have 'perfect' 50% L2 cache speed.
(850MHz has 40% L2 cache, and 1000MHz 33%)

To answer your question 😜 A Voodoo3 3000 is a perfect match for a P3 or Athlon based system, let's say 500~700 MHz. At these speeds, the Voodoo3 is already becoming a bottleneck.

Thanks for the info. Have to admit that I was not aware that the board does not support the Athlon XP. Got the facts wrong and mixed up the designation of the board with another one 🤣. That's embarrasing.

I was using P 3 800mhz with the Asus board that spoiled by the way and was happy with performance.

I need to think about it again though. While getting prestine board might be good for me for consistant gaming use. The fact that the board just supports the standard athlon maxes things a bit more difficult. I need to research first how common and expensive Athlon cpus are these daysl.

Myself and at least one other here purchased one of these boards 'new' recently, and I'd imagine you're looking at the same seller. What I can say so far is the boards are not technically new - they have witness marks from the mounting holes where they've been installed in a case - but what the seller told me was they were built as part of systems that ended up never being sold, and were subsequently taken apart again. Mine certainly still had that new electronics smell and was completely free of dust or any other marks, so they're definitely in as-new condition. Unfortunatley no box, cables, or I/O shield.

As above you won't get an Athlon XP in Slot A form. I'm running a 700MHz Thunderbird in mine along with a Voodoo3 3000 AGP. I haven't used it all that much but it was perfectly stable during build and test and I've 100% confidence in it as a platform going forward. I also benchmarked it with the Pluto 700MHz chip and as expected the Thunderbird scored better, but not by a huge amount:

3DMark99 Max:

• 5348 (3D), 11040 (CPU) (Pluto)
• 5542 (3D), 11597 (CPU) (Thunderbird)

3DMark2000:

• 2847 (Pluto)
• 2939 (Thunderbird)

3DMark2001 SE:

• 1408 (Pluto)
• 1447 (Thunderbird)

I think for the price they're asking it's a no-brainer, even if maybe you don't want to use it right now. I've seen other sellers asking near enough twice the price for used versions.

Shadzilla wrote on 2024-04-22, 07:43:

Myself and at least one other here purchased one of these boards 'new' recently, and I'd imagine you're looking at the same sell […]
Show full quote

Myself and at least one other here purchased one of these boards 'new' recently, and I'd imagine you're looking at the same seller. What I can say so far is the boards are not technically new - they have witness marks from the mounting holes where they've been installed in a case - but what the seller told me was they were built as part of systems that ended up never being sold, and were subsequently taken apart again. Mine certainly still had that new electronics smell and was completely free of dust or any other marks, so they're definitely in as-new condition. Unfortunatley no box, cables, or I/O shield.

As above you won't get an Athlon XP in Slot A form. I'm running a 700MHz Thunderbird in mine along with a Voodoo3 3000 AGP. I haven't used it all that much but it was perfectly stable during build and test and I've 100% confidence in it as a platform going forward. I also benchmarked it with the Pluto 700MHz chip and as expected the Thunderbird scored better, but not by a huge amount:

3DMark99 Max:

• 5348 (3D), 11040 (CPU) (Pluto)
• 5542 (3D), 11597 (CPU) (Thunderbird)

3DMark2000:

• 2847 (Pluto)
• 2939 (Thunderbird)

3DMark2001 SE:

• 1408 (Pluto)
• 1447 (Thunderbird)

I think for the price they're asking it's a no-brainer, even if maybe you don't want to use it right now. I've seen other sellers asking near enough twice the price for used versions.

Thanks for the info. The chances are high we are talking indeed about the same seller from the UK. The price difference between this seller and other boards was the reason why that offer caught my eye in the first place.

I have also checked the prices of the classic athlons in the meantime and the price is not as bad as I had thought.

Like I have mentioned above with my broken Asus board I was using a Pentium 3 800 mhz happily so I would not mind getting an athlon at a similar clock speed. So getting classic athlon 900 mhz would sound right to me.

There also would be some slower Athlon available that might be a bit cheaper. 500,600 and 700 MHz variants for example.

For the V3 the slower Athlon would be more than powerful enough but like I mentioned above I might be interested in upgrading the GPU at some point in the future the get a really powerful Win 98SE system. And to make good use of a geforce 3, 4, or Radeon 9000 series card the athlon 900 mhz would make more sense?

Or two systems.

7IXE + 700MHz + Voodoo3 3000
7IXE4 + 1400MHz TB + Geforce 3 / 4 / Radeon 9000 series (some later cards won't fit because of AGP 8x)

And before you know it you're down the rabbit hole haha!

An 7IXE/7IXE4 lacks AGP 4x, so there are faster and better socket A boards. 😉

Yeah I think you'll be heading towards a multi-system approach very quickly!! I seem to remember reading the AMD750 chipset had issues even at 4x AGP, but that was possibly limited to earlier chip revisions. Best to do some reading on that if you can.

But aside from the fact a 1400MHz Thunderbird Slot A processor doesn't exist, I think you'd be better off with a Socket A/462 board if you want to look at those sort of Geforce/Radeon cards, and probably really you'd be down the Athlon XP route anyway to make the most of them. If you can find a Geforce 256 DDR I'd say that would also be a nice match for the faster Athlon Classic processors, and definitely very period correct.

Shadzilla wrote on 2024-04-22, 11:01:

Yeah I think you'll be heading towards a multi-system approach very quickly!! I seem to remember reading the AMD750 chipset had issues even at 4x AGP, but that was possibly limited to earlier chip revisions. Best to do some reading on that if you can.

But aside from the fact a 1400MHz Thunderbird Slot A processor doesn't exist, I think you'd be better off with a Socket A/462 board if you want to look at those sort of Geforce/Radeon cards, and probably really you'd be down the Athlon XP route anyway to make the most of them. If you can find a Geforce 256 DDR I'd say that would also be a nice match for the faster Athlon Classic processors, and definitely very period correct.

Yes after thinking about it again a multi-system approach sounds like a better solution to get the most out of the better card like you and @ PD2JK Having a GeForce 256 DDR would be a nice card for sure but not sure if is easy to get such card for a solid price. But I will look into it. In case I can find one I will go for it.

@all I am rather sure that I will go for the Gigabyte GA-IXE board for now. I will either use it with An Athlon 700 or 900MHZ.

The GPU as of now is going to be my Voodoo 3 3000 AGP.

I also want to use some parts of my first V3 system that survived.

are there any known issues with PC 133 RAM when using the Gigabyte board? I would use the same 256 MB ram as I have used for my pentium 3 system.

And the same question for the sound card as well. Are there any known issues when using an Audigy ZS card?

That PC133 RAM will be clocked to 100 MHz, and should work normal since your Abit board has/had support up to 512MB.
7IXE can use three modules of 256MB each.

An SB Live! or Audigy has some bugs with VIA southbridges (686B), but the 7IXE has the Irongate 750 chipset (751 + 756), so no worries.

For instance, Asus K7M has AMD 751 + VIA 686A and should also be trouble free.

predator_085 wrote on 2024-04-22, 06:49:

[...]

Do you guys have any experience with Gigabyte GA-7IXE or Slot A boards in general?

There are two chipsets for Slot A, the AMD 750 and Via KX133. You can compare them to i440BX and Via ApolloPro133a for P3 - the 750 is a bit lower spec (AGP 2x, SDRAM only synchronous i.e. 100MHz), the KX133 slightly higher-specced but a bit more problematic (AGP 4x, SDRAM async at 133MHz). More specifically, the KX133 doesn't officially support Thunderbird Slot A processors and are not stable. That's not as bad as it sounds as most Slot A CPUs aren't Thunderbird (they were never released retail), but still it's a limitation. Some boards (like the Asus K7V-T) claim to fix it, but they are (even by Slot A standards) rare.

So for widest compatibilty, AMD750 is a better bet, and the GA-7IXE is one of the most solid boards with that chipset. If I wanted a Slot A board, this would be the one.

Would you recommend them ? If yes which Athlon XP cpu would you guys consider to a perfect partner for the Voodoo 3 ? I also need to mention that in the long run the V3 is going to be replaced with a Gf3/4 or with a Radeon 9000 series to enhance my Win98SE gaming series?

Well, given the lack of AthlonXP for Slot A, I'd suggest changing either the platform or the requirement. With Socket A, nForce2-Ultra is the fastest option, but it's AGP 8x, so no good for the Voodoo3. The last chipset with AGP 4x support that can handle 3.3V cards is the Via KT333A. Boards with this chipset have universal AGP slots which *should* be able to run 3.3V cards, but the last generation of boards with that slot didn't always implement the circuitry well, so if you want to go that new, check on a per-board level if it can supply 3.3V.

And which power supply would you recommend for a save using experience? I have read that getting the right power supply is tricky part of the Athlon gaming experience.

This is actually getting to be less of a problem. With recent PSU designs, the 5V line is drawn from the 12V line anyway, which means that any PSU that is rated to deliver enough on the 5V line should be fine. Check the TDP of your CPU, calculate current draw (I=P/V), for safety's sake add the same for the Gf4Ti GPU (AGP is fed from 3.3V, 5V and 12V lines, which one is used for 1.5V depends on the board, assuming 5V is safest bet), and add maybe 5A margin for other stuff. That gives you what your PSU needs to be able to deliver.

So for Slot A, the hottest CPU is the 1000MHz Orion, at 65W -> 13A, the hottest Gf4 is the Ti 4600, at 45W -> 9A. So 13+9+5=27A on the 5V rail should be fine. Now, finding a modern PSU that does over 20A on the 5V rail can be a challenge, but it's certainly possible, you'll just get overkill on the 12V line.

Things only get hairy when you go for top-of-the-range AthlonXP on boards without 12V ATX connector (a lot of KT400A boards) and combining them with hothead FX-series GeForces. Or of course the early AthlonMP boards that still drew CPU power from 5V, with two CPUs up to 66W (13A) that needed feeding. That sort of combo needed 50A on the 5V rail. That is beyond almost any modern PSU.

PD2JK wrote on 2024-04-22, 11:50:

That PC133 RAM will be clocked to 100 MHz, and should work normal since your Abit board has/had support up to 512MB. 7IXE can us […]
Show full quote

That PC133 RAM will be clocked to 100 MHz, and should work normal since your Abit board has/had support up to 512MB.
7IXE can use three modules of 256MB each.

An SB Live! or Audigy has some bugs with VIA southbridges (686B), but the 7IXE has the Irongate 750 chipset (751 + 756), so no worries.

For instance, Asus K7M has AMD 751 + VIA 686A and should also be trouble free.

Ok thats good then. Sounds like the transition of the surving parts to the new system should be possible without much trouble.

@dionb Thanks to you as well for the very detailed information about the power supply and the Slot A in general.

Sorry again for mixing up stuff and though that athlon xp cu might work with Slot A.

After doing lots of research I came to the conclusion that the classic Athlon cpu should be enough for enjoying win 98SE games of the 90s. and even up to 2000.

For games from 2001 and beyond there is still a

Intel S 478 I845E mainboard
256MB DDR Ram from Sattron
Intel P4 2.66 MHZ
40 GB Hardrive Seagate Baracuda

pc wating at my parents place to brought back to life at some poin in the future.

So no need to give the V3 a too futurstic home.

I pretty sure that the V3 is going to be quite happy with a Gigabyte-GA-7XE and Athlon 700 or 900 MHZ cpu.

Sounds like a plan, have fun rebuilding your system.👍😁

PD2JK wrote on 2024-04-22, 17:34:

Sounds like a plan, have fun rebuilding your system.👍😁

Thanks. .👍 I have already ordered the Gigabyte mainboard and I am shoppong now for the Athlon cpu.

I found already a AMD-K7700MTR51B at good price.

it is a Pluto 2 model and not a thunderbird but for my intended use the pluto should be more than enough for V3 gaming.