754 and 939 are available with AGP and PCIe. I'd go with PCe because that opens up a lot more options for a cheap but powerful GPU. Whereas with AGP it can get costly.

939 is faster clock for clock because it supports dual channel memory. Also you can use FX processors which run much faster.

The top CPUs can get a bit expensive, if you want a real bargain look at AM2. eBay is flooded with cheap AM2 CPUs, but yea, it is likely too modern.

Bottom line, you're spoilt for choice here...

And yes, modern PSUs are fine. A64 supports cool and quiet, that is really nice.

The 939 Dual-VSTA uses the Uli M1695 chipset - it's great for both Win9x and WinXP, and you can easily find drivers for both. 939 machines make great top-end win9x machines, and you should see no compatibility issues with the M1695. PSU-wise 939 and 754 platforms work best with modern PSUs that have strong 12v rails. If you plan to run win9x, 7xxx cards are out of the question because they lack drivers for this OS. Any geforce 6xxx or radeon 8xx will do for win9x tough.

If you plan to go with XP only, you'll probably want to build something faster from the get-go - a dual core AM2 or 775 machine with a 8800GT/GTS/GTX or prefebly a HD 4870/GTX 280, since you will find games that no longer work correctly on win 8/10 (darkstar one, earth 2150, even crysis on some systems) witch are too demanding for a geforce 7xxx + single core CPU. The above mentioned video cards will not break compatibility with games from 2000-2003, and should run later games fine. As for pre 2000 games, you really want windows 98se and a pre-2001 video card.

For socket A the KT600 is OK if you plan to run win98. If you plan to dual-boot XP, try to find a KT880 or a stable Nforce 2 ultra (Abit AN7 is one of the few), but be aware that nforce 2 chipsets have some resource allocation issues under win98. PSU-wise, you should find an old brand name PSU with a strong 5A rail, because even tough some socket A board sport an auxiliary CPU power connector, on most boards the CPU still draws voltage from the 5V rails and not the 12v ones.

Geez, is socket 939 now considered retro? I'm using an Asrock 939 Dual-SATA2 as my everyday computer. The Dual-SATA2 is nearly identical to the Dual-VSTA. I think they may have changed something with the onboard sound.

Which CPU are you going with? I went with a dual-core Opteron 180 at 2.4 GHz. My CPU does not overclock well at all and I had to recap the motherboard. The system is fairly stable, but I do get the occasional BSOD, which my predicessor system (Dual PIII-S-1.4) never had. I'm only using a lowly HD4350 AGP, but there is no gaming on this system. My PCI-E x16 slot is empty and I will probably upgrade the graphics in it in some years when PCI-E cards are almost given away on eBay. I did add a USB 3.0 and gigabit ethernet combo card to the PCI-E x4 slot though.

Although I have 4 GB of RAM, only 2.85 GB is usable. I've noticed that this varies from system to system a lot. I have another board of similar vintage in which 3.4 GB is usable.

I look forward to seeing your build. These boards aren't so common on eBay as I thought they would be by now.

feipoa wrote:

Geez, is socket 939 now considered retro? I'm using an Asrock 939 Dual-SATA2 as my everyday computer. The Dual-SATA2 is nearly […]
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Geez, is socket 939 now considered retro? I'm using an Asrock 939 Dual-SATA2 as my everyday computer. The Dual-SATA2 is nearly identical to the Dual-VSTA. I think they may have changed something with the onboard sound.

Which CPU are you going with? I went with a dual-core Opteron 180 at 2.4 GHz. My CPU does not overclock well at all and I had to recap the motherboard. The system is fairly stable, but I do get the occasional BSOD, which my predicessor system (Dual PIII-S-1.4) never had. I'm only using a lowly HD4350 AGP, but there is no gaming on this system. My PCI-E x16 slot is empty and I will probably upgrade the graphics in it in some years when PCI-E cards are almost given away on eBay. I did add a USB 3.0 and gigabit ethernet combo card to the PCI-E x4 slot though.

Although I have 4 GB of RAM, only 2.85 GB is usable. I've noticed that this varies from system to system a lot. I have another board of similar vintage in which 3.4 GB is usable.

I look forward to seeing your build. These boards aren't so con on eBay as I thought they would be by now.

Eheh, yes I think they're retro! 😊

Let's explain, usually I'd not built pc higher than Socket 462 cause these are the last motherboard I mostly enjoyed back in time upgrading related to gamings and benchmarking. I decided to build my main everyday machine on the Barton 3200+ with a KT600, SSD and HD3450. As said I'm still impressed how smooth and fast with latest Lubuntu/Linux it can work even in web pages if you seriously configure the browser to accelerate anything by the gpu. I've low target (like doom on a 386 😁) but I've seen newer dual core notebooks with less smooth browsing.
I was already quiet happy when I found, cause I completely forgot it, that existed also the KT880 based mobo with Socket 462 😵 .... I thought having the best technological chipset motherboard in terms of released time but now I know I could improve the speed adding Dual Channel not to mention they have the P4 12v connector too! but the costs of KT880 mobo are really high, higher than Socket 754/939.
So now... 😁.... or I buy the KT880 to add just a bit of speed or I buy the next step and I can help the cpu by adding the latest possible low-middle end gpu and still using my ram and disk.

I left out the NF2 chipset possibility cause they are often too much old in time and two I had needed recap. These KT600/880 mobo seems built much after the NF2 with possibiy later/newer capacitors.

kanecvr wrote:

The 939 Dual-VSTA uses the Uli M1695 chipset - it's great for both Win9x and WinXP, and you can easily find drivers for both. 939 machines make great top-end win9x machines, and you should see no compatibility issues with the M1695. PSU-wise 939 and 754 platforms work best with modern PSUs that have strong 12v rails. If you plan to run win9x, 7xxx cards are out of the question because they lack drivers for this OS. Any geforce 6xxx or radeon 8xx will do for win9x tough.

If you plan to go with XP only, you'll probably want to build something faster from the get-go - a dual core AM2 or 775 machine with a 8800GT/GTS/GTX or prefebly a HD 4870/GTX 280, since you will find games that no longer work correctly on win 8/10 (darkstar one, earth 2150, even crysis on some systems) witch are too demanding for a geforce 7xxx + single core CPU. The above mentioned video cards will not break compatibility with games from 2000-2003, and should run later games fine. As for pre 2000 games, you really want windows 98se and a pre-2001 video card.

For socket A the KT600 is OK if you plan to run win98. If you plan to dual-boot XP, try to find a KT880 or a stable Nforce 2 ultra (Abit AN7 is one of the few), but be aware that nforce 2 chipsets have some resource allocation issues under win98. PSU-wise, you should find an old brand name PSU with a strong 5A rail, because even tough some socket A board sport an auxiliary CPU power connector, on most boards the CPU still draws voltage from the 5V rails and not the 12v ones.

Thanks, with the Barton build I've now, I only get stable config with the one psu I bought for it, an Enermax EG365 with 31A on the low rails. But I'm not sure I could use this on a Athlon 64 cause it's weak on the 12v rail. So I would use a Corsair VS650.
For the gpu I was thinking something not extremely heavy and loud, some middle end, new generations gpu with simple heatsink and all the newer features acceleration assist for web and multimedia.

feipoa wrote:

Geez, is socket 939 now considered retro? I'm using an Asrock 939 Dual-SATA2 as my everyday computer. The Dual-SATA2 is nearly identical to the Dual-VSTA. I think they may have changed something with the onboard sound.

Oh man, that brings back some nice memories.
I still have my Dual-SATA2. Used it with a Ti200 than with God knows what PCIe cards. It's retired now, at the end of it's useful life it began BSODing. Did not bother to check why. The SATA2 part for me was crap, it never worked properly... Early JMicron controllers.
Also it was possibly my worst buy ever. Not a year afterwards we built an AM2 machine for my brother that was twice as powerful (X2 and DDR2).

What I liked on my system was the huge Thermaltake Sonic Tower (without a fan naturally - the case had enough airflow to cool the slightly overclocked Venice 3200+). Unfortunately it's the first version without the AM2 kit so now it just sits in my room.

I recently got a Venice 3800+ in it's original box so a rebuild is pending... 😀

Overall I liked the 939 platform more than the Socket A.

Well, the DUAL-SATA2 has an AM2 upgrade slot if you can find the adapter card. I checked a few months ago and there was one on eBay for around $100.

I hate to sound like the grinch, but why don't you just build something modern? If you're concerned about changing something every week to gain a bit more speed and thinking about adding a "new generation cheap vga," then you shouldn't be trying to stay retro!

You should just get a Skylake i3 + cheap Asus or Gigabyte mobo and be done with it. The IGPs in modern CPUs sip power and are more than capable of handling office/multimedia tasks.

I recently built a socket 939 rig (check my sig).

It's in spirit of my first 939 rig (Opty 144, 1GB RAM, 6600GT AGP (X800 at one time as well). Had a ULI chipset motherboard (Gigabyte)... That was a very stable setup.

Standard Def Steve wrote:

I hate to sound like the grinch, but why don't you just build something modern? If you're concerned about changing something every week to gain a bit more speed and thinking about adding a "new generation cheap vga," then you shouldn't be trying to stay retro!

You should just get a Skylake i3 + cheap Asus or Gigabyte mobo and be done with it. The IGPs in modern CPUs sip power and are more than capable of handling office/multimedia tasks.

Yeah, you are right but I prefer to stay in the middle where things are still retro but they can still show its capabilities nowdays. Maybe I am old but I find "boring" the actual hardware.

A64 is useless with modern stuff, until you go AM2 and even then its unbareably slow.

I recently tried windows 7 on an X2 6000 with 8gb of ram and it was slow, it wasn't impossible but it wasn't fast and lagged on the modern web, 939 is hopeless I tried my X2 3800 with 4gb of ram and it was just unbareable.

candle_86 wrote:

A64 is useless with modern stuff, until you go AM2 and even then its unbareably slow.

I recently tried windows 7 on an X2 6000 with 8gb of ram and it was slow, it wasn't impossible but it wasn't fast and lagged on the modern web, 939 is hopeless I tried my X2 3800 with 4gb of ram and it was just unbareable.

I'd need to buy a modern (> Vista) os and to try but with linux, beside games obviously, after a bit of patience I find acceptable the experience with the Barton 3200+ as long as you absolutely have an ssd imho.
Web pages are slow when heavy but as soon they are loaded the browsing it's quiet smooth. But I understand that if we get used to the multitouch continous zooming of a modern tablet, anything would become unacceptable.

Also I remeber using Windows 7 starter with an Atom N450 processor and it wasn't that bad. Ok that it was a long time ago but the os itself was quiet ok.