Socket A Athlons run hot, that's why I would choose a fast Tualatin instead.

Slot 1 with 440BX 😀
Unless you want to go really fast with the last Athlon XP models.

Nope dont really need a very fast CPU just one that will run some mid to late 90ties games like Resident Evil 1-3, Metal Gear Solid and maybe Thief series but those already run fine, the versions from GoG at least.
I remember I fried an AMD Athlon XP once because I didnt put the heatsink correctly 🙁 but I never managed to bust a coppermine or Slot 1 Pentium 3 no matter what I think the coppermine would just simply shut down instead of overburn like the Athlon XPs. Loved the Intel coppermines and P3s back in those days but I never managed to get a tualatin as they were either hard to get here in romania or just simply very pricy, the tualatin had the headspreader also which the XPs lacked and you could chip the CPU 😒
Slot1 were so awesome I wonder why they moved away from the Slot1 structure, probably because of cost reduction but those were like cartridges plug and play you could even swap Pentium 2 with Pentium 3 on some boards with the Slot1, good times good times

I'm very satisfied with my ASUS P3B-F v1.03 motherboard. It is a late slot 1 440BX board that supports from 233mhz Pentium II all the way up to the 1400mhz Tualatin (with pinmodded CPU which you can buy on Ebay). It is also jumper free 😀 I see it pop up very often on Ebay in Germany and the prices are not that high.

With that board you can run everything from late DOS games to 2003-2004 games (with a 1400 Tualatin and a Geforce FX 5950 Ultra). Though for your usage (with the games you mentioned) a Pentium II 400 will be more than enough.

Thanks vetz that board looks awesome and has a lot of PCI and even two ISA, I will look out for it on ebay de. I think I had a similar board years ago with a Slot 1 P3 and I remember I did a lot of reading about hardware back then because it was one of my very first PCs and I did a background check on all the Pentiums and sockets. Also can you recommend a decent graphics card which runs on AGP and is compatible with Windows 98 SE I heard the 5xxx er Nvida series is decent and the last supported Nvidia line by Win 98 SE, cheers

Abit KT7A + Mobile (unlocked, 133fsb) barton. Here's why:
1) Full ISA slot
2) AGP x1/x2/x4 compatible (3dfx compatible)
3) Operating speed 600Mhz - 2.3 Ghz, overclockable/underclockable on the fly in software within windows 98 or XP
4) No RAM limitation vs Tualatin boards (up to 3 GB, 3x 1GB ECC)
5) Runs pretty much anything - DOS and windows alike (with a decent AGP card even Flash and similar).
6) Compatible with decent modern, silent heatsinks like TT BigTyphoon.

Interesting setup, Socket A Athlons are easy to get here not so much the Slot 1 boards, I will check out what I can find once my m3D arrives because thats the main reason I went the oldschool way, my damn BioHazard PowerVR wont play on anything expect a PowerVR chip, also I am planning to get a new case to put all the stuff in mybe a decent Thermal Take case or can someone recommend something good ? I also thought about using one of those very slim siemens or IBM desktop cases but those are rather hard to work with and upgrade stuff in them.

Note that with Athlon the Voodoo1 won't work (freezes) and with Voodoo2 you must use a specific Athlon-supporting driver pack.

What is considered to be one of the best graphics cards from the late 90ties ? I have seen that a lot of retro guys are using Voodoo 2's in SLI mode is it really that good ? O always thought PCI is slower than AGP because it shares the slots also what graphics card would work great in tandem with the Matrox m3D PowerVR accelerator ?

As with soundcards there are no true best graphic card. Many consider the Voodoo cards to be the best on 3D since they had the best support. In terms of image quality they aren't the best (32bit color support). If I were you I would go with the Voodoo 3 or Voodoo 5. AGP or PCI doesn't really matter as the performance gain with AGP is negligible. The Voodoo 3 and 5 works great with the PowerVR accelerator while also supporting Glide and Direct3D. The reason people run Voodoo 2 in SLI is just because it is cool and to get the best compatibility. There are a handful DOS Glide games the Voodoo 3/5 can't run (also Mechwarrior 2 3DFX, but when you have the PowerVR card you want to play Mech2 on that), but that is no biggie imo.

The Matrox Mystique or G200/G400 is also great in tandem with the PowerVR. With that card you can add Voodoo 1 or 2 to get Glide support.

Since the PowerVR card uses the host card for signal output I would use it with a fast card that have great signal quality. The Matrox and Voodoo 3/5 fits into this category.

Okay I checked out ebay it seems the Voodoo 5 is pretty sought out and expensive (is it really so good ?). The Voodoo 3 (the one with the TV Tunner) is feasible so is the Matrox G200/G400 but I can't seem to find the Matrox Mystique there, is the Mystique more rare than the G200/G400 ? And how is the Matrox G550 32Mb AGP does it work with Windows 98SE or is it too new ?

I would prioritize the options like this

Voodoo3
Voodoo4 (essentially Voodoo3 with more features)
Voodoo5
Matrox G550 (has 98 drivers and should be faster than G400)
Matrox G400
Matrox G200 (Voodoo1 3D speed with quirks. nice 2D)
Matrox Mystique / Millennium II (essentially the same but Mil2 has better RAM and RAMDAC)

I rate Voodoo4/5 below 3 because of their prices. If you want to mess with Voodoo5 FSAA then of course it may be worth it. It can really only handle FSAA at 640x480 though. It is somewhat interesting specifically for old Glide games.

I really don't recommended Mystique or Millennium II unless you want to play the games that use their proprietary 3D API. These cards have compatibility problems with some motherboards and are prone to GUI corruption (mouse cursor and fonts) and freezing up in 3D. They can also cause sound problems because of some PCI hacks they use to boost GUI benchmark scores.

thanks swaaye so your best bet would be the voodoo 3 then ? Well I can get a MATROX G550 AGP 4X 32 MB pretty cheap around here it looks like this

there is also a dual head VGA version which I can get which looks like this, dunno which one is better

Also I want to mention I checked the backcover of my US Resident Evil 2 PC version and it says at the bottom that it runs great on ATI Rage cards so I would consider getting one of those, here is the backcover it also says it runs on Rendition, S3, 3D Labs and Matrox

is the ATI Rage a good card ? Its pretty easy and cheap to find on ebay by the way !

And last but not least I am having a hard time finding a Voodoo 4-5, I can find the Voodoo 2 for a good price here and there but 4-5 seem kinda rare dunno why.

There's one thing you should know about the late '90s. 3dfx cards always ran 3D games correctly. Most games were designed with them in mind.

RE2 appears to support Glide and D3D. Glide is the best choice when a game supports it.

Rage Pro is about Voodoo1 speed. It's not particularly special. Older Rage cards are not desirable. Although there are a few games that support the proprietary ATI API.

The rage fury max (2 GPU on one card) is rare and collectable, missed out on a few over the years.

Never heard of the Rage Fury Max is it this one ?

is it on par with a Voodoo 3-5 ?

The card Approximately has a fillrate of 500 mtexels/s so it should be on par with a Geforce 256 Sdr/Worse than a Voodoo5 5500

Rage Fury Maxx is quirky and if you run 2k/XP only one GPU will operate. Interesting card nonetheless.

Yeah, the Rage Fury Maxx is an interesting card, but it is more a collectible than something that is really useful.

I would just go with a Voodoo3, Matrox G550 or TNT2. All those cards will fit your use well and they are easy to find. If you go for any other card than Voodoo I would suggest you get a Voodoo1/2 as well so that you can play Glide games.