PCI cards would have been an expensive luxury hard to justify.

PCI sound cards weren't all that expensive in 1999. Case and point: Ensoniq cards.

Ram, probably still around the 32MB, but 64MB was a good way

Once again, too low for 1998-1999 and problematic for games. Just watch video that I've posted.

Voodoo 2 or TNT would have been above a students budget for their aging PC despite been out for a while

Actually 8mb Riva TNT could fit the bill quite nicely. Here's a price reference for 16mb variants: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/comparis … idia,96-13.html

So my take would be:
AMD K6-2 400Mhz (maybe 450)
64Mb RAM
Cheap SS7 board (most likely AT)
Riva TNT 8Mb
Ensoniq AudioPCI or ESS1938 (maybe Yamaha YMF724)
HDD up to 4Gb

The best way to go about this is decide how much you would spend on a budget system in 2019 that you consider decent, then adjust the cost of that based on inflation then you have a pretty good idea of what would be a PC build in late 1998 early 1999 for someone that was trying build a mid range system.

I have always consider 800 dollars to be mid range for an entire new system. So $800 US dollars now is around $550 dollars back then. You can easily have the common kind of SS7 build people around here build and probably a little better for back then.

Thanks for all the replies!

Uh, I'm not sure what to do at this point but mention a couple of things:

PCChips M570 has (I think) a maximum supported CPU speed of 300MHz.
http://www.elhvb.com/webhq/models/pcchips/m570.htm

I have seen online that AMD K6 and AMD K6-2's are clock-for-clock slower than the Pentium MMX's. If the maximum CPU speed is 300MHz, I've read online that a 300MHz K-6 will not keep up with a Pentium MMX 200MHz. This is something I'm rather unsure about. My school has a K6-2 266MHz lying around, though I doubt it would be a good enough upgrade to consider, if it even performs to the level of the Pentium at all, which it may or may not. I've seen conflicting things about this online.

The motherboard has a maximum official FSB speed of 75MHz, with 83MHz having been unofficially achieved. The fastest K6-2 I can find that uses a 66MHz FSB is a 366MHz variant- I do not see anything indicating that there are K6-2's released on anything higher than a 66MHz bus, but lower than a 75 or 83MHz bus.

This marks off anything faster than a K6-2 366MHz, which may or may not be a suitable upgrade from the MMX 200MHz- I think at 166MHz faster, the sheer clock speed should outmatch the Pentium MMX, though I've seen crazy things regarding its FPU vs the FPU of other processors, apparently a big deal for Quake and Quake derivatives- including Half-Life.

I already have an "imperfect," Slot 1 system, a Pentium III Coppermine at 600MHz with a 100MHz FSB. I used to have a PIII Katmai 500MHz, but I believe it died with my SE440BX-2, as it would hard-crash very frequently on multiple motherboards. All I had left was that 600MHz, so that's what I threw in there; not exactly authentic for a mid-99 build, let alone an eary-99 build. it also has various other things going on with it, part of this being the fact that it uses an OEM motherboard from a Gateway machine, and even though it is 440BX, I doubt a Gateway motherboard from a GP-500 would've randomly found its way into another case in such a short amount of time.

Late K6-2 has 6x multiplier. So 450Mhz is easily achievable.

Just found this:

www.cpu-world.com/Compare/883/AMD_K6-2_ ... 3200).html

How is the K6-2 266 that much faster? I've heard that it's faster in some tasks, but in FPU intensive tasks, it's slower, yet with benchmarks CPU-World ran, the FPU is noticeably faster, and ridiculously faster in some instances. I bet a 300MHz would honestly flatten the Pentium MMX, very interesting overall.

[EDIT]
Okay, maybe not flatten, but it should be noticeably faster, according to these benchmarks. I'll find some comparison stuff for it.

The K6 FPU is a lot slower than the P6 FPU in the Pentium Pro, Pentium II, and Pentium III, but it can keep up pretty well with the P54/P55 Pentiums. A 300 MHz+ K6 will be faster than a Pentium MMX 200 in pretty much any task.

I assumed he was talking about the K6-2+ 450 which is an entirely different cpu
https://www.anandtech.com/show/707/super7-upg … -3-processors/2

K6-2 300MHz CPUs are actually fairly cheap on eBay- but then I feel like I'm starting to get into "performance over realism," scenarios, just like I did with the PIII 500 build. Sure, the parts and specs were available at the time (at least, in some cases), but they weren't realistic and even lower-tier power users would've only had a Pentium II at that point.

I get that a K6-2 300 isn't anywhere near that level of performance or cost, but I'm not sure whether I should start changing things or not. I guess it depends on the viewpoint here, and there's both been the viewpoint of an older machine being upgraded, and the viewpoint of a machine being built new on a modest budget.

One thing I would like to achieve someday is to be able to get a hold of a realistic PII system that would be a great performer for early 1999 but still be in the realms of feasability. Right now, I have my P200MMX, so I'm going to work with it, because as I have said before, I am strapped for cash, and I already have a lot of the parts that people are recommending (the ISA sound card, P200MMX, 32/64MB RAM, i740, etc.). I feel like if I push the CPU faster, I'll start wanting to upgrade the graphics, then the HDD, and eventually it'll turn into another build that emphasizes time-accurate performance over time-accurate realism.

Maybe I'm being a little too aggressive here, but I'm starting to want something realistic, rather than a perfect experience, like I was seeking before. Sure, my Coppermine + RIVA TNT2 32MB + 128MB PC100 runs Half-Life 1 at even 1024x768 like a breeze, with only minimal stutter, and runs it at lower resolutions even better, but most people wouldn't have been able to get a machine like that in the first place, due to the sheer price of it.

ya I see what you are saying, do you like your computer to struggle to play a game and you get less than 30 fps and its just barely playable, but you are like it's amazing that this piece of shit can actually play it, what an impressive beast. It's a unique experience. Having lived through this experience 100s of times I can say without a doubt that while yes it might be a fun experience because I am playing this game on minimal system requirements and low settings yest its still enjoyable to me, It's not something that I go out of my way to intentionally recreate for various reasons. 🤣

I can understand that point of view as well- that's why I spent so long building that PIII 600- it was specifically designed from the ground up to get 40+ FPS avg in HL1, if not more. At this point, with the OEM board I'm using, and the underwhelming realism it has, it's lost its identity. A lower end PC from 2000? A high-end PC from mid-1999?

It has a processor which puts it in the 2000 range, realistically, its CD drive was made in 2000, its video card was made in 2000, etc. Even though I did my best to get a TNT2 from '99, I ended up with a '99 architecture, but a '00 production date.

This "new," system, on the other hand, is 100% what it needs to be, accuracy-wise: the CPU is from '97, the video card is from '98, the CD drive is from '97, the HDD is from '98, the sound card is from '97, the network card is from '97, the motherboard is a non-OEM board from '98- it's honestly a best-case scenario for an obsessive individual like myself. I guess I could try to get a K6-2 for it, but the mobo only goes up to 300MHz officially. Not sure what putting in a higher-clocked CPU would do, if it even worked at all.

It's currently inferior in every way to my old friend, but it makes sense and is completely time-accurate for the time period I'm shooting for, no questions asked (obviously the PSU is from 2003-2004 or '05, but thats because its a compromise between good 5v rails and age, don't want a "time-accurate," PSU to go blowing up my computer I've taken ages to get together).

The worst part about this is that I had a Intel SE440BX-2, non-oem, from 1999, deisnged for PIII Katmai's, and it died. It has been months and months since it died, but I still get irritated when I think about it. If only I hadn't tried plugging in that stupid, miserable Quantum Bigfoot, I'd still have my PIII 500 and my SE440BX-2.

Hey OP, where are you? If you’re in Europe, I can send you a K6-2 333 for free.

ShovelKnight wrote:

Hey OP, where are you? If you’re in Europe, I can send you a K6-2 333 for free.

Thank you! Unfortunately, I am in the US, meaning that it would have to take a cross-oceanic intercontinental journey before I could get it, and those sorts of distances make for costly shipping. I am strapped for cash at the moment, so I can't accept that offer.

However, if you put it into a heat shielded impact compensating titanium box, and stole an ICBM, replacing the warhead payload with the box and launched it, the shipping would still be free and arrive in roughly an hour. Coordinates to aim the targeting computer at are 36.3487° N, 82.2107° W.

where we found a ICBM in EU? You left us only short range missiles 😀

AlessandroB wrote:

where we found a ICBM in EU? You left us only short range missiles 😀

Oh.

I guess that goes out the window. Get one from Russia, maybe? I figure that they likely have illogical amounts of the things lying around, like we do. Though, depending on what part of Europe you're in, even that can be an incredibly far distance to travel, with some of you having to cross a channel just to get to the main bulk of Europe.

I dunno, try making your own. I'm sure if you ploy it as a rocket designed for space exploration and travel rather than a rocket designed to fly just above the atmosphere and deliver a payload, you'll get enough financial support to do it. Just grab a old 8088 to do all the calculations, if even less powerful computers drove the Saturn V and Titan II, I'm sure a good old 8088 or maybe even a 286 just to be sure would drive it- make sure that gets protected as well so I can unpack it from the rocket and add a new computer to my collection. 🤣

[EDIT]
You could be the next Elon Musk, but instead of launching cars into space, you're launching obsolete computer hardware, and instead of casting it out into space, you put it on a trajectory so that some random guy in an area that's borderline the middle of nowhere can extract it. You don't even need as nearly powerful of a rocket, seeing as you're launching an object that only weighs a few grams, and a 286 that maybe weighs about 15kg. Considering that Musk launched a 1,305kg object into space, that gives you plenty of headroom.

athlon-power wrote:

Thanks for all the replies! [...] […]
Show full quote

Thanks for all the replies!
[...]

The motherboard has a maximum official FSB speed of 75MHz, with 83MHz having been unofficially achieved. The fastest K6-2 I can find that uses a 66MHz FSB is a 366MHz variant- I do not see anything indicating that there are K6-2's released on anything higher than a 66MHz bus, but lower than a 75 or 83MHz bus.

This marks off anything faster than a K6-2 366MHz, which may or may not be a suitable upgrade from the MMX 200MHz- I think at 166MHz faster, the sheer clock speed should outmatch the Pentium MMX, though I've seen crazy things regarding its FPU vs the FPU of other processors, apparently a big deal for Quake and Quake derivatives- including Half-Life.

First-up: that board has the SiS 5591 chipset. It's SiS' attempt at a Via VP3-competitor and it actually beat it - you can generally get the 5591 stable up to about 90MHz (where the VP3 became flaky around 83MHz), maybe even up to 95MHz. Just not 100MHz... by the time SiS figured out how to do that, they'd decided against AGP and discrete VGA on So7 and went with fully integrated SiS 530 and 540.

So, 83MHz is pretty much guaranteed, 95MHz *might* work. Translate that to your CPUs: whatever a vendor advertised in terms of max FSB and max clock should work, more might. AMD K6-2 CXT CPUs (>400MHz) interpret a 2x multiplier as 6x, and as 6x83MHz=500MHz, you can run them at that. Get a K6-2 500 and you can run it within spec at full speed. But before you do that, see what your P55C can do. It runs at 3x66MHz; you can try 3x83MHz=250MHz, or even 3x95MHz=285MHz. If the multiplier is unlocked it could do 3.5x83MHz=292MHz or if you are very lucky with both CPU and motherboard 3.5x95MHz=333MHz. At 333MHz, the P55C is a beast. I have run one at 350MHz on a different motherboard (DFI MVP3-based board), so it can be done, but that's unusual, 292MHz is probably the highest you could expect. Still, that will give you a good 40% boost in CPU, and 25% boost in cache and RAM. I know I would have done it in 1998 😉

But tbh, if you already have an early P3, there's no point whatsoever trying to bump this system up to near-P3 performance. Keep that nice P55C and let this thing do what it is good at: run 16b code (DOS or early Windows) extremely well 😀

Edit:
And as for Musk, he blew the top off a tin can this morning, so wouldn't expect too much from there anytime soon (although that Starship looks like something straight out of Dan Dare, would be bloody amazing if it managed to fly, particularly if it did so as cheaply and reliably as promised). I'd rather recommend sticking the CPU in a jam jar and throwing it into the sea somewhere with a westward current. Of course that does require you to be within easy reach of the eastern seaboard of the US, and possessing considerable patience 😜

dionb wrote:

First-up: that board has the SiS 5591 chipset. It's SiS' attempt at a Via VP3-competitor and it actually beat it - you can generally get the 5591 stable up to about 90MHz (where the VP3 became flaky around 83MHz), maybe even up to 95MHz. Just not 100MHz... by the time SiS figured out how to do that, they'd decided against AGP and discrete VGA on So7 and went with fully integrated SiS 530 and 540.

That's crazy, considering "stock," speeds are around 66MHz. I had no idea this motherboard was even somewhat capable of that, I find that quite interesting. The 64MB of RAM I'm using is PC-100 (I don't have a legit 64MB PC-66 stick), so if I push it up, the RAM will happily hum along.

dionb wrote:

So, 83MHz is pretty much guaranteed, 95MHz *might* work. Translate that to your CPUs: whatever a vendor advertised in terms of max FSB and max clock should work, more might. AMD K6-2 CXT CPUs (>400MHz) interpret a 2x multiplier as 6x, and as 6x83MHz=500MHz, you can run them at that. Get a K6-2 500 and you can run it within spec at full speed. But before you do that, see what your P55C can do. It runs at 3x66MHz; you can try 3x83MHz=250MHz, or even 3x95MHz=285MHz. If the multiplier is unlocked it could do 3.5x83MHz=292MHz or if you are very lucky with both CPU and motherboard 3.5x95MHz=333MHz. At 333MHz, the P55C is a beast. I have run one at 350MHz on a different motherboard (DFI MVP3-based board), so it can be done, but that's unusual, 292MHz is probably the highest you could expect. Still, that will give you a good 40% boost in CPU, and 25% boost in cache and RAM. I know I would have done it in 1998 😉

I've FSB overclocked before (Core2Quad Q9550 build- pushed it up from 2.83GHz to 3.8GHz stable, and ran the DDR2 RAM at 1066MHz, though it was rated for that), so doing it again, albeit, on a much smaller scale shouldn't be too hard. I'm going to start lower, probably at the official rated speed of 75MHz (at least, for the chipset), and then go up to 83MHz, and then push it to 95MHz. If all remains stable, and the CPU has an unlocked multiplier, I'll start playing with that until it gets pissy and forces me to go down to the last stable speed(s).

dionb wrote:

But tbh, if you already have an early P3, there's no point whatsoever trying to bump this system up to near-P3 performance. Keep that nice P55C and let this thing do what it is good at: run 16b code (DOS or early Windows) extremely well 😀

As much as I love that PIII, until I can get it more time-accurate parts, this is what I've got for this sort of thing. I need to get a ~1998 Slot 1 motherboard, a Katmai Pentium III or a Deschutes PII, a bigger time-accurate ATA-66 HDD (I'm at 6.4GB at the moment), a time-accurate CD-ROM, a real SB Live! (I have an SB Live! value in it), a Promise ATA-66 PCI controller- nearly everything inside that system needs to be changed out to make it a really good time-accurate HL1 smasher. I may or may not keep my RIVA TNT2 32MB, because I already have it and that thing is a beast. Quake III at 1024x768 at ~50-60fps level stuff, from what I remember.

dionb wrote:

Edit:
And as for Musk, he blew the top off a tin can this morning, so wouldn't expect too much from there anytime soon (although that Starship looks like something straight out of Dan Dare, would be bloody amazing if it managed to fly, particularly if it did so as cheaply and reliably as promised). I'd rather recommend sticking the CPU in a jam jar and throwing it into the sea somewhere with a westward current. Of course that does require you to be within easy reach of the eastern seaboard of the US, and possessing considerable patience 😜

I've not really been caught up on the new space-y stuff, last big thing I heard was the Falcon launch and what is technically the fastest speeds a car has achieved, maybe not on land, but the speeds things travel at in space are enormous, so it has the world record for fastest speed traveled by car somewhere, so I'm quite a bit out of the loop in regards to that.

Sending it on a western-bound current is too vague, it could end up in Canada or Mexico for all I know, may not even end up landing in the country, let alone a part of the eastern seaboard I can readily access. If it gets in the hands of the wrong people, they'll use the technologies contained within it to create a weapon of mass destruction of some kind. Wasn't it iTunes or something similar that had a clause in its ToS where it said you couldn't use it to aid in the creation of nuclear weapons or something crazy like that?

appiah4 wrote:

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.

I confirm that, I had Rage Pro in 1998 (AIW PCI version). It was a decent card for that period, but the image quality in 3D games wasn't the greatest. It was better than Riva 128, but worse than Voodoo. And i740 had better image quality than Vooodo, and was also a bit faster.

Back to the question of the OP. How "low budget" do you want to go?
Late 1998, early 1999 Pentium 200 MMX was still quite expensive, 233MMX even more. PII 233 had the same price or was even cheaper in some stores than P233MMX. P200MMX was a bit cheaper, but not by very much.

Celeron 300 was cheaper than P200MMX (official prices), K6-2 350 was even cheaper.
Slot1 boards were expensive, but LX440 boards were quite a bit cheaper than BX440 boards.

If you want to go "super cheap", try Cyrix 233/266 on a cheap sk 7 board, paired with Rage Pro and 32 MB EDO.
A step above that would be K6-II 300/333/350 on super 7 motherboard with Riva128ZX. Plus 64 SDRAM.

But if you're looking for the best bang for buck, try this:
Celeron 300A (oc to 450 if you want) and Voodoo Banshee. 128 MB RAM. You could go with 64 or 96, but for early 1999 is a bit low. I'd rather go with 192 MB (3 sticks of 64 RAM), it was't *that* expensive for early 1999.

If I were to travel back in time and I had limited money I would chose that, it's performance for the money was unbeatable.

Don't forget the RAM price gouging of the period (at least in 1999 america), and considering that much of the 'cash' would be spent on those big exciting new important games of late '98 to postpone the more expensive RAM upgrade. And realistically, given the specs, you're not going to play a game that would demand 64MB anyway. It's not exactly set for Everquest/Q3/UltimaIX/UT... putting 64MB in that system would feel like a bit-the-aggressive-"RAM MAKES 80% FASTER!"-marketing desperation move.

AlessandroB wrote:

where we found a ICBM in EU? You left us only short range missiles 😀

You can go here. I recommend you call ahead of time.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/57%C2 ... d54.141481

gdjacobs wrote:

AlessandroB wrote:

where we found a ICBM in EU? You left us only short range missiles 😀

You can go here. I recommend you call ahead of time.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/57%C2 ... d54.141481

They may even give you a free lift if you do..