The 64MB's sticking out like a sore thumb IMO... I'd half that to 32MB PC-66, it'd make most period sense with the rest of the budget 1997holdover+buyingintoAGPhype+PentiumPriceRegret kind of specs.

Pretty sure I got 64MB SDRAM with my new K6/200 setup in December 1997 (using 16th birthday money, and not a lot of it either 😉 ), so it's not out of the question. I upgraded from a 5x86/100 with 16MB. RAM prices were just starting to come down faster around then.

64mb should be ok for 1999.
Intel 740 8MB AGP is mostly fine, but can be swapped for Riva 128/128ZX, which was quite popular option for games.
Vibra CT4180 probably can be swapped for ESS1868, ALS100 or even AWE64 Value. Alternatively you can pick Ensoniq AudioPCI or ESS 1938S.

late '98 to early '99 build

I think Pentium MMX wasn't desirable at that period, so AMD K6-2 300-400 would be more appropriate and cheaper.

I had a Pentium II 300 with 32MB RAM in 1998, 64MB for 1999 is OK.

Pentium MMX though, is not. As I said, the low end Pentiums and a lot of Celerons had already totally replaced the Pentium MMS by 1999. Once Celeron 300A hit the market, that was game over for Intel Socket 7. You really don't want to go with that CPU for a 1998/1999 build.

Moreover, the Intel i740 is going to be a massive pain in the ass for you on that motherboard. I had an i740 in my said Pentium II build on an 440LX motherboard, and it was OK for 1998, I believe it is a very good representation of the mainstream 3D power available at the time - it had around Voodoo 1 levels of performance and absolutely great IQ, it was a good bargain if you didn't want to pay up for a Voodoo 2 (I ended up getting the Voodoo 2 regardless). However, even with that Intel chipset I had a shitton of AGP issues with it. I would hate to think how terribly it would work on an SS7 AGP bus.

You either need to repurpose that build (as 1997/1998) or rebuild it with a newer platform (Slot A or Slot 1) or a more appropriate CPU/VGA combination (K6-II 400/Voodoo 2).

the ati rge pro 8mb came out in august 99 and its probably much better than the i740 from jan 98 - 2x the core clock speed and 3x the throughput. real cheap on ebay.

fwiw, in '98 our home pc was a pentium ii 266mhz with an asus branded 4MB TNT. this was at the start of the year if i recall correctly. it would have been expensive for the time i suppose.

you might want to download some PDF magazines from the late 90s and scroll to the pages where Gateway et al are advertising their builds. its what i kinda went to as a resource when building my 1999 P3 machine. lots of ads showed a few budget builds, moderate and 1 or 2 top shelf pcs.

i agree with appiah ^ in saying that the pc you are talking about would be better as a '97 win/dos machine

foil_fresh wrote:

the ati rge pro 8mb came out in august 99 and its probably much better than the i740 from jan 98 - 2x the core clock speed and 3x the throughput. real cheap on ebay.

No, the Rage Pro has terrible IQ compared to i740 due to incredibly poor dithering; moreover they are both roughly Voodoo 1 levels of performance.

by 1999 socket 7 was long in the tooth for even poor people. My mom had one that she had since like 1996 it was shit. My school had PIIs in the library for students to use and those were hand me downs in 1999.

by 1999 socket 7 was long in the tooth for even poor people.

Not at all. AMD were still releasing new CPUs through 1999 and big brands were still using Socket 7 in their budget PC lineup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9tz8G9nYGo

As an example this way my very first PC I got in Jan 1998 for my 18th so would have had a generous budget but not endless, Parents still had less important things like a mortgage and 2 other kids to support 😉
It was a Gateway GP6-400 slightly customised.

CPU: P2 400
M/B: SE440BX with integrated Ensoniq AudioPCI
RAM: 64MB
Video: 16MB TNT which was a upgrade part but cant remember the default card. Voodoo 2 was also a (more expensive) option
HDD: 10GB upgraded from the 8GB default
Optical: 32x CD-ROM

P2 450 was also an option but out of my budget range.

Parents upgraded the family PC in the January sales of 2000 but been on a much smaller budget alot of the hardware would have been 99 era.
Purchased from a local white box store
CPU: C500 on a slocket
M/B Asus P2B-ZX
Ram: 32MB
Video: TNT2 M64
Sound: SBLive! OEM
HDD: 8GB
Optical: 36x CD-ROM

If its the late 90's your after this is the kind of hardware you are looking at.

The Serpent Rider wrote:

by 1999 socket 7 was long in the tooth for even poor people.

Not at all. AMD were still releasing new CPUs through 1999 and big brands were still using Socket 7 in their budget PC lineup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9tz8G9nYGo

Socket 7 still had life left in it in 1999 but P55C was very long in the tooth by then.

1999 but P55C was very long in the tooth by then.

Yes, that's why AMD K6-2 400mhz would be much more authentic for a budget build. Or even AMD K6-III 450Mhz.

I just said socket 7 was long in the tooth, I mentioned nothing of AMD K6 + CPUs but we can both agree even then that was "budget"

What about a slot A build that would be decently powerful and considered more budget than a late PII or a early PIII

Slot-A was not budget in 1999. Both Pentium III and Athlon hit the market in 1999, so anything Slot-1 or Slot-A was fairly premium computer hardware at the time.

Early 1999 Pentium III releases were at around $650. By the end of 1999 Pentium III 600 was released at around $450 (thanks to competition from Athlon). Slot-A Athlon released in 1999 at $600 if memory serves. Even the K6-III launched at a very hefty $450 price tag in early 1999.

The budget options were Slot-1 Celerons and Socket 7 K6-2s (Around the $150-$200 mark).

Edited for clarity.

I switched from socket7 to slot1 in 1998 and then to socket A in 2000/2001, I skipped over pentium III/slot a back then.
upgrading from a PII300 to a PII400 was all that was in my budget back then, because I blew most of my money on that TNT2 ultra.

appiah4 wrote:

Slot-A was not budget in 1999. Pentium III hit the market in 1999, so anything Slot-1 was fairly premium computer hardware at the time.

Early 1999 Pentium III releases were at around $650. By the end of 1999 Pentium III 600 was released at around $450 (thanks to competition from Athlon). Slot-A Athlon released in 1999 at $600 if memory serves. Even the K6-III launched at a very hefty $450 price tag in early 1999.

The budget options were Slot-A Celerons and Socket 7 K6-2s (Around the $150-$200 mark).

I mean SLot A as in athalon, not Slot 1.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slot_A

Slot A was released in 1999 with a premium price tag,

P200MMX is entirely valid as a system someone would actually have in late 98, early 99. Nobody in their right minds would have bought it new as a complete system then, but the more tech-savvy but cash-strapped student could very feasibly ended up with a config like this, upgrading motherboard from PCI-only to something with AGP (but only having enough money to get a piece of PC-Chips crap), then getting an AGP card, but again having to go with what was available 2nd hand or as old stock discount new, which quite probably would have been an i740.

In 2000 I needed a second (media) PC for in the living room for essentially no budget. I ended up with a K6-2 350, DFI MVP3 board, 128MB RAM and a RagePro DVD. If I'd been in the same situation a year earlier I probably would have ended up with a very similar system to OP.

This thread brings some memories, in late 1998 I barely persuaded my parents to upgrade our home PC to Pentium MMX and in 1999 I spent the whole summer working at a construction site to buy my first Socket 370 motherboard (with a Celeron 333A which I promptly overclocked to 500 MHz). All my friends envied me because they were mostly still running Pentium MMX machines at the time. So from my perspective a Pentium MMX machine is perfectly valid for 1998.

dionb wrote:

P200MMX is entirely valid as a system someone would actually have in late 98, early 99. Nobody in their right minds would have bought it new as a complete system then, but the more tech-savvy but cash-strapped student could very feasibly ended up with a config like this, upgrading motherboard from PCI-only to something with AGP (but only having enough money to get a piece of PC-Chips crap), then getting an AGP card, but again having to go with what was available 2nd hand or as old stock discount new, which quite probably would have been an i740.

In 2000 I needed a second (media) PC for in the living room for essentially no budget. I ended up with a K6-2 350, DFI MVP3 board, 128MB RAM and a RagePro DVD. If I'd been in the same situation a year earlier I probably would have ended up with a very similar system to OP.

It's not so much a question of Socket 7 been valid. I mean we ran MMX systems at work till around 2002. (Compaq Deskpto 4000 running Win95, Office 2000, Internet)
It's more about "good spec" part of the title. None of this would be thought of as decent, more like acceptable at best.

Although thinking about it maybe thats what OP is trying to recreate? not a good spec 98-99 PC, more like what A cash strapped student stuck with a Socket 7 PC would realistically have upgraded over the years up to 1999
This changes the game quite a bit in which case I'll go with the quoted spec.

Alternatives could be
Ram, probably still around the 32MB, but 64MB was a good way to hide the weakness of the CPU
ISA sound card definitely. PCI cards would have been an expensive luxury hard to justify.
AGP card with all the marketing hype at the time. You could also go with Video cards that made the jump from PCI to AGP such as the S3 Trio
It's possible that you got a Voodoo 1 or Voodoo Rush back in 97. Voodoo 2 or TNT would have been above a students budget for their aging PC despite been out for a while