s478 is the best for w98 build in my book; more than fast enough for any w98 game at max settings and very compatible, like P3 on steroids.

I'd suggest 939 instead of 478 for an AGP build for better energy efficiency i.e. less heat and power consumption.

775+AGP MB like ASRock 775i65G R3.0 are quite rare but can create a monstrous Win98SE build, an excellent WinXP build, and a capable Win7+ build with a Core 2 Quad / Extreme with 65nm lithography.

LGA 775 boards with AGP are still available, with reasonable prices. You can cover very late DOS / Windows 98 / Windows XP with such a build. With a DX9 video card, Windows 7 would be available as well.

My only concern for a 478 board is that good quality coolers are very rare, as opposed to LGA 775.

I think the AGP 775 boards support 98 as well as the later 478 ones no (and 754/939)? and you get possibly better/cooler CPUs.
at least the 2 AGP 775 boards that I have, are pretty much the same as a 478 board with AC97 audio and whatnot, (asus with 865PE chipset and gigabyte with the VIA p4m800pro), I don't notice a difference between using that and the 478 p4pe (845PE) honestly, other than, better CPUs.

even for "fast" netburst lga 775 is somewhat attractive, the CedarMills seem nicer than Prescotts

478 build:

- SB-LINK or PC/PCI for DOS audio (is there a chipset cutoff point for ISA/DMA signaling here?)

SB-Link? Some ICH2 south bridge motherboards, i.e. i850 and i845 motherboards. Intel D850MV notoriously has soldering points for SB-Link. Software workarounds will work reliably up to ICH5.

runs hot

No, not really. Only if you use Pentium 4 Prescott.

- dunno how to find a mobo with SB-LINK or PC/PCI (and do I need specific soundcards?)

Yes.

775 build with PCI-E:

- probably the fastest early Win XP machine if limited by W98 hardware

If drivers are considered, yes. Cutoff point would be a motherboard with ICH7 south bridge. If not, you can build something on LGA1366 X58, which has ICH10 south bridge and can work with unofficial driver pack, although without full support.

- DOS audio, is it possible?

Yesn't. Depends on specific motherboard and software workaround from sound card driver.

XP was developed in the 478 days, so 478 can be used for (I'm being careful not to say "is good for") anything from DOS to XP. With the right MB/CPU combo you can even use XP64 😀

2mg wrote on 2022-10-04, 16:53:

I'm gonna stir the hornet's nest and probably flog a dead horse too, but here it goes.

From what I gathered around here, for my possible future "Turbocharged BlastProcessing Overk1ll SuperComputer98" build, is this:

It's a hypothetical I've been exploring lately too with my build. But the PT880 chipset, and its AMD counterpart KT880, has a crippling flaw with AGP and Windows 98 where AGP memory doesn't work correctly, severely hampering performance. But only in newer BIOSs that add support for newer CPUs.

478 build:

There are a handful of 775 motherboards that have full 98 compatible drivers and great DOS support (minus an ISA slot), so 478 is kind of redundant.

775 build with AGP:

The ASRock 775i65G R3.0, like dormcat said, is the undisputed king. Phil's Computer Lab did a video on it. Pair that board with an Intel E6800, 2x256 MB of DDR-500, a GeForce 6800 Ultra, and an SB Audigy 2, and that's about as good as it gets while remaining in the realm of official compatibility. DOS audio included. The only weaknesses would be the SB16 emulation for older DOS games, and lack of table fog and 8-bit paletted textures that the 6000 series dropped support for. Later Nvidia drivers (after 45.23) for 98 are also hit-or-miss. Most games work, some popular ones don't. A GeForce 5950 Ultra would be the next best if you wanted that graphical and older driver support.

775 build with PCI-E:

I recently got a PCIe GeForce 7950 GT for my 98 build and, with the unofficial-ish 82.69 drivers and RLoews patches, it actually works perfectly. Even Wolfenstein 3D works. This is still on the PT880 chipset which has 98 drivers. I read that other motherboards with no official 98 drivers are sketchy with PCIe and 98.

AFAIK, no motherboards with 1333 MHz FSB or greater have official 98 drivers, or support CPUs newer than Wolfdale officially. Unofficial drivers go up to ICH9+P35 chipsets, (ICH10 support is a lie, if the .INF file is to be believed) but it would be a very challenging build. Some people make it work though.

Jura Tastatura wrote on 2022-10-04, 17:09:

s478 is the best for w98 build in my book; more than fast enough for any w98 game at max settings and very compatible, like P3 on steroids.

As opposed to OG willamette P4 on socket 423 which is like a P3 with 'roids.... in the 2030s when I'm super organised, ima hafta do that H2H2H2H, Tualatin vs Willamette vs Thunderbird vs AthlonXP and maybe 478 Northwood, all at 1.4 or 1.5ghz all with GF2s or 7500s.

I think chipset drivers are a little overrated in Windows 98 on PCIe systems. As long as you install the basic PCI system driver, the chipset will work just fine.

On board sound, graphics, and networking are another issue, but you could use compatible PCI or PCIe devices instead of the motherboard's devices.

IDE ports should work with the default IDE driver. SATA ports should work with the default IDE driver if the motherboard's BIOS can set them to "Compatible" mode. Rloew's AHCI driver also works well with SATA ports.

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-10-06, 02:33:

Jura Tastatura wrote on 2022-10-04, 17:09:

s478 is the best for w98 build in my book; more than fast enough for any w98 game at max settings and very compatible, like P3 on steroids.

As opposed to OG willamette P4 on socket 423 which is like a P3 with 'roids.... in the 2030s when I'm super organised, ima hafta do that H2H2H2H, Tualatin vs Willamette vs Thunderbird vs AthlonXP and maybe 478 Northwood, all at 1.4 or 1.5ghz all with GF2s or 7500s.

You should source a DDR Tualatin board if you are gonna do this...just to give the P3 a fair shake of the stick !

VDNKh wrote on 2022-10-06, 01:11:

The ASRock 775i65G R3.0, like dormcat said, is the undisputed king.

It was released on July 25, 2012, 17 months after Win7 SP1 (February 22, 2011), yet it came with official Win98 drivers. AFAIK it is the very last motherboard with official Win98 drivers. Heck, the MB of my current WinXP build (GA-P31-ES3G) was released in 2008 -- four years older than 775i65G R3.0!

The 2GB (2x1GB) DDR RAM limit is probably its only weak spot when using Win7+. The other problem is availability and price: Even R2.0 (six years older) can cost no less than US$100 on auction sites.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-10-06, 03:51:

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-10-06, 02:33:

Jura Tastatura wrote on 2022-10-04, 17:09:

s478 is the best for w98 build in my book; more than fast enough for any w98 game at max settings and very compatible, like P3 on steroids.

As opposed to OG willamette P4 on socket 423 which is like a P3 with 'roids.... in the 2030s when I'm super organised, ima hafta do that H2H2H2H, Tualatin vs Willamette vs Thunderbird vs AthlonXP and maybe 478 Northwood, all at 1.4 or 1.5ghz all with GF2s or 7500s.

You should source a DDR Tualatin board if you are gonna do this...just to give the P3 a fair shake of the stick !

IIRC, the Tualatin benefits very little, if any, from DDR memory, given that it's own FSB is not double-pumped. SDRAM synchronously with FSB should be the right formula IMO ..

I think the benchmarks posted in this forum by the members with access to DDR S370 systems showed a good gain from it

SPBHM wrote on 2022-10-06, 18:41:

I think the benchmarks posted in this forum by the members with access to DDR S370 systems showed a good gain from it

Same here, its not a huge massive show stopping gain but its there and with the SiS635t board I have it makes for a not insubstantial gain since .. that board doesnt support SDR.

That said . .fuck it . .Source a RDRAM Tualatin board ..might as well compare apples to apples.

Anyone who thinks Tualatin doesnt get any benefit from DDR should see just how little benefit it gets from RDRAM and yet .. it exists.

Personally, I would pair a Tualatin with an Intel chipset every time. Actually, Intel chipsets were part of the reason, I stuck to Intel CPUs through the years.
That said, I'm totally on the same page as you regarding RDRAM. But were there any Tualatin compatible boards with that or were they all Coppermine boards? But yeah, comparing apples to apples makes sense as well 😀

H3nrik V! wrote on 2022-10-06, 21:28:

Personally, I would pair a Tualatin with an Intel chipset every time. Actually, Intel chipsets were part of the reason, I stuck to Intel CPUs through the years.
That said, I'm totally on the same page as you regarding RDRAM. But were there any Tualatin compatible boards with that or were they all Coppermine boards? But yeah, comparing apples to apples makes sense as well 😀

The SiS635t happens to be the fastest Tualatin chipset released, its a little barebones bios wise but that didn't stop it being incredibly fast and rock solid to boot, better than any intel chipset honestly.

🙋‍♂️ Tualatin DDR owner here. Yeah, going from 694T (SDR) to Apollo Pro 266T, I saw a quite significant boost in system performance across the board. However, I believe most of the extra performance comes from a more refined memory and AGP controller, rather than the raw bandwidth of DDR itself.

Plus, with cheap and plentiful PC3200, you can easily set your memory timings at 2-2-2-5, which results in amazingly low memory latency. Can't easily do that with SDR, especially if you're running at bus speeds greater than 133 MHz.

some things that may have been said before:
-S478: you can find motherboards with sata and even pci-express, still DDR1 though
hyperthreading/muticore is entirely useless in 9x OS'es as they only use the first core/thread.
-s775 with agp: there are some boards that can use c2d processors (one board from asus with i865 chipset comes to my mind that can use Dual Channel DDR) and many, if not all, can use sata. Anyway most boards out there are limited to Core2Duo E4xxx/Pentium E2xxx, Pentium D or even only Prescott P4, one board that comes in mind is the ASUS P5VD1-X , which supports up to Pentium D 9xx series, has PCI-E and AGP, DDR Dual Channel and sata but chipset compatibility may be problematic.
-s775 with PCI-E: be aware that there are some boards that will only go up to Core2Duo E4xxx/Pentium E2xxx, Pentium D or even only Prescott P4, others may do better but the chipset compatibility can be worse, specially as you approach DDR2 or DDR3

for me, 775 with agp may be the sweet spot as far as compatibility and drivers are concerned. Higher will do better assuming you can get it working sucessfully, and lower has it's own problems like getting the right heatsink

S478 is the quintessential late-Win98 experience. Northwood, Audigy2, FX5900, you will be set. Cheap and easy to find, compatible as can be, very stable too. Often noisy but that is part of the experience. 775 is for XP.