The Voodoo 5 would probably be too slow for some 2000 games. You probably want a GeForce 2 card in there along with a Voodoo 2 SLI setup if cost is not an issue and you want one PC to rule them all.

As for motherboard, any i815 board would probably be OK for this build, just don't go for an mATX, you will need 1 AGP and 3 PCI slots for the graphics and sound solutions alone, and you will probably need more PCI for USB 2.0 and Ethernet cards.

That CPU is a bit of an issue - Tualatin P3 CPUs use the FC-PGA2 socket. The first board you mention, the Asus CUSL2-C, only supports FC-PGA(1), so won't work with the P3 1.4 without modding; you'd need the TUSL2-C for that. In the case of the D815EEA2, some revisions do support FC-PGA2, others don't. So watch that!

Also, if you say "no modern parts", that Enermax PSU sticks out like a sore thumb. Yes, it's an old PSU, but it's still a P4-era ATX12V PSU, with far too much capacity on the 12V line and relatively little on the 5V. If you're going for a completely new PSU, that can't be avoided, and at least you don't need to worry about age-related issues and get the excellent efficiency of modern PSU. But this is the worst of both worlds: old enough to be just as potentially decrepit as a truly period PSU, but just as badly balanced for 5V CPU power as a new one. With its nominal 460W rating and best-in-class reviews, it will do the job if its caps are OK, but if you're going to run that risk anyway, you're much better off with a 2000-vintage PSU which outputs most of its power on the 5V line.

I'm generally very favourable towards FSP PSUs (which in these parts tend to be AOpen rebrands). I picked up an FSP300-60BT(PF) last Sunday which despite having a nominal output of less than 2/3 of that Enermax, still can output over 85% of the 5V that the Enermax can. A 350W FSP (or indeed Enermax) from the same period would outperform it.

I would agree with appiah about Voodoo 5. Too much bucks for the less bangs. I would rather go with a Geforce 4 Ti Variant (cheaper 4200 is more than ok for what you want to do, with enough overkill). And of course supporting it with a Voodoo 2 SLI setup is the cool thing to do 🤣

Considering your setup (and power requirements of it), I would not care much about the "weak" 5V output of modern PSUs. Just select one with a 18-20A (or above) 5V rail, and you will be more than ok. Modern brand name PSUs are always better than risking your entire setup with an elderly PSU waiting for to blow up in the near future.

That said, I agree on FSP/Aopen branded 300W-ish older PSUs' reliablity though.

Both motherboards have an AGP max 4x and You will need drivers for Windows 98se.
Then, IMO:
- ATI Radeon 8500, AGP 2x/4X, about 30W, at peak more, power supply min 230W
- Fastest, GeForce 6800 but version with AGP 4X or 4x/8x, additional external power supply, consumes roughly 75 Watts, at peak during 3D gaming up to 210W, you need 350 Watt power supply at the least as you want some spare wattage.
see also
https://www.tomshardware.co.uk/geforce-radeon … ew-31495-6.html

The D815EEA2 is a good board. Mine was great until a bloody PSU took it out

33oldnew wrote:

Both motherboards have an AGP max 4x and You will need drivers for Windows 98se. Then, IMO: - ATI Radeon 8500, AGP 2x/4X, about […]
Show full quote

Both motherboards have an AGP max 4x and You will need drivers for Windows 98se.
Then, IMO:
- ATI Radeon 8500, AGP 2x/4X, about 30W, at peak more, power supply min 230W
- Fastest, GeForce 6800 but version with AGP 4X or 4x/8x, additional external power supply, consumes roughly 75 Watts, at peak during 3D gaming up to 210W, you need 350 Watt power supply at the least as you want some spare wattage.
see also
https://www.tomshardware.co.uk/geforce-radeon … ew-31495-6.html

Hang on, he wanted to keep it at least moderately period-correct. Radeon 8500 and Gf4Ti already two-odd years newer than the CPU+motherboard, 6800 far more so. A Gf2GTS or Radeon (the original one) would be a far better match.

dionb wrote:

33oldnew wrote:

Both motherboards have an AGP max 4x and You will need drivers for Windows 98se. Then, IMO: - ATI Radeon 8500, AGP 2x/4X, about […]
Show full quote

Both motherboards have an AGP max 4x and You will need drivers for Windows 98se.
Then, IMO:
- ATI Radeon 8500, AGP 2x/4X, about 30W, at peak more, power supply min 230W
- Fastest, GeForce 6800 but version with AGP 4X or 4x/8x, additional external power supply, consumes roughly 75 Watts, at peak during 3D gaming up to 210W, you need 350 Watt power supply at the least as you want some spare wattage.
see also
https://www.tomshardware.co.uk/geforce-radeon … ew-31495-6.html

Hang on, he wanted to keep it at least moderately period-correct. Radeon 8500 and Gf4Ti already two-odd years newer than the CPU+motherboard, 6800 far more so. A Gf2GTS or Radeon (the original one) would be a far better match.

A GeForce 2 was my original advice as well. Then people started tossing the Ti4200 idea around and, honestly, who would use a Ti4200 instead of a Radeon 8500 😎

appiah4 wrote:

people started tossing the Ti4200 idea around and, honestly, who would use a Ti4200 instead of a Radeon 8500 😎

Anyone who wants to play games that use 8-bit palletized textures and table fog (particularly DX3-5 era games). I know DX8 performance is an advantage the Radeon 8500 sometimes has over the Geforce4 Ti4200, but I don't plan on playing DX8 games on my Windows 98 rig (I have two XP rigs for that) 😜

dionb wrote:

Hang on, he wanted to keep it at least moderately period-correct. Radeon 8500 and Gf4Ti already two-odd years newer than the CPU+motherboard, 6800 far more so. A Gf2GTS or Radeon (the original one) would be a far better match.

Actually, the Radeon 8500 and Geforce4 Ti are a perfect match for a Tualatin rig as they're actually from the same period since the Geforce4 Ti4200 was released only three months after the Tualatin 1.4S (January 8th, 2002 and April 16th, 2002) and the Radeon 8500 is from August 14th, 2001 (5 months before the Tualatin 1.4S came out). However, the OP wanted to stay within the 2000 range of hardware so I guess you have a point. IMO the Tualatin 1.4 GHz CPU is pushing it as it came out two years after the year he's targeting.

appiah4 wrote:

dionb wrote:

33oldnew wrote:

Both motherboards have an AGP max 4x and You will need drivers for Windows 98se. Then, IMO: - ATI Radeon 8500, AGP 2x/4X, about […]
Show full quote

Both motherboards have an AGP max 4x and You will need drivers for Windows 98se.
Then, IMO:
- ATI Radeon 8500, AGP 2x/4X, about 30W, at peak more, power supply min 230W
- Fastest, GeForce 6800 but version with AGP 4X or 4x/8x, additional external power supply, consumes roughly 75 Watts, at peak during 3D gaming up to 210W, you need 350 Watt power supply at the least as you want some spare wattage.
see also
https://www.tomshardware.co.uk/geforce-radeon … ew-31495-6.html

Hang on, he wanted to keep it at least moderately period-correct. Radeon 8500 and Gf4Ti already two-odd years newer than the CPU+motherboard, 6800 far more so. A Gf2GTS or Radeon (the original one) would be a far better match.

A GeForce 2 was my original advice as well. Then people started tossing the Ti4200 idea around and, honestly, who would use a Ti4200 instead of a Radeon 8500 😎

Radeon 8500 instead of GF4 4xxxTİ? 🤣 🤣 🤣 Even any ATI instead of any GF2-4 for later w9x era? 🤣 🤣 🤣

In any case, he mentioned a Tually 1.4 (CUSL2C should be a mistake, it probably is a TUSL2C), so I assumed 2001-2 is ok for "somewhat period correct - 1999/2000" 😊

The Radeon 8500 properties are very similar to the GeForce TI4200. (Do not install HydraVision.)
The Radeon has better image quality.
Geforce OpenGL 1.4, Radeon OpenGL 1.3, but it is adequate for Windows 98 games.
GeForce TI4x00 is from the year 2002 -> Windows XP era.

For Windows 98 it is good to have ISA slot.

Thank you everyone for feedback! I've decided to modify my build:

Motherboard: ASUS-TUSL2-C
CPU: P3 1.4 Tualatin
Graphics: Ti4200 or Voodoo 5 (I'm still a bit torn, I really thought the Voodoo would be more than enough to handle the 1996-2001 era at max settings?)
PSU: Corsair CX650M (I found one new in box for $20)
RAM: (1) stick Crucial 512MB PC133 CL2 Non-ECC

I have a question regarding the CPU cooler, can anyone recommend a good one? I keep reading that the stock clips are dangerously tight for the Tualatins.

I should have mentioned in my original post, here are some of the games I plan to use this machine for:

MechCommander 1 and 2
Mechwarrior 3 and 4
Unreal
UT
Quake 2
AvP
and of course many more titles from 1996-2001!

For anything released post 2001, I plan to build an XP machine after this one to handle them. 😀

You can bend the heatsink spring clip so that it is not as tight. That is going to be the easiest thing to do if you already have a S370 cooler and will work just fine.

Here are a couple coolers on eBay that specify that they work with Tualatin.

I don't have any real experience with aftermarket coolers as my Tualatin setup came with Intel coolers.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/TR2TT-TR2-M3-80mm-Ba … ox/222687495503
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Thermaltake-TR2TT-TR … nk/132407663166

cipherzero wrote:

Motherboard: ASUS-TUSL2-C CPU: P3 1.4 Tualatin Graphics: Ti4200 or Voodoo 5 (I'm still a bit torn, I really thought the Voodoo […]
Show full quote

Motherboard: ASUS-TUSL2-C
CPU: P3 1.4 Tualatin
Graphics: Ti4200 or Voodoo 5 (I'm still a bit torn, I really thought the Voodoo would be more than enough to handle the 1996-2001 era at max settings?)
PSU: Corsair CX650M (I found one new in box for $20)
RAM: (1) stick Crucial 512MB PC133 CL2 Non-ECC

Pretty cool 😀

The thing about voodoo 5 is that Nvidia/ATI cards were significantly outperforming them in their heyday. That is part of the reason of why they went bankrupt. While there are other problems that contributed, if their cards were the best, they could have survived their other problems.

They are interesting from a retro perspective because:

a) They run Glide games natively.
b) They are kinda rare and special, a piece of history from a company long gone. Because they are rare, people often go to great lengths to repair and preserve these cards, adding to the emotional investment.
c) Can still do an OK job of games, while having good 2D output.

If you are just after raw graphical power, then Nvidia/ATI cards from the same era will perform better. The Ti4200 will definitely do an amazing job.

cipherzero wrote:

...I have a question regarding the CPU cooler, can anyone recommend a good one? I keep reading that the stock clips are dangerously tight for the Tualatins.

I use AMD (socket A) stock coolers for years without a problem. They are a bit of an overkill, compared to the size of what Intel offered as stock coolers, but some measure of overkill when it comes to cooling CPUs is pretty much ok in my book (I use intel stock socket 370 coolers for socket 7 builds for the same reason).

They utilize both of the side fingers of the socket instead of the single middle one like Intel coolers do, so it is more reliable against cracking the socket fingers due to tension.

By the way, I did not "unbend" the metal springy thing for my tualatin and there is no problem after several years of use, but it might be a good idea to unbend it a bit in anycase. A more silent fan might also be preferable since the stock one is a bit noisy.

That Enermax has a 35amp 5v rail according to Newegg. I have the 475 noisetaker in a dual P3 rig and it pretty much works with everything. lots of 12v juice along with a beefy 5v rail. EDIT: old Anandtech review from 2003 https://www.anandtech.com/show/1124/16