No slot 1 🙁

also,
SUPER OFFROAD! Whoa man, that brought back some memories. We had this on our first 486, never seen it again since. I completely forgot this even existed, thanks for reminding me!

Slot 1 can't do what this machine can do 🤣 Don't get me wrong, I love a Slot 1 computer, but nothing beats the Super Socket 7 platform when it comes to flexibility and covering a huge range of games over many years.

Why not? Slot 1 can change cache and speed settings too, and that's what you're doing here right?
Haven't watched the whole video yet, I may have missed something.

AFAIK many Slot1 CPUs have locked multiplies, and I don't think you can change multipliers on the fly on the unlocked ones. Too bad K6+ are pretty much non-existant here in Brazil, but hey, I've got plenty of space and older PCs to run those titles =)

jwt27 wrote:

Why not? Slot 1 can change cache and speed settings too, and that's what you're doing here right?
Haven't watched the whole video yet, I may have missed something.

Doesn't have motherboard cache. But please, do a few tests and compare it with the benchmark results of the 4 in 1 Retro Gaming PC. All the benchmarks are linked in the video description for downloading.

Funny story, when I joined Vogons many, many years ago, I started with a Slot 1 machine, but quickly moved to Super Socket 7 for slow-down tricks.

Really nice video. I'm thinking of reconfiguring my III+ rig now. I believed your games list all the way until deus ex 😉 You need a way beefier CPU for that no? That would be ideal for your 1400S / V5500 rig.

I just grabbed an audician from the UK! Very cool.

I kinda figured it would be a Socket 7 / K6-3+ machine 😀

One question though: What's the point of the Super Socket 7 board if you're using only a bus speed of 66 MHz? Except for the AGP slot, of course.

oerk wrote:

I kinda figured it would be a Socket 7 / K6-3+ machine 😀

One question though: What's the point of the Super Socket 7 board if you're using only a bus speed of 66 MHz? Except for the AGP slot, of course.

There are benefits of being able to clock down to 133 MHz. 200 MHz could be too fast for some games. But, and I talk about this in the video towards the end, it's your machine. You decide if you want to be better at the higher performance end, or slower and more compatible for older games. It's all up to you 😀

Only a few minutes in, but the video looks great. Digging through my old mobos yesterday and found a couple of untested Socket 7 boards that I've been itching to bench. I still have my original FIC VA-503+ and K6-2 350 from the late 90s too.

philscomputerlab wrote:

There are benefits of being able to clock down to 133 MHz. 200 MHz could be too fast for some games. But, and I talk about this in the video towards the end, it's your machine. You decide if you want to be better at the higher performance end, or slower and more compatible for older games. It's all up to you 😀

I believe his question was why not just use a regular Socket 7. ATX form factor, jumpers for higher multipliers and USB keyboard support in BIOS are probably good reasons.
If one goes for an AT board, though, the system might be even more flexible. Using the jumpers to switch the FSB between 66MHz and 100MHz could make this even more practical (though not modern looking). One could always mod an ATX case, though, and fixate a latched switch to a bracket or an unused RS232 opening on the back (easier) or on a bay cover (harder to make it look good).

If anyone knows where to find a switch that fits over jumpers, I would be thrilled to know.

That said SS7 gets you 100Mhz FSB and AGP at the very least. Also are there non-SS7 boards that support K6-iii+ chips?

The CPU intensive windows games can ramp up to 5.5x100 when needed (although really better served by a different system).

philscomputerlab wrote:

Doesn't have motherboard cache. But please, do a few tests and compare it with the benchmark results of the 4 in 1 Retro Gaming PC.

Some slot boards do allow disabling L1/L2 separately in the bios. But I'm not sure if this works with all processors. Will give it a try 😀

blank001 wrote:

If anyone knows where to find a switch that fits over jumpers, I would be thrilled to know.

I thought about this once, you could make a front panel with toggle switches and wire them up to the jumper headers.

Is the 486 mode too fast for Ultima VII, I wonder?

Many s370 and even 478 and 775 systems are able to run such speed affected games as wc1, testdrive3 with throttling management software. As for me, don't see any profits on super sok7

Awesome video and build Phil, but you should've used this as your background audio.

Nice video!

I have no issues with running many different systems for different games but I do like Super Socket-7 nonetheless 😀

jwt27 wrote:

Some slot boards do allow disabling L1/L2 separately in the bios. But I'm not sure if this works with all processors. Will give […]
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philscomputerlab wrote:

Doesn't have motherboard cache. But please, do a few tests and compare it with the benchmark results of the 4 in 1 Retro Gaming PC.

Some slot boards do allow disabling L1/L2 separately in the bios. But I'm not sure if this works with all processors. Will give it a try 😀

blank001 wrote:

If anyone knows where to find a switch that fits over jumpers, I would be thrilled to know.

I thought about this once, you could make a front panel with toggle switches and wire them up to the jumper headers.

Yeah you're right, you could do something of your own work there. Actually might look into this. I just need to find a good switch (something that could be mounted to the 5.25" bay panel and has a protective cover so nobody knocks it by accident).

Thanks Phil,

You just single-handedly drove the cost of that motherboard up by at least another $100. Thanks again, really.

Great video!

alexanrs wrote:

I believe his question was why not just use a regular Socket 7. ATX form factor, jumpers for higher multipliers and USB keyboard support in BIOS are probably good reasons.

Yep, that was it. Sorry for not being more clear.

alexanrs wrote:

If one goes for an AT board, though, the system might be even more flexible. Using the jumpers to switch the FSB between 66MHz and 100MHz could make this even more practical (though not modern looking). One could always mod an ATX case, though, and fixate a latched switch to a bracket or an unused RS232 opening on the back (easier) or on a bay cover (harder to make it look good).

A front mounted FSB or even multiplier switch wouldn't be that hard to do if one knows how to use a soldering iron.

blank001 wrote:

That said SS7 gets you 100Mhz FSB and AGP at the very least. Also are there non-SS7 boards that support K6-iii+ chips?

There supposedly are (unofficial) BIOSes for the Asus P55T2P4 and the Gigabyte GA-586HX, at the very least, though I haven't tried it yet.