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First post, by Marmes

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Hi!
I want to assemble myself a new pentium iii game computer.
I got myself stuck in selecting a motherboard.
In one hand I have an intel se440bx-2 with powerleap converter.
On the other an ipox with native socket 370 wich has 3 isas (one more than intel)
My question is: Can I get a socket370 pentium iii go down on speeds like pentium 166mmx just by disabling stuff?
I see that both boards support fsb 133.
I just see that 440bx is so flexible and the other is just made for piii and it works as it should.
I am confused...
Can anyone point me advantages and disavantages please so I can sleep in peace 😁

Reply 1 of 3, by shamino

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I searched and noticed that apparently Ipox is a brand related to Epox. They don't have many boards under the Ipox name, but I did see this one that matches your description:
http://www.ipoxusa.com/images/prodimgs/3eti23-b.jpg
http://www.ipoxusa.com/main/item.asp?itemid=52
Is that the board you have?

I'm pretty sure the Intel SE440BX-2 board will not support 133FSB. The 440BX chipset doesn't officially support that, and Intel doesn't support overclocking on their boards. They don't underclock either - they autodetect the CPUs intended bus speed, just like Intel wanted other motherboard manufacturers to do. I don't think that board will even let you boot with a 133FSB CPU - the BIOS will just tell you to march yourself back to the store and exchange it. Intel boards take themselves very seriously. They're great for supreme reliability, but not so great for screwing around with.

I don't know what options these boards' BIOSes have for disabling caches, but if you can, then disabling L1/L2 will slow down the CPU dramatically. I think you're more likely to see that option on an Epox/Ipox board than the Intel.

I don't know about Ipox, but
Epox boards of that period usually have the frontside bus speed controlled by a single jumper. That IPOX board photo that I linked above looks like it has the same kind of jumper block. You should be able to select down to 66MHz FSB, and maybe lower, to slow down the CPU at least that much. They will also let you try to run at higher bus speeds - I think the Epox boards I've seen go as high as 150MHz. How fast it can actually run stable is another question.

Epox used cheap capacitors on their boards. Intel used good parts on their boards. That Intel board is meant to be simple plug and play and reliable. Epox boards are budget enthusiast boards with more manual tweaking options.
Ipox might be better quality than Epox - it looks like they are/were marketed for industrial use. They might not be as tweakable, but probably still more tweakable than the Intel.

Reply 3 of 3, by popper

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AFAIR the early celeron covington (a PII without caches) will be about as fast as a PMMX within the same MHz-League (or slightly below) in terms of doing windows based office software and maybe a little faster in doing games. These were Slot1 types.
I think disabling the L2 Cache on a PIII and get it running at 66MHz bus (with slowest multi) will help you get in range to that celeron covington.

Disabling L1 Cache too will bring performance down further - i think idspispopd is right.

I never heard about a linked L1/L2 switch (both on or of), but maybe i am in lack of.

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