I would convince myself not to waste $2500 on a new P3 laptop with a crappy onboard Ati Rage Pro. Instead I would build a P3 or Athlon desktop with a GF2, and still have money left over.

Then of course the obvious:
1. Stock up on every cheap 3dfx and Kyro2 graphics card, ISA sound card, ISA motherboard that I can find.
2. Wait.
3. Profit.

20 years ago? Probably the Epox 8KTA+.

I would buy the Abit VH6T that I own today. Instead of a crappy Fujitsu noname computer with a BTX motherboard that wouldn't run most of the games I wanted to play back in the day.

VH6T is so good when it comes to compatibility with all kinds of hardware.

Ok to be fair, my dad bought the computer back then. He wasn't very good at picking computer parts.

I regret nothing!

there is one thing i would buy

the MSI motherboard with integrated voodoo3 chip

msi-ms-6168-rev-2-with-integrated-voodoo3-2000

Cga.8086 wrote on 2020-08-02, 06:38:

there is one thing i would buy

the MSI motherboard with integrated voodoo3 chip

msi-ms-6168-rev-2-with-integrated-voodoo3-2000

I would take one of them too 😀

Abit SH6 .. AFAIK only ever made slot-1 i815

Anonymous Coward wrote on 2020-08-02, 02:10:

I regret nothing!

Same to me - regarding buying mainboards and other computer stuff.

In winter 1999 I wanted to build a 400MHz pentium II with a Riva TNT2 and 64MB of ram. Unfortunately I was in highschool, so money was tight and computer parts expensive. I had flyers from every computer shop in my town. What I really wanted to buy was an ABIT BE6-II for said 400MHz pentium II, but could not afford it - not even close. Hell, I couldn't even afford a Lucky Star 6ABX2C or 6VA694 + a 366MHz Celeron... Not to mention all these motherboards were ATX and I had an AT case at the time. I did some maths, and even with a cheap and rather dubious A TREND ATC6130 (i440LX, AT form factor) + a 333MHz Celeron I was still quite a bit over budget, despite not needing to replace the PC's case.

In late spring of 2000 I contacted a relative who owned a computer shop in the capital, and asked him to get me a motherboard + CPU + SDram for me in my budget... he sent me a Lucky Star 5MVP4 with NO AGP slot, and on board everything + a 400MHz K6-II and 64MB of PC100 SDRAM... I didn't realise at first how important having an AGP slot was, and didn't really mind since I took the Voodoo 2 kit off my 586 to use in my new K6 build (and it was FAST compared to the 586), but 1 year and a few months later I ended up selling everything again because of this.

If money was no issue, and I had the knowledge I have right now, I'd buy an ABIT KT-7 + 750MHz Athlon.

H3nrik V! wrote on 2020-08-02, 08:07:

Abit SH6 .. AFAIK only ever made slot-1 i815

An interesting curiosity, most certainly, but the only actual use case I would have seen at the time would have been somebody with a dead slot-1 board wanting to re-use the CPU .

EDIT: On a different note and to be clear, I have no regrets per se either, but with the benefit of hindsight, having stocked up on some things back then would have been useful too present-day me . I can't call any of this a regret because, in my view, that would imply having made a bad decision (with information available at the time), which is not the case .

IMHO, regretting past decisions with the benefit of hindsight is usually a fruitless exercise as nobody can predict the future . The only exception might be having missed a trend that should have been obvious even a the time, IMHO .

darry wrote on 2020-08-02, 18:29:

H3nrik V! wrote on 2020-08-02, 08:07:

Abit SH6 .. AFAIK only ever made slot-1 i815

An interesting curiosity, most certainly, but the only actual use case I would have seen at the time would have been somebody with a dead slot-1 board wanting to re-use the CPU .

And you're probably right - seeing that none ever show up for sale. Reason for me wanting it is that I would hope to be able to test all kinds of P6 (or at least Pentium 2 on) on the same motherboard. Not even certain that it will run Klamaths or Covingtons (or Mendocino for that sake)

probably a few 700-1000+ capable slot 1 440bx boards
a raid capable version of my d865gbf
a few various MBs that I could play the OC/UC game with slot1 s370 S478 .

Great replies, Thanks ! Some of the boards mentioned I never knew about until now. My OP question had nothing to do with regretting not buying something back then or even now, just a "what if you could" dream type question. Thanks everyone !