svfn wrote:

hi, i'm fairly new to retro PCs.

for a Pentium 266 MMX, which slot 1 chipset / specific motherboard is good to pair it with?

None. The Pentium 266MMX is a mobile Socket 7 chip, with 'Tillamook' core. Some So7 motherboards would support this. If you want a Slot 1 CPU, you need a Pentium 2 (or higher) - or a Pentium Pro (no MMX) with So8 -> Slot 1 adapter.

does slot 1 chipset even have USB port back then?

Yes, all Slot 1 chipsets support USB 1.1

and would a slot 1 motherboard be able to use a PCI voodoo graphics card? is PCI or AGP easier for motherboard compatibility?

thanks.

Voodoo AGP cards use almost no AGP functionalities (apart from the higher clock so higher bandwidth than PCI), so have almost no compatibility issues on either front. A Slot 1 board with AGP would support either, any Slot 1 board would support PCI.

@dionb, yeah i failed to mentioned it is a Pentium II 266Mhz MMX.

i read up a little and found that these might fit, and might even be possible to upgrade to a faster PIII:

Asus P2B rev 1.10 i440BX
AOpen AX6BC i440BX
Biostar M6TBA

am i wrong there? and are there any pitfalls i should know about Slot 1 motherboards? i can't find any locally so the project might depend on if i can find a cheap one on ebay (which i doubt for now).

and another noobish compatibility question is, for socket 7 motherboards, i should be able to use either 3dfx PCI / AGP cards on the available PCI / AGP motherboard slots right?

My first question is, what are you planning to use the pc for?

svfn wrote:

@dionb, yeah i failed to mentioned it is a Pentium II 266Mhz MMX. […]
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@dionb, yeah i failed to mentioned it is a Pentium II 266Mhz MMX.

i read up a little and found that these might fit, and might even be possible to upgrade to a faster PIII:

Asus P2B rev 1.10 i440BX
AOpen AX6BC i440BX
Biostar M6TBA

am i wrong there?

The Pentium 2 266 is one of the first two Slot 1 CPUs and can run in any Slot 1 board, so any of these would be fine.

and are there any pitfalls i should know about Slot 1 motherboards? i can't find any locally so the project might depend on if i can find a cheap one on ebay (which i doubt for now).

With the P2-266 itself only one: there are two retention mechanisms to keep the CPU in its slot. The first Pentium 2 CPUs had the SECC(1) system, the later Pentium 3 CPUs had SECC2. An SECC1 CPU (like your P2-266) won't fit well in an SECC2 clip, so you'll want to be sure you have SECC1. I think all the boards you list here would have that.

As for later upgrades, the P2B is one of the best documented boards ever. This rev 1.10 only supports P2 and early ('Katmai') P3 CPUs, so the max without overclocking is a Pentium 3 600 (and not the 600E, B or EB). For support up to 1.1GHz you need rev 1.12 or higher. With rev 1.10 you can run faster So370 CPUs if you have a slocket (socket-slot adapter) with built-in VRM (voltage regulator).

For the AX6BC it also depends on hardware revision, but I don't know exactly which supports what. Same for the M6TBA - from what I read the later 'Coppermine' P3 CPUs are supported from rev 1.3 onwards.

Final pitfall: capacitors. On any vintage boards, you run the risk of failing (leaky, squirting or exploding) capacitors. Some brands were worse affected than others. Asus generally (but not always) used good parts, particularly on the P2B, whereas AOpen was notorious for bad caps. You can see the worst damage on eBay listings, look for bulging caps or caps with discolorations around top or bottom - but even if everything looks fine, be prepared to replace caps in case of doubt.

and another noobish compatibility question is, for socket 7 motherboards, i should be able to use either 3dfx PCI / AGP cards on the available PCI / AGP motherboard slots right?

Yes. So7 AGP was very 'interesting' when it came to compatibility, but that almost exclusively related to the more advanced AGP features such as AGP texturing, which nVidia used heavily. 3dfx never released a proper AGP chipset, which helped here: almost no compatibility issues. Note that a lot of the issues had more to do with drivers (both of the motherboard chipsets and of the GPUs) than with actual hardware compatibility. Particularly the two companies pushing the performance envelope, ALI and nVidia, were famous for problems - but these days few people seem to be able to reproduce them with mature drivers for the Aladdin V chipset and TNT(2) cards. With 3dfx: don't worry, the biggest danger is to your wallet 😉

thanks dionb for your very informative advice, it's very helpful! i hope you don't mind more questions..

which do you think would be a better choice for glide games like POD gold? not that much into DOS games but ability to run it + later ones like Quake, Duke3d, Doom, TombRaider1 and such would be nice. i would prefer 800 x 600 or even 1024 x 768 res.

Pentium 200Mhz (Socket 7)
32MB RAM
Voodoo 2 PCI

Pentium II 266Mhz MMX (Slot 1 SECC1)
Voodoo 3 AGP

the 3dfx cards (not sure if i could find them yet), is just depending on which one i can get the cheapest. i am aware that Voodoo3 may be overpowered for P2 266 MMX, but then i don't need to get a separate 2D card. but a AGP Voodoo3 won't be able to work on a Socket 7.

Voodoo 3 should only be 16MB variants right?

Voodoo 2 8MB/12MB: is it worth getting the 12 over 8MB?

I'd go for hte Pentium II for more speed and more playable games.