First off CPU doesn't mater, as your probably aware Windows 98 doesn't understand multiple cores but it won't effect anything it simply ignores it. but you'll still benefit from increased clock speed and cache over an older single core CPU so typically your best option is the fastest CPU your chosen motherboard supports.

It's the motherboard's chipset that is the deciding factor. If we are looking at LGA775 and GF4 then that narrows down your options nicely as you'll want a motherboard with AGP and people here have kindly prepared a list.
LGA 775 Motherboards with AGP Slots

If your only installing Windows 98 any of the Intel 845, 848, 865, 875 based boards are good options. The differences in these options aren't important for Win98
If your dual booting WIn98/XP then the Intel boards marked with (5) are a better option as these support dual core CPU's.

You'll notice I'm only mentioning the Intel stuff and that's because Intel is the most trouble free, I'm no fanboy (I really wish AMD made better drivers) but that's just the way it is.

chinny22 wrote on 2023-05-23, 08:34:

First off CPU doesn't mater, as your probably aware Windows 98 doesn't understand multiple cores but it won't effect anything it […]
Show full quote

First off CPU doesn't mater, as your probably aware Windows 98 doesn't understand multiple cores but it won't effect anything it simply ignores it. but you'll still benefit from increased clock speed and cache over an older single core CPU so typically your best option is the fastest CPU your chosen motherboard supports.

It's the motherboard's chipset that is the deciding factor. If we are looking at LGA775 and GF4 then that narrows down your options nicely as you'll want a motherboard with AGP and people here have kindly prepared a list.
LGA 775 Motherboards with AGP Slots

If your only installing Windows 98 any of the Intel 845, 848, 865, 875 based boards are good options. The differences in these options aren't important for Win98
If your dual booting WIn98/XP then the Intel boards marked with (5) are a better option as these support dual core CPU's.

You'll notice I'm only mentioning the Intel stuff and that's because Intel is the most trouble free, I'm no fanboy (I really wish AMD made better drivers) but that's just the way it is.

Thanks a lot for your reply. Yes I am aware that Windows 98 does not support multi cores. That's why I asked if P4 would be the best cpu for LG Boad would be a Pentium 4. But good to know that are no negative effects on using a faster cpu with 98. I was fully aware that there would be no positive effects due to the fact there is no multi core support for Windows 98 but I can still benefit from the fastest cpu my future motherboard supports I will go for that route of course.

I will go mainly with Windows 98 for my first build, want to keep things as straightforward as possible btw.

cant you get a good solid stable GX270 ? it works fine with win98se.... (and GF4Titanium GPU)
* A P4 3.06Ghz or above will do quite fine , no need overclocking mess, better to be rock solid for 20 years (like the GX) than crash each day (on overclock).
BTW , for HT and Dual Core you need win2k at least.

Sempron3100+Gigabyte K8VT800M:

The good: cheap, still easy to find, works with setmul 4-9(800-1800mhz), l1 cache can be disabled, ddr speed can be lowered, HT speed can be lowered (for ms-dos games if you need), works with ESS Solo 1 (Tested/MB must have a VIA chipset !), works with Sbemu (if you don't have a Ess Solo). Has a 12v eps cpu connector so it works with new PSUs. USB legacy mouse support in dos from the bios, no special driver required (only the standard mouse driver). The system is 'rock solid' .

The bad: not as versatile as viaC3/k62/3 regarding speed sensitive older titles but makes up for that in newer more demanding ones. Lacks a ISA slot, so for audio you are stuck with a PCI sound card, The AGP slot is only 8x/4x compatible. Capacitors also, because is still a 'OLD' motherboard.

I also own a https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-8I865 … -G-RH-rev-1x#ov with a Pentium D925, works great also, but you can't modify the cpu multiplier, so it gets '-' points for that.

bogdanpaulb wrote on 2023-05-23, 09:07:

Sempron3100+Gigabyte K8VT800M:

The good: cheap, still easy to find, works with setmul 4-9(800-1800mhz), l1 cache can be disabled, ddr speed can be lowered, HT speed can be lowered (for ms-dos games if you need), works with ESS Solo 1 (Tested/MB must have a VIA chipset !), works with Sbemu (if you don't have a Ess Solo). Has a 12v eps cpu connector so it works with new PSUs. USB legacy mouse support in dos from the bios, no special driver required (only the standard mouse driver). The system is 'rock solid' .

Seconded. Used to have Gigabyte GA-K8VM800M, the same MB Phil uses in his channel for most Win9x games. After a faulty RAM module destroyed its BIOS I managed to find an Asus K8V-MX with the same chipset.

If you decide to go with a via chipset board read this: Re: Not Another Ultimate Windows 98 Build, there are some boards, many from Asus that tend to have some problems with the agp performance in windows98.

predator_085 wrote on 2023-05-23, 06:40:

I have read though that athlon cpus might have some driver issues with windows 98. The warning was rather cryptic though and I could not figure out if the warning was applied to all athlons or just for the xp or the 64 line.

It's not Athlon CPUs that have issues, it's certain motherboards with VIA chipsets. There's an excellent summary of the problem by @bloodem in this post. In short, affected systems have their GPU performance halved under Win9x compared to WinXP. This can sometimes be fixed by flashing the oldest available BIOS for the motherboard. This is how I was able to fix the problem on my Asus K8V-MX, but other people with different motherboards were not so lucky.

There's also another, unrelated issue with certain VIA chipsets which prevents them from detecting SATA III drives. This can be bypassed by either using a SATA to IDE adapter or finding drives which have a SATA I compatibility setting. Newer chipset revisions using the VT8237R Plus southbridge (the "plus" is important) are not affected by this.

Lastly, Athlon64 motherboards based on ULi and nForce chipsets don't suffer from either of these issues. But they have other quirks of their own, like nForce DOS sound card support being practically non-existent.

bogdanpaulb wrote on 2023-05-23, 09:07:

Sempron3100+Gigabyte K8VT800M: […]
Show full quote

Sempron3100+Gigabyte K8VT800M:

The good: cheap, still easy to find, works with setmul 4-9(800-1800mhz), l1 cache can be disabled, ddr speed can be lowered, HT speed can be lowered (for ms-dos games if you need), works with ESS Solo 1 (Tested/MB must have a VIA chipset !), works with Sbemu (if you don't have a Ess Solo). Has a 12v eps cpu connector so it works with new PSUs. USB legacy mouse support in dos from the bios, no special driver required (only the standard mouse driver). The system is 'rock solid' .

The bad: not as versatile as viaC3/k62/3 regarding speed sensitive older titles but makes up for that in newer more demanding ones. Lacks a ISA slot, so for audio you are stuck with a PCI sound card, The AGP slot is only 8x/4x compatible. Capacitors also, because is still a 'OLD' motherboard.

I also own a https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-8I865 … -G-RH-rev-1x#ov with a Pentium D925, works great also, but you can't modify the cpu multiplier, so it gets '-' points for that.

Thanks a lot for your advice. I will check out the link you posted in your other reply.

@dormcat Thanks for your suggestion as well

@Joseph_Joestar Ah I see. now I get the gist of the problem. I will read through the thread you linked asap to learn more about it.

@ediflorianUS I am not sure. I need check out the availabilty of the gx 270 boards.

Asus P5PE-VM is a nice s775 board for a rocket Windows 98 build and it's easy to find used.

ASRock 775i65G R3.0 was available brand new up until last year but seems to be out of production/stock now.

Skyscraper wrote on 2023-05-23, 14:56:

Asus P5PE-VM is a nice s775 board for a rocket Windows 98 build and it's easy to find and use.

ASRock 775i65G R3.0 was available brand new up until last year but seems to be out of production/stock now.

Thanks a lot for your recommendation. Both seem to be a good option.

Especially the Asus P5PE-VM is rather easy to find and does not cost a fortune.

It also has lots of different cpu options.

If I go for the Asus board, I would pick a Pentium 4.

The board also supports intel Celeron. Are the celeron cpu also worth considering or should I focus my search on the pentium4 in case I would get the Asus board?

@bogdanpaulb would you say that Athlon 64 3000 is also a good partner for the Gigabyte K8VT800M? I found an online offer where this CPU would be included in the motherboard.

predator_085 wrote on 2023-05-23, 16:29:

Thanks a lot for your recommendation. Both seem to be a good option. […]
Show full quote

Skyscraper wrote on 2023-05-23, 14:56:

Asus P5PE-VM is a nice s775 board for a rocket Windows 98 build and it's easy to find and use.

ASRock 775i65G R3.0 was available brand new up until last year but seems to be out of production/stock now.

Thanks a lot for your recommendation. Both seem to be a good option.

Especially the Asus P5PE-VM is rather easy to find and does not cost a fortune.

It also has lots of different cpu options.

If I go for the Asus board, I would pick a Pentium 4.

The board also supports intel Celeron. Are the celeron cpu also worth considering or should I focus my search on the pentium4 in case I would get the Asus board?

@bogdanpaulb would you say that Athlon 64 3000 is also a good partner for the Gigabyte K8VT800M? I found an online offer where this CPU would be included in the motherboard.

Yes, but it depends on what will you use the pc for. If you want dos and win98 or win98 only(no XP) there is no point in going with a 'high tier' cpu. You will have a lot of heat generation for no reason. In the pictures you have the same video card running on the Sempron kit (win98) and the 775 kit(winXP). I prefer the much cooler/colder Sempron.

Skyscraper wrote on 2023-05-23, 14:56:

ASRock 775i65G R3.0 was available brand new up until last year but seems to be out of production/stock now.

Ahh, the famous ASRock 775i65G R3.0: another "end of an era" product suitable for squeezing three very different OS (Win9x / WinXP / Win7+, roughly 1999-2009) into one single build, similar to Tualatin Pentium III-S 1.4 GHz. With lots of compromises, that is.

bogdanpaulb wrote on 2023-05-23, 16:49:

predator_085 wrote on 2023-05-23, 16:29:

Thanks a lot for your recommendation. Both seem to be a good option. […]
Show full quote

Skyscraper wrote on 2023-05-23, 14:56:

Asus P5PE-VM is a nice s775 board for a rocket Windows 98 build and it's easy to find and use.

ASRock 775i65G R3.0 was available brand new up until last year but seems to be out of production/stock now.

Thanks a lot for your recommendation. Both seem to be a good option.

Especially the Asus P5PE-VM is rather easy to find and does not cost a fortune.

It also has lots of different cpu options.

If I go for the Asus board, I would pick a Pentium 4.

The board also supports intel Celeron. Are the celeron cpu also worth considering or should I focus my search on the pentium4 in case I would get the Asus board?

@bogdanpaulb would you say that Athlon 64 3000 is also a good partner for the Gigabyte K8VT800M? I found an online offer where this CPU would be included in the motherboard.

Yes, but it depends on what will you use the pc for. If you want dos and win98 or win98 only(no XP) there is no point in going with a 'high tier' cpu. You will have a lot of heat generation for no reason. In the pictures, you have the same video card running on the Sempron kit (win98) and the 775 kit(winXP). I prefer the much cooler/colder Sempron.

Windows XP is not planned. Mainly Windows 98 and maybe a bit of Dos gaming. I agree that using a powerful CPU that generates more heat without any real performance gain does not sound useful. It would be not a problem to get the Sempron 3100 btw. They are quite common and also do not cost much.

@Dormcat Thanks for your input as well.

I think when building a retro pc some compromises cannot be avoided. There is no perfect Win 98 gaming pc or is it? I have found too many different potential configurations suggestions to believe that there is such a thing

That‘s the fun part of building your own rig. The perfect Win98 PC is the one you are going to build yourself. When you‘re done, you realize that a PC with a 3dfx card would actually be awesome…so you build another one.
And you‘ll end up with 6 Win95/98 machines, like me.
But the one I use the most is a Pentium III 600 with a Voodoo 5 5500 on a P3B-F board. I have a much faster one, but for me this one really is fast enough, it runs all my games smoothly.

My first Win95 PC was a Dell P133. After that one I owned alot of Athlon machines, and also bought 2 Voodoo 2 cards because you had to have SLI. Then I bought a Voodoo 5 but dropped it for a Radeon 9700 Pro.

Kouwes wrote on 2023-05-24, 04:38:

That‘s the fun part of building your own rig. The perfect Win98 PC is the one you are going to build yourself. When you‘re done, […]
Show full quote

That‘s the fun part of building your own rig. The perfect Win98 PC is the one you are going to build yourself. When you‘re done, you realize that a PC with a 3dfx card would actually be awesome…so you build another one.
And you‘ll end up with 6 Win95/98 machines, like me.
But the one I use the most is a Pentium III 600 with a Voodoo 5 5500 on a P3B-F board. I have a much faster one, but for me this one really is fast enough, it runs all my games smoothly.

My first Win95 PC was a Dell P133. After that one I owned alot of Athlon machines, and also bought 2 Voodoo 2 cards because you had to have SLI. Then I bought a Voodoo 5 but dropped it for a Radeon 9700 Pro.

for me, it was a Packard Bell 486DX2-66 PC that had Win95. and after that, a Gateway Pentium 3 that ran Win98, then ran WinXP. later swapped the board with a ASUS CUSL2-C with a P3 933 since i disliked the BIOS on that board, and reinstalled 98 SE back on it.

Kouwes wrote on 2023-05-24, 04:38:

That‘s the fun part of building your own rig. The perfect Win98 PC is the one you are going to build yourself. When you‘re done, […]
Show full quote

That‘s the fun part of building your own rig. The perfect Win98 PC is the one you are going to build yourself. When you‘re done, you realize that a PC with a 3dfx card would actually be awesome…so you build another one.
And you‘ll end up with 6 Win95/98 machines, like me.
But the one I use the most is a Pentium III 600 with a Voodoo 5 5500 on a P3B-F board. I have a much faster one, but for me this one really is fast enough, it runs all my games smoothly.

My first Win95 PC was a Dell P133. After that one I owned alot of Athlon machines, and also bought 2 Voodoo 2 cards because you had to have SLI. Then I bought a Voodoo 5 but dropped it for a Radeon 9700 Pro.

I think so too. That is really the most fun part of it to find out by oneself what is necessary to make your Win98 PC. It also very nice for me to learn about modern opinions and more contemporary ones. Besides learning about the opinion of modern retro pc enthusiasts it is also nice to read through my old collection of german pc mags again to find the right motherboard for me. There so many differenct options to try figure out. It is amazing.

I also have to agree that I am also rather intrigued by the 3dfx card. Could never get one when they were new and having sli vodoo 2 machine would be one of my childhood/teen dreams.

With the prices of the voodoo cards at the moment I will postpone that dream for later and for my first build I will focus on more available parts at a better price. At one point having a vodoo 2 sli, or v3, or maybe even a v4 or vf machine would be great thing. Only time will tell if I can achieve that. I hope so.

@ediflorianUS Did some research in the meantime. The dell gx 270 would be still available online. Can be a bit more expensive than the others options that are recommend here but I will put it on my list.

My vote goes to the Asus A7V600-X. 😀
But, as others have mentioned, there are other good platforms out there, and what 'is best' for you will depend on many variables.
But generally speaking, the A7V600-X with a Thoroughbred Athlon XP CPU should cover all the bases for DOS, early + late Win98 and even early WinXP gaming.

If, on the other hand, you are not interested in having a "time machine" that also has good speed flexibility capabilities (mostly useful for DOS), and you simply want to play newer Win98 games, then there are better options out there. In that case, I vote to go all out and buy an ultra-overkill Win98 build, with an AGP motherboard like the Asrock 775i65g rev 2.x/3.x and a Core 2 Duo/Pentium Dual Core CPU (if you can find these motherboards for a decent price, which is not a given these days). Not only will this build be very fast, very stable and power efficient, but you can use modern CPU coolers and modern power supplies. It. will. just. work.

And... the list can go on, and on, and on. 😀 It really depends on what you're after.

bloodem wrote on 2023-05-24, 06:32:

My vote goes to the Asus A7V600-X. :-) But, as others have mentioned, there are other good platforms out there, and what 'is bes […]
Show full quote

My vote goes to the Asus A7V600-X. 😀
But, as others have mentioned, there are other good platforms out there, and what 'is best' for you will depend on many variables.
But generally speaking, the A7V600-X with a Thoroughbred Athlon XP CPU should cover all the bases for DOS, early + late Win98 and even early WinXP gaming.

If, on the other hand, you are not interested in having a "time machine" that also has good speed flexibility capabilities (mostly useful for DOS), and you simply want to play newer Win98 games, then there are better options out there. In that case, I vote to go all out and buy an ultra-overkill Win98 build, with an AGP motherboard like the Asrock 775i65g rev 2.x/3.x and a Core 2 Duo/Pentium Dual Core CPU (if you can find these motherboards for a decent price, which is not a given these days).

And... the list can go on, and on, and on. 😀 It really depends on what you're after.

Thanks for your help. The DOS question is tricky. In general I am totally into later DOS games and having a rig with real DOS features would be great but I think I will use the rig more Windows 98 games and only from time to time for DOS.

This brings me to another question. Would be possible to use DOS box on retro pc? I played around with the DOS box on my modern ryzen 3 rig and besides weird sound glitches the games were running ok

The DOS Box could even emulate for 3dfx look for the first Tomb Raider. I just knew the Playstation and Sega Saturn Version and DOS version locked so much better. It was cool.

In case if I can run DOS box on my upcoming retro rig minus the sound problems I would be more than happy.

What do you think what would be better? Focusing on pure Win 98 machine and use DOS Box for DOS or would be a time machine rig with real DOS capabilities a better choice?

predator_085 wrote on 2023-05-24, 06:39:

This brings me to another question. Would be possible to use DOS box on retro pc? I played around with the DOS box on my modern […]
Show full quote

This brings me to another question. Would be possible to use DOS box on retro pc? I played around with the DOS box on my modern ryzen 3 rig and besides weird sound glitches the games were running ok

The DOS Box could even emulate for 3dfx look for the first Tomb Raider. I just knew the Playstation and Sega Saturn Version and DOS version locked so much better. It was cool.

In case if I can run DOS box on my upcoming retro rig minus the sound problems I would be more than happy.

What do you think what would be better? Focusing on pure Win 98 machine and use DOS Box for DOS or would be a time machine rig with real DOS capabilities a better choice?

IMO, using DOSBox on a retro PC just... completely defeats the purpose of having a retro PC in the first place. Also, keep in mind that more demanding games will require beefier CPUs to properly emulate the faster hardware.
Bottom line, it's best to run DOSBox on modern systems only, that's where it makes the most sense.