A mainstream late 1995 system would have been more like P75/90 - the fastest Pentiums were extremely expensive, and systems based on them cost a fortune. Mainstream late 1996 would probably have been about P133.

From PC WELT 6/1996 Test:
Dell Dimension XPS P 100 T (Pentium 100, 430 chipset, integrated S3 Trio64V+, 8 MB EDO, 6x CD-ROM, WD 814 MB) - 3968 DM
Dell Dimension XPS P 120 T (Pentium 120, 430 chipset, integrated S3 Trio64V+, 16 MB EDO, 6x CD-ROM, WD 814 MB) - 3844 DM
Escom Big Tower P 133 (Pentium 133, 430 chipset, ATI Graphics Expression (Mach 64), 8 MB EDO, 4x CD-ROM, Quantum 1223 MB) - 3496 DM
... and nearly a dozen of similar configurations.

From PC WELT 6/1995 Test:
Escom Minitower DX2/66 (DX2, 4MB, VIA chipset, ATI Mach 32, Quantum 515 MB) 2417 DM
Escom Minitower DX4/100 (DX4, 8MB, VIA chipset, ATI Mach 32, Quantum 503 MB) 3266 DM
Escom Tower P60 (P60, 16 MB, 430LX, ATI Mach 32, Quantum 515 MB) - 3815 DM
Escom Tower P90 (P90, 8 MB, 430NX, Miro 20SD (S3 Visio 864), Maxtor 1005 MB) - 4445 DM

Prices include monitor (15").

I was thinking that P120 might be a bit too fast for late 1995. My socket 7 ATX motherboard only goes down to 1.5x multiplier and 60mhz bus, so 90mhz is the lowest I can do.

vetz wrote:

I was thinking that P120 might be a bit too fast for late 1995. My socket 7 ATX motherboard only goes down to 1.5x multiplier and 60mhz bus, so 90mhz is the lowest I can do.

Won't it work with 50 MHz bus for the P75?

GL1zdA wrote:

Won't it work with 50 MHz bus for the P75? Besides, the ATX motherboard makes it "time incorrect" for 1995 😉

There is no jumper for 50mhz bus on the motherboard, so no P75 I'm afraid. Yes, using ATX mb is incorrect, but I'm going for the equviliant performance here, not in parts.

I once saw a motherboard that had a special 1.25X multiplier setting for the P75 so you could use the 60MHz bus (1.25 X 60=75). Pretty weird eh? I think it was a QDI Titanium board. I wonder if any other boards did this.

Anonymous Coward wrote:

I once saw a motherboard that had a special 1.25X multiplier setting for the P75 so you could use the 60MHz bus (1.25 X 60=75). Pretty weird eh? I think it was a QDI Titanium board. I wonder if any other boards did this.

That is weird! Never heard about it before.

Anyway, I've decided to run with 90mhz and 16mb RAM for late 1995. Partly because 4 out of 6 games (the other two are not specified beyond Pentium processor) on the NV1 has this as recommended setup.

TBH I'd even say an Intel DX4/100, Cyrix 4/586 100-133, and AMD 4/586 100-133 were even more common than the Pentiums then (and IMO were more fun to mess around with).

Most of those CPU's were equivalent to Pentium 60-75's, not overclocked, if that's the particular speed you're after.

EDIT: However, since you mentioned '95-'96, and "money-is-no-object" (because no one could afford Pentium systems then... haha), then yes a ~P90 system would be perfect.

I wish I could go that route as well, but I just got myself a 486 VLB system, and for this project I need a PCI system. With the current prices on 486 PCI motherboards, I don't think I'll be getting one in the near future 😉 I'm pretty sure a Pentium 90 will be good for late 1995. For late 1996 I'll probably go for either P120 or P133.

You could go like '1995-96 spoiled rich' and be using a Pentium Pro 😀

leileilol wrote:

You could go like '1995-96 spoiled rich' and be using a Pentium Pro 😀

haha, yeah, but gotta put some constraint on it. Also it comes down to what I have available of hardware.

I checked CGW, and in November 1995 a P133 complete system was advertised for 2995 dollars. I don't think that is too bad imo, it was pretty normal to pay that much back then (we had the same on laptops untill like 10 years ago). I remember the Compaq machine I got (originally P166MMX) cost about the same during the spring of 1997.

1995 was the year of my 1st PC!
We got new a VLB DX2 66, 8MB RAM, 420 MB HDD, 2x CD-ROM
About 3 months later my mate's family upgraded their 386 to a DX4 100, 500MB HDD 4X CD-ROM.
in 96 I wasnt able to play games, or at least very well due to lack of pentium CPU:(

1994 had P100's and cacheless P75s that lasted in the market until 1996, so maybe those?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igQ0vbqSL2Q 😁

swaaye wrote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igQ0vbqSL2Q 😁

🤣... classic!

Anonymous Coward wrote:

I once saw a motherboard that had a special 1.25X multiplier setting for the P75 so you could use the 60MHz bus (1.25 X 60=75). Pretty weird eh? I think it was a QDI Titanium board. I wonder if any other boards did this.

Doesn't the CPU need to have a 1.25x multiplier option in the onboard PLL for this to work as you depicted? A P75 normally runs at 1.5 x 50. I wonder if that motherboard has added its own little frequency divider just before CLK signal reaches the CPU? This would mean that the memory CLK is really at 60 MHz but divides by 1.2 before reaching the CPU. The issue with doing this is that there is a time delay associated with the added PLL, usually in nanoseconds, and would probably act to de-synchronise the system. But maybe it will still work if the BIOS adds a wait state somewhere...

Do you recall exactly which motherboard you recall having a 1.25x multiplier? This QDI Titanium board shows a 50 MHz bus option.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/24

swaaye wrote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igQ0vbqSL2Q 😁

3000 US dollars, sweet mother.
The worst part is that the system quickly became useless for many games released just a few years down the line.
Kinda makes me happy that I was a young kid back then.

I got a magazine somewhere from about that time and most were usually around 90mhz. Also it was usually oem systems that were being bought like Compaq for the home and office so I would consider one of those systems as a base. Also the hard drive is likely to be around 2GB or less for a mainstream system. System memory usually 16mb with a 1mb graphics card. 14 or 28kb isa modem if you even want to go that far.

An interesting timeframe, 1995-1996...

For mainstream around the middle of 1995-1996, I'd pick a Pentium 100--on a 430FX-based motherboard I think, with at least 256kB L2 cache. Pentium 133 was pretty popular later on, but you get more chances of finding a multiplier-locked one, so less flexibility than P120/150/166.

RAM would be 16MB EDO DRAM (a pair of 8MB SIMMs), the holy grail back then, for late 'heavy' DOS games and for Win95 as well. Harddisk would be less than 1GB (and it won't be SCSI for most home users). I don't fancy dealing with 'retro' mechanical devices myself though--would rather use PATA to CF for convenience. Second-gen CD-ROM drive was a must-have (double or quad-speed), but faster drives were coming soon (16x and up in 1997).

CGW magazine issue 135 is a good reference for sound cards and video cards available in 1995. Early Pentium systems could be a great platform to get a little 'excessive' on sound (Roland, Yamaha, GUS, Soundscape, AWE32), if you're into that, since you will usually get more ISA slots than PCI. S3 Trio64V+ was popular, but ARK 2000PV might have been a smarter choice back then (cheaper, faster). Actually Voodoo Graphics started to get popular nearing the end of that time frame as well. If you're lucky you may get an earlier version of Diamond Monster 3D with the number "1996" printed on the PCB.

In the end, it would look like a 1995-1996 mainstream platform that was being "gamer-upgraded" bit by bit. A later CPU upgrade to P166 and another pair of 8MB SIMMs will get you through 1997 just fine. Oh, I wished this was my life back then... 😀

P.S. references
CGW year 1995-1996, esp. issues 135, 149
http://www.cgwmuseum.org/galleries/index.php? … 95&pub=2&id=135
http://www.cgwmuseum.org/galleries/index.php? … 96&pub=2&id=149

also a fun read (relevant for around early 1995)
http://www.winsupersite.com/article/commentar … ter-1995-141723