Nice boards, they all use different chipsets:

- Intel SE440BX-2 uses the i440BX chipset, the classic slot 1 chipset by all means. Very very fast, very compatible and this board in particular is great, certainly not the most tweakable, and by extension fastest, but very stable and well built. This is the board you want, forget about the others.

- Intel CC820 uses the i820 with the MTH and SDRAM memory support. I would advise against this board as it's quite a bit slower (had it been an RDRAM version there would have been more of a case for it) than the 440BX and it lacks ISA slots which you may want.

- Intel AL440LX (I assume this is the one you mean as I couldn't find any AL440LZ boards) is based on... you guessed it, the i440LX chipset. This was the first Pentium 2 chipset with AGP support and the idea was that it would replace the 440FX which had been designed for the Pentium Pro but had been retrofitted to work with the arrival of the Pentium II. It's fine, but it's slower than 440BX and can only use 66MHz FSB processors. Not to mention, memory compatibility is likely worse as well.

I'd say you want the 400MHz model. It's a classic Pentium II. You might run into speed issues with older games, but the slower 333 will not really help you in this regard, they are both too fast for the games that I have in mind. What kind of games did you have in mind to play? Mid 90s and Win98 is a bit vague.

CC820 is something of a collector's item due to the MTH. Not only is it slower, it was withdrawn from sale because the MTH had stability issues. Lovely for people wanting weird old stuff, less so if you want a practical system.

AL440LX was the first Slot 1 SDRAM board. Huge historical value, but overengineered and underperforming in others. Also, no 100MHz FSB support as stated.

That leaves the SE440BX-2. Fully agreed with the above that while it's not the perfect BX board, it beats the hell out of the alternatives here for a P2-400.

In addition to the above I would also consider price. Is Intel AL440LX much cheaper than Intel SE440BX-2 ? Do any of these allow you to set multiplier in BIOS (relevant for PII 333 which is likely unlocked)? If the goal is DOS then you may be better off with the 333 due to multiplier flexibility. PII 400 is good enough only for early Windows 98 games up to 1999. If you intend to play Windows 98 games then PIII is highly recommended (at least Katmai).

Thank you very much for all the answers.

Of course my idea is mainly to run games from 1993 to 1999. Mainly all those games that started the 3D era.

BX is fully compatible with 98SE, no chipset installation is required. Can run 100 fsb processors, but be careful, Intel mainboards have strict CPU support policy. Some BX ones can not run coppermine CPU without bios upgrade. Intel mainboards are not good with "UBU" bios upgrade options as well, I can advice you to choose, Asus, Gigabyte, MSI or Abit. Look carefully for CPU support and bios! Another option is Intel 815 chipset as you know.

karakarga wrote on 2022-12-25, 21:14:

I can advice you to choose, Asus, Gigabyte, MSI or Abit. Look carefully for CPU support and bios! Another option is Intel 815 chipset as you know.

+1

Third-party motherboards also allow one to adjust the CPU multiplier and/or FSB, useful for slowing down early PII CPUs which is handy for some speed-sensitive DOS games. I don't recommend the i815 chipset though as motherboards using it commonly lacks ISA slots.

Gmlb256 wrote on 2022-12-25, 22:40:

karakarga wrote on 2022-12-25, 21:14:

I can advice you to choose, Asus, Gigabyte, MSI or Abit. Look carefully for CPU support and bios! Another option is Intel 815 chipset as you know.

+1

Third-party motherboards also allow one to adjust the CPU multiplier and/or FSB, useful for slowing down early PII CPUs which is handy for some speed-sensitive DOS games. I don't recommend the i815 chipset though as motherboards using it commonly lacks ISA slots.

Furthermore, an i815 Slot-1 board is pretty much unobtainium ...

For a P2 a 440BX chipsetted board is probably the best pick.

H3nrik V! wrote on 2022-12-25, 22:47:

Gmlb256 wrote on 2022-12-25, 22:40:

karakarga wrote on 2022-12-25, 21:14:

I can advice you to choose, Asus, Gigabyte, MSI or Abit. Look carefully for CPU support and bios! Another option is Intel 815 chipset as you know.

+1

Third-party motherboards also allow one to adjust the CPU multiplier and/or FSB, useful for slowing down early PII CPUs which is handy for some speed-sensitive DOS games. I don't recommend the i815 chipset though as motherboards using it commonly lacks ISA slots.

Furthermore, an i815 Slot-1 board is pretty much unobtainium ...

From top of my head, I remember just 1.
i810 slot 1 boards though should be easier to find. Whether or not I'd recommend them is another matter (lack of AGP being one of them).
i820 has no ISA.
My favorite and most used 440BX board is actually the Chaintech 6BTM, though I did like the ASUS P2B that came with my first PC as well. 6BTM was actually something of a lucky find as I got a small batch of those boards from a party that said "either you take them or into the bin they all go" , real nobrainer 😜

Tetrium wrote on 2022-12-26, 11:15:

For a P2 a 440BX chipsetted board is probably the best pick. […]
Show full quote

For a P2 a 440BX chipsetted board is probably the best pick.

H3nrik V! wrote on 2022-12-25, 22:47:

Gmlb256 wrote on 2022-12-25, 22:40:

+1

Third-party motherboards also allow one to adjust the CPU multiplier and/or FSB, useful for slowing down early PII CPUs which is handy for some speed-sensitive DOS games. I don't recommend the i815 chipset though as motherboards using it commonly lacks ISA slots.

Furthermore, an i815 Slot-1 board is pretty much unobtainium ...

From top of my head, I remember just 1.
i810 slot 1 boards though should be easier to find. Whether or not I'd recommend them is another matter (lack of AGP being one of them).

Definitely. Compaq shipped a whole line of Deskpros with them (warning: these had the non-ATX pinout on ATX plug...) and they even appeared retail here and there - I recall the Gigabyte GA-6WMM.

Lack of AGP isn't only reason to avoid i810, in fact it rates quite low on the list. Biggest issue is that the memory interface runs at 100MHz regardless of FSB. So even if you use your own PCI VGA so you don't suffer from the bandwidth hit of integrated GMCH, with a 133MHz FSB like the P3-933EB you'll be bandwidth-starved with only 100MHz memory. If you *do * use integrated VGA, you only get half of that already throtled bandwidth. You would seriously be much better off with SiS 630 or Via PLE133 than one of these cynically limited monstrosities.

i820 has no ISA.

Some boards did implement it, with good DMA-supporting bridge chip. I have an Asus P3C-E here like that. Unfortunately the board's dead, but alive it would make a very attractive option.

My favorite and most used 440BX board is actually the Chaintech 6BTM, though I did like the ASUS P2B that came with my first PC as well. 6BTM was actually something of a lucky find as I got a small batch of those boards from a party that said "either you take them or into the bin they all go" , real nobrainer 😜

Tbh, given low availability, there's very little to choose between late i440BX boards that supported 1/4 PCI divider. Yes, if I had lots I could choose from I might take a particular model out of nostalgic or feature reasons, but if I didn't I'd go for whatever I could find and still worked. In the big scheme of things whatever differences there are between say the Asus P2B (past revision 1.12), Chaintech 6BTM, Abit BF6, AOpen AX6BC Pro etc are pretty irrelevant. Unless you want a specific PCB colour of course 😉

Stacy's?

dionb wrote on 2022-12-26, 12:48:

Tetrium wrote on 2022-12-26, 11:15:

For a P2 a 440BX chipsetted board is probably the best pick. […]
Show full quote

For a P2 a 440BX chipsetted board is probably the best pick.

H3nrik V! wrote on 2022-12-25, 22:47:

Furthermore, an i815 Slot-1 board is pretty much unobtainium ...

From top of my head, I remember just 1.
i810 slot 1 boards though should be easier to find. Whether or not I'd recommend them is another matter (lack of AGP being one of them).

Definitely. Compaq shipped a whole line of Deskpros with them (warning: these had the non-ATX pinout on ATX plug...) and they even appeared retail here and there - I recall the Gigabyte GA-6WMM.

Lack of AGP isn't only reason to avoid i810, in fact it rates quite low on the list. Biggest issue is that the memory interface runs at 100MHz regardless of FSB. So even if you use your own PCI VGA so you don't suffer from the bandwidth hit of integrated GMCH, with a 133MHz FSB like the P3-933EB you'll be bandwidth-starved with only 100MHz memory. If you *do * use integrated VGA, you only get half of that already throtled bandwidth. You would seriously be much better off with SiS 630 or Via PLE133 than one of these cynically limited monstrosities.

Even though I never tested i810 with a P2 myself, the limited bandwidths may be less of an issue with P2 since OP specified wanting to run his board with a P2. Still I wouldn't recommend getting an i810 chipsetted board either unless he has some really compelling reason to do so.
I have some i810 boards (some may actually be the boards you described, I know I have to be careful with OEM boards of that era! 😜 ) but why use i810 if i815 (for s370) and 440BX (for both, but mostly for slot 1) exist?

i820 has no ISA.

Some boards did implement it, with good DMA-supporting bridge chip. I have an Asus P3C-E here like that. Unfortunately the board's dead, but alive it would make a very attractive option.

Do you happen to know which bridge chips are considered the good ones?
I haven't seen this bridge chip much. I remember having only 1 board which must use such a bridge chip but that's a i815 board (s370 board from a Fujitsu-Siemens iirc, really liked that board)

My favorite and most used 440BX board is actually the Chaintech 6BTM, though I did like the ASUS P2B that came with my first PC as well. 6BTM was actually something of a lucky find as I got a small batch of those boards from a party that said "either you take them or into the bin they all go" , real nobrainer 😜

Tbh, given low availability, there's very little to choose between late i440BX boards that supported 1/4 PCI divider. Yes, if I had lots I could choose from I might take a particular model out of nostalgic or feature reasons, but if I didn't I'd go for whatever I could find and still worked. In the big scheme of things whatever differences there are between say the Asus P2B (past revision 1.12), Chaintech 6BTM, Abit BF6, AOpen AX6BC Pro etc are pretty irrelevant. Unless you want a specific PCB colour of course 😉

I was never much into overclocking 440BX, so it's never been one of my search criteria, so to say 😜
One of the things I liked about the 6BTM is that it has 4 DIMM slots. And I had tons of 64MB SDRAMs laying around (the ones with 8 chips on 1 side), so I tended to use these boards as working-system-small-DIMM-collectors.
Not all 6BTM boards work with Coppermine though.

Low availability is a thing these days indeed. I actually always just used whatever I happened to come across. I wouldn't have used those Chaintechs if I hadn't gotten a small stack of them basically thrown into my lap or I'd used something else.

My ASUS P2B was actually one of those 1.10 ones which does support Coppermine.

Btw, iirc there were some ASUS ME? boards that did support some of the lower clocked Coppermine Celerons? Back then ASUS did have quite a sound naming scheme when it comes to their CPU support though 😀

Nexxen wrote on 2022-12-26, 13:03:

Stacy's?

That sounds like the name of some snack bar or something 😜

magicmaxx85 wrote on 2022-12-24, 17:55:

Hi!, […]
Show full quote

Hi!,

I am currently building a pentium II a I have the possibility of acquiring the following mothers:

*Intel Se440bx-2.
*Intel Cc820
*Intel Al440lz

I would like to know which one do you recommend and why?

On the other hand, I already have two processors, one of 333 mhz and one of 400 mhz.

My idea is to install win 98 and run all the games from the mid 90's mainly. What processor do you recommend to install?

Thanks in advance!

Personally I'd probably get the CC820, as been pointed out it is something of an oddity. Intel SE440BX-2 should be a good board but it may be (artificially) limited by BIOS causing it to not support all faster CPUs even though the hardware should be able to handle them. Still I think if you're going with a P2 and not a Katmai, chances should be good it will work.

The Intel AL440LX (if this is the 3rd board on your list) should be able to work with your P2 333MHz at least, but again if it's a board from Intel (not just the chipset) it may also be limited by BIOS. I do want to clarify that with these particular Intel boards I cannot be certain which CPUs will work and which not as it may differ by what BIOS happens to be installed on them.

I have an Intel SE440BX-2 but never ended up using it because I have other 440BX boards available, circumventing the possiblility of the BIOS locking out certain CPU frequencies. Any 440LX should work almost as well as 440BX except you're gonna be limited to using 66MHz FSB CPUs (and in some cases the AGP slot may be troublesome using certain more power hungry graphics cards).

So in short, get both the 440BX and the CC820 boards 😜
But if you can get a different 440BX board from somewhere, chances are good it's gonna be a better pick.

Thank you all for taking the time to answer me, I already have the 440bx with me! I also got 2 vodoo2 to put in sli 😁, this continues in this post now I find myself deciding which agp board to put. Thank you!

Pentium II buid: 2 Vodoo 2 in SLI, recomended video card AGP.

Tetrium wrote on 2022-12-26, 14:11:

[...]

but again if it's a board from Intel (not just the chipset) it may also be limited by BIOS. I do want to clarify that with these particular Intel boards I cannot be certain which CPUs will work and which not as it may differ by what BIOS happens to be installed on them.

All three are Intel OEM boards, so that's not a decisive factor for the one or the other. The only tricky thing with the SE440BX(-2) is that there are multiple versions for different OEMs and each requires the exactly correct BIOS. Failing to use that will cause huge driver & IRQ issues with onboard hardware (particularly the Yamaha DS-XG sound chip, if present).

Tetrium wrote on 2022-12-26, 11:15:

For a P2 a 440BX chipsetted board is probably the best pick. […]
Show full quote

For a P2 a 440BX chipsetted board is probably the best pick.

H3nrik V! wrote on 2022-12-25, 22:47:

Gmlb256 wrote on 2022-12-25, 22:40:

+1

Third-party motherboards also allow one to adjust the CPU multiplier and/or FSB, useful for slowing down early PII CPUs which is handy for some speed-sensitive DOS games. I don't recommend the i815 chipset though as motherboards using it commonly lacks ISA slots.

Furthermore, an i815 Slot-1 board is pretty much unobtainium ...

From top of my head, I remember just 1.
i810 slot 1 boards though should be easier to find. Whether or not I'd recommend them is another matter (lack of AGP being one of them).
i820 has no ISA.
My favorite and most used 440BX board is actually the Chaintech 6BTM, though I did like the ASUS P2B that came with my first PC as well. 6BTM was actually something of a lucky find as I got a small batch of those boards from a party that said "either you take them or into the bin they all go" , real nobrainer 😜

Ehy Tetrium, thanks to a dear friend that helped me soldering, I just repaired an Asus P2B that exactly now I'm inside the bios for the first time.

I have a Chaintech 6BTM0 working in a P3 system, which one do you suggest me to take? The other one I want to sell cause I don't want to have two Slot 1 board.

The chaintech has the voltage regulator that seems not support Coppermine, perhaps the Asus can support them? I have a P2B rev 1.02.

biessea wrote on 2023-01-23, 10:39:

Ehy Tetrium, thanks to a dear friend that helped me soldering, I just repaired an Asus P2B that exactly now I'm inside the bios […]
Show full quote

Tetrium wrote on 2022-12-26, 11:15:

For a P2 a 440BX chipsetted board is probably the best pick. […]
Show full quote

For a P2 a 440BX chipsetted board is probably the best pick.

H3nrik V! wrote on 2022-12-25, 22:47:

Furthermore, an i815 Slot-1 board is pretty much unobtainium ...

From top of my head, I remember just 1.
i810 slot 1 boards though should be easier to find. Whether or not I'd recommend them is another matter (lack of AGP being one of them).
i820 has no ISA.
My favorite and most used 440BX board is actually the Chaintech 6BTM, though I did like the ASUS P2B that came with my first PC as well. 6BTM was actually something of a lucky find as I got a small batch of those boards from a party that said "either you take them or into the bin they all go" , real nobrainer 😜

Ehy Tetrium, thanks to a dear friend that helped me soldering, I just repaired an Asus P2B that exactly now I'm inside the bios for the first time.

I have a Chaintech 6BTM0 working in a P3 system, which one do you suggest me to take? The other one I want to sell cause I don't want to have two Slot 1 board.

The chaintech has the voltage regulator that seems not support Coppermine, perhaps the Asus can support them? I have a P2B rev 1.02.

rev 1.02 probably can't support Coppermine, but if you checked the voltage regulator of the Chaintech board, why not check the voltage regulator of the P2B?

I can't tell you what item to keep and what to get rid off, but if neither board supports Coppermine and I was in your position and I absolutely had to sell one of them, I'd probably sell the Asus board because 1) Asus seems to be a popular brand so maybe you can get a bit more money from it and 2) the Chaintech board is in an already working system and without any spare parts I wouldn't want to botch a working system up for no good reason.

Personally I would keep the second board for spare parts.

Ftr, my Asus P2B is a rev 1.10 which does support Coppermine.

Tetrium wrote on 2023-01-23, 11:41:

rev 1.02 probably can't support Coppermine, but if you checked the voltage regulator of the Chaintech board, why not check the v […]
Show full quote

biessea wrote on 2023-01-23, 10:39:

Ehy Tetrium, thanks to a dear friend that helped me soldering, I just repaired an Asus P2B that exactly now I'm inside the bios […]
Show full quote

Tetrium wrote on 2022-12-26, 11:15:

For a P2 a 440BX chipsetted board is probably the best pick. […]
Show full quote

For a P2 a 440BX chipsetted board is probably the best pick.

From top of my head, I remember just 1.
i810 slot 1 boards though should be easier to find. Whether or not I'd recommend them is another matter (lack of AGP being one of them).
i820 has no ISA.
My favorite and most used 440BX board is actually the Chaintech 6BTM, though I did like the ASUS P2B that came with my first PC as well. 6BTM was actually something of a lucky find as I got a small batch of those boards from a party that said "either you take them or into the bin they all go" , real nobrainer 😜

Ehy Tetrium, thanks to a dear friend that helped me soldering, I just repaired an Asus P2B that exactly now I'm inside the bios for the first time.

I have a Chaintech 6BTM0 working in a P3 system, which one do you suggest me to take? The other one I want to sell cause I don't want to have two Slot 1 board.

The chaintech has the voltage regulator that seems not support Coppermine, perhaps the Asus can support them? I have a P2B rev 1.02.

rev 1.02 probably can't support Coppermine, but if you checked the voltage regulator of the Chaintech board, why not check the voltage regulator of the P2B?

I can't tell you what item to keep and what to get rid off, but if neither board supports Coppermine and I was in your position and I absolutely had to sell one of them, I'd probably sell the Asus board because 1) Asus seems to be a popular brand so maybe you can get a bit more money from it and 2) the Chaintech board is in an already working system and without any spare parts I wouldn't want to botch a working system up for no good reason.

Personally I would keep the second board for spare parts.

Ftr, my Asus P2B is a rev 1.10 which does support Coppermine.

Ok, I understood, thanks for the hints.