I have a Pentium Pro Compaq Deskpro 6200. Not very representative I guess, since it's a custom design OEM machine. The CPU is actually on a custom add-in board, together with part of the chipset and the memory. The mainboard only contains the generic hardware (HDD/floppy controller, LAN adapter, LPT/COM, that sort of thing).
The fun part is that I have a Deskpro 466 as well, which is the exact same machine, except with an add-in board with a 486DX2-66.

3D support is rather limited since it only has PCI slots. I'm not sure if PPro machines with AGP were ever made.
Other than that, the machine works fine. It wants to run a true 32-bit OS though. It's not very fast with DOS or 16-bit Windows stuff (including Win9x). XP is probably the best OS for a PPro, but my machine can only fit 64 MB, so that's not really enough. Win2k is probably not much better on it.
NT4 is what it used to run, but there's no Direct3D support in NT4. Only OpenGL.
I've also used it as a FreeBSD home server for many years.

Well PPro runs nice with NT4 and is also a fast machine for DOS, especially for FPU intense games such as Quake. Still as Scali said a regular Pentium can be faster at 16 bit. PPro gains only from it's cache here.
I usually run it with NT4 or WinXP. It is a bit slow for more demanding 3D games.
e.g. for Unreal it is between a Pentium MMX and a Pentium II but suffers from lacking MMX instruction set.

That is totally awesome. I've always loved those compaq cases. Don't those date back to the late 80s? I'd never guess there was a PPro inside.

Neither of the PPro chipsets (KX, GX, FX) had AGP support, so you are always limited to PCI for these machines. Also, no USB unless you use add-on cards.
I am planning a build for Socket 8, I have almost all the parts I need except for a heatsink/fan.

Wasn't there a slotcket adapter in order to use you ppro in a slot 1 machine ? (Just like 370 slotckets) I think I've heared that these existed at some point. Not sure if they work with every chipsets though

Deksor wrote:

Wasn't there a slotcket adapter in order to use you ppro in a slot 1 machine ? (Just like 370 slotckets) I think I've heared that these existed at some point. Not sure if they work with every chipsets though

Yes, Wikipedia lists a few: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_Pro#Upgrade_paths

As Slot 1 motherboards became prevalent, several manufacturers released slocket adapters, such as the Tyan M2020, Asus C-P6S1, Tekram P6SL1, and the Abit KP6.

It also warns that only the 440FX chipset is designed with support for PPro:

The Intel 440FX chipset explicitly supported both Pentium Pro and Pentium II processors, but the Intel 440BX and later Slot 1 chipsets did not explicitly support the Pentium Pro, so the Socket 8 slockets did not see wide use.

I assume this means that it doesn't work with 440BX or other chipsets.

Never seen one though, let alone used one. But perhaps googling for these product names can dig up some information.

I heard that you can run a Pentium Pro in the 440LX chipset.
Wrong? 😕

I have a Pentium Pro with 256KB but not a single socket 8 board 🙁 🙁

Scali wrote:

I have a Pentium Pro Compaq Deskpro 6200. Not very representative I guess, since it's a custom design OEM machine. The CPU is ac […]
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I have a Pentium Pro Compaq Deskpro 6200. Not very representative I guess, since it's a custom design OEM machine. The CPU is actually on a custom add-in board, together with part of the chipset and the memory. The mainboard only contains the generic hardware (HDD/floppy controller, LAN adapter, LPT/COM, that sort of thing).
The fun part is that I have a Deskpro 466 as well, which is the exact same machine, except with an add-in board with a 486DX2-66.

3D support is rather limited since it only has PCI slots. I'm not sure if PPro machines with AGP were ever made.
Other than that, the machine works fine. It wants to run a true 32-bit OS though. It's not very fast with DOS or 16-bit Windows stuff (including Win9x). XP is probably the best OS for a PPro, but my machine can only fit 64 MB, so that's not really enough. Win2k is probably not much better on it.
NT4 is what it used to run, but there's no Direct3D support in NT4. Only OpenGL.
I've also used it as a FreeBSD home server for many years.

Does the motherboard look like this:

?
Can you make a photo of the processor board? I've owned once a Deskpro XL and had a Pentium 60 and Pentium 133 card for it. The 60 had a standard Intel 430LX chipset on it, but the Pentium 133 used a Compaq designed one - "148020" is the number on it, manufactured by Samsung, but I have also seen boards with this chipset manufactured by TI. The Compaq chipset is identified by some utilities as the Compaq Triflex CPU to PCI bridge (PCI ID: VEN 0E11, DEV 1000, REV 01, SUBSYS 00002000). The other custom chip is the Compaq PCI to EISA bridge, which is on the motherboard.

My main MS-DOS machine is a Pentium Pro. Does everything I need of it.
I can put together a socket 7 or slot 1, but socket 8 has that cool factor.

My main machine is an OEM Pentium Pro, presumably Intel-branded. For me, it has a "cool" factor (nice case, workstation-class CPU, tidy internal layout) and it was quite cheap (got it for ~8 USD). Can't say there is a lot of practical reason for using it instead of a common Soc7.

It has a built-in Virge, an integrated audio made by Crystal, 3 ISA slots and 2 PCI slots. My only complaint is that with a PCI NIC and Voodoo I don't have any PCI slots left for a better 2D card (and I do have an ET6100 and some Matrox cards that could be cool in this build). ISA slots are occupied by an YMF-728-based audio card with a Dreamblaster and a Yamaha SW60XG

I mostly play late DOS and Glide-based early Windows games (like Terminator: Skynet or Quake) so I can't comment on compatibility with earlier games. All in all it's quite a bit faster than any Pentium MMX-based build I could make (NIC bandwidth is especially impressive for some reason).

I don't have a specific machine set up for socket 8 just yet, but I do have a NIB Tyan S1662D dual-socket 8 board and one PPro 200 (256K) ready to go.

Thanks for all the help. I don't want a P5 machine as it's too close in power to my DX4-100(120) so I think this would be a nice next chronological step. This and then maybe a P3 unit, and I will have met up with my Athlon XP+ in chronology.

I have an Intel Pr440fx with dual PPro 333 overdrives and a Micronics W6-LI board with dual PPro 200's.

I also have a dead Gateway2000 single PPro board I was going to fix but I don't have spare chips for it anyway.

There are some old cool CAD PCI cards that work well in NT4/Win2k with PPro systems.

I have two Pentium PRO builds. One is an Dell Dimension XPS 200n.
Pentium PRO 200 MHz, 256 KB cache
64 MB EDO RAM
HDD 6,4 GB Hdd
SCSI CD Rom
Jazz Rush 6 MB, 3dfx Voodoo Rush
Sound Blaster AWE 64 Gold
ISA 10/100 3Com network card
OS: Windows NT 4.0
Windows 98 se

Second one:

ALR Revolution 2x server

Two slotket's ( Slot 1 to Slotket 8 converter) with
2 x Pentium Pro 200 MHz 256KB cache,
4x128 MB ECC Edo Ram,
36 GB Scsi Hdd, 18 GB Scsi Hdd, 6 GB IDE Hdd, 3,5" Fdd,
Sony SDT-9000 DDS Scsi backup drive,
Nec MultiSpin 4Xi Caddy Scsi Cdrom drive,
Video card Matrox Millenium 2MB wram pci ,
3D accelerator Quantum3D Obsidian2 Sbi 24MB,
Mylex i960 Pci Raid controller 8MB cache,
Intel PRO 100+ dual port 10/100 ethernet card,
SoundBlaster AWE 32 Isa sound card
OS: Windows NT 4.0, Windows XP, BeOS 5

The performance compared with Pentium class cpu is very strong in games which use intense FPU. In Windows Xp it works pretty well. Unreal and Quake I, II runs at decent frame rates of course courtesy of the 3dfx accelerator.
From my personal testings, in software which uses 16 bit code, the performance of a Pentium PRO 200 is compared with a Pentium 166 MHz, but in 32 bit apps is like Pentium 233 MMX at least, even 266 when FPU is used a lot.

First Pentium Pro machine I had was a Compaq PWS 5000, and it was absolute junk. It was really pissy about hard disks and needed to install proprietary software on a special partition from its own special floppy disk just to get a BIOS config interface, and even then the options were neutered! As soon as I could, I swapped this for a much nicer setup based on a Intel PR440FX motherboard, with a Matrox Mystique/Millenium (I forget which right now) graphics card; I ran that for a good while before space restrictions after a move meant I had to dismantle it.

I have a SuperMicro P6SNE motherboard with a PPro 200.

The board is good but the previous owner fried the BIOS chip by putting it in backwards.

I've yet to be able to source a replacement, or even find a suitable chip to try to hotflash it.

I would like to though, Socket 8 stuff is cool.

I also have a Compaq Deskpro XL and its originally a 575, but have the Ppro 200 CPU board so it can act as an 6200. Its the only desktop Ppro i have and the rest are servers.
The first is a Compaq Proliant 2500 with dual Ppro 200, the second a Compaq Proliant 5500 with quad Ppro 200 and the third and beefiest is a Unisys Aquanta HS/6 (ALR 6x6) with six Ppro 200 blacktops. No idea what to do with them, but im glad i have them 😊

Hello vogoners, I am lucky enough to have a micronics w6-li running win2k since 2000.If you need any help how to install win2k on micronics contact me. I am the same person I posted back in 2000 over at sysopt the procedure.

PPro is a real cool retro platform as many other vogoners confirmed allready.
I own the following PPro systems:
Compaq Deskpro XL6200
Compaq Deskpro 6000
IBM PC server 315 (upgraded to dual PPro by use of a 325 mobo)
Intergraph TDS 440 ? (dual)
Intergraph Z400 (dual)
2x Compaq Proliant 800 (dual)
2x Compaq Proliant 850r (dual)
4x Compaq Proliant 2500(r) (dual)
Compaq Proliant 5500R (quad)
2xCompaq Proliant 5000(r) (quad)
HP Netserver LHpro (dual)
DEC Prioris XL6200 (dual)
generic Socket 8 probably made by Asus in a minitower case
probably I missed one or two in the list?