The Athlon 1600 and KT266 with a Geforce 4 would make for a pretty good Win98 gaming rig and the extra processing power will come in handy if you hit a more demanding game or want to play in a higher resolution.

Athlon XP 1600+ with DDR is much faster than PIII 1Ghz. The extra speed isn't really necessary in Windows 98, but it isn't good enough for Windows XP. Since you won't get the benefit of an ISA sound card in DOS, I would go with the Athlon XP. GeForce 4 MX 440 will be sufficient. As for motherboard, I would choose Asrock K7S8XE as it supports higher FSB, provided caps are in good shape.

My PIII 900 is good enough for games up to 2002.

AlexZ wrote on 2023-06-26, 20:04:

Athlon XP 1600+ with DDR is much faster than PIII 1Ghz. The extra speed isn't really necessary in Windows 98, but it isn't good enough for Windows XP. Since you won't get the benefit of an ISA sound card in DOS, I would go with the Athlon XP. GeForce 4 MX 440 will be sufficient. As for the motherboard, I would choose Asrock K7S8XE as it supports higher FSB, provided the caps are in good shape.

My PIII 900 is good enough for games up to 2002.

Thanks for your reply. It is going to be a win 98se machine only. I would need much more horsepower for a serious win xp gaming machine.

Having some extra power even when not needed is neat, so going with the Athlon would be the best way.

I do not think that there is anything wrong with the Pentium 3 but if I have the chance to get something more powerful I should take it.

Trashbytes wrote on 2023-06-26, 16:27:

The Athlon 1600 and KT266 with a Geforce 4 would make for a pretty good Win98 gaming rig and the extra processing power will come in handy if you hit a more demanding game or want to play in a higher resolution.

And here we have another vote for the Athlon. Thanks for your reply as well. I also think that a Gf 4 would be a perfect partner for my needs.

My favorite would be the GF 4 4200. or the MX 440.

Despite the fact that the Mx 440 is not a real GF 4 (it lacks some of the main features), the low price makes it still attractive to a certain degree.

I really do not need the pixel shader of the real gf 4 cards because the games I am into do not support that technology anyway.

But you also never now if you might not get interested in more modern games either. If that's the case the more advanced real GF 4 would be the smarter choice.

predator_085 wrote on 2023-06-26, 20:13:

Thanks for your reply. It is going to be a win 98se machine only. I would need much more horsepower for a serious win xp gaming […]
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AlexZ wrote on 2023-06-26, 20:04:

Athlon XP 1600+ with DDR is much faster than PIII 1Ghz. The extra speed isn't really necessary in Windows 98, but it isn't good enough for Windows XP. Since you won't get the benefit of an ISA sound card in DOS, I would go with the Athlon XP. GeForce 4 MX 440 will be sufficient. As for the motherboard, I would choose Asrock K7S8XE as it supports higher FSB, provided the caps are in good shape.

My PIII 900 is good enough for games up to 2002.

Thanks for your reply. It is going to be a win 98se machine only. I would need much more horsepower for a serious win xp gaming machine.

Having some extra power even when not needed is neat, so going with the Athlon would be the best way.

I do not think that there is anything wrong with the Pentium 3 but if I have the chance to get something more powerful I should take it.

Trashbytes wrote on 2023-06-26, 16:27:

The Athlon 1600 and KT266 with a Geforce 4 would make for a pretty good Win98 gaming rig and the extra processing power will come in handy if you hit a more demanding game or want to play in a higher resolution.

And here we have another vote for the Athlon. Thanks for your reply as well. I also think that a Gf 4 would be a perfect partner for my needs.

My favorite would be the GF 4 4200. or the MX 440.

Despite the fact that the Mx 440 is not a real GF 4 (it lacks some of the main features), the low price makes it still attractive to a certain degree.

I really do not need the pixel shader of the real gf 4 cards because the games I am into do not support that technology anyway.

But you also never now if you might not get interested in more modern games either. If that's the case the more advanced real GF 4 would be the smarter choice.

The Ti4200 is a great cheap card that could happily handle more modern games if you wanted to try some eye candy, its also go extra power to spare to keep the older games running in a high resolution without sacrificing FPS. Pretty sure you could get a Ti4200 cheaper than a MX440 🤣 people for whatever reason ignore the poor Ti4200 so sellers are happy to offload them at pretty cheap prices. (I would grab a 64Mb model with the faster memory, but for this rig I doubt it matters much if you went with the 128Mb model which has slower memory)

I'd say it depends on what you want. If your are into rather peroid correct 90s gaming rig than a pentium 3 is the right choice but if you want to get the most out of your options the more powerful athlon is the the way to go.

I have hp system with a p3 800 mhz and I like it. The cpu will be replaced with 1 ghz coppermine at some point in the future but even 800mhz is decent for late 90s gaming.

I cannot say though if is the best peroid correct solution. Had never a chance to compare the p3 800 mhz with the competition.

The only drawback of the p3 800 mhz is that is starts to show its age with games from 2000.

Very good for 97,98 and 99 games but 2000s game are a different beast. These games from 2000 are still playable but you can feel that a more powerful cpu would be good idea.

So go for the most powerful option if you want to be on the save side and play your games in the best possible quality.

good luck with your search.

Trashbytes wrote on 2023-06-27, 01:55:

predator_085 wrote on 2023-06-26, 20:13:

Thanks for your reply. It is going to be a win 98se machine only. I would need much more horsepower for a serious win xp gaming […]
Show full quote

AlexZ wrote on 2023-06-26, 20:04:

Athlon XP 1600+ with DDR is much faster than PIII 1Ghz. The extra speed isn't really necessary in Windows 98, but it isn't good enough for Windows XP. Since you won't get the benefit of an ISA sound card in DOS, I would go with the Athlon XP. GeForce 4 MX 440 will be sufficient. As for the motherboard, I would choose Asrock K7S8XE as it supports higher FSB, provided the caps are in good shape.

My PIII 900 is good enough for games up to 2002.

Thanks for your reply. It is going to be a win 98se machine only. I would need much more horsepower for a serious win xp gaming machine.

Having some extra power even when not needed is neat, so going with the Athlon would be the best way.

I do not think that there is anything wrong with the Pentium 3 but if I have the chance to get something more powerful I should take it.

Trashbytes wrote on 2023-06-26, 16:27:

The Athlon 1600 and KT266 with a Geforce 4 would make for a pretty good Win98 gaming rig and the extra processing power will come in handy if you hit a more demanding game or want to play in a higher resolution.

And here we have another vote for the Athlon. Thanks for your reply as well. I also think that a Gf 4 would be a perfect partner for my needs.

My favorite would be the GF 4 4200. or the MX 440.

Despite the fact that the Mx 440 is not a real GF 4 (it lacks some of the main features), the low price makes it still attractive to a certain degree.

I really do not need the pixel shader of the real gf 4 cards because the games I am into do not support that technology anyway.

But you also never now if you might not get interested in more modern games either. If that's the case the more advanced real GF 4 would be the smarter choice.

The Ti4200 is a great cheap card that could happily handle more modern games if you wanted to try some eye candy, its also go extra power to spare to keep the older games running in a high resolution without sacrificing FPS. Pretty sure you could get a Ti4200 cheaper than a MX440 🤣 people for whatever reason ignore the poor Ti4200 so sellers are happy to offload them at pretty cheap prices. (I would grab a 64Mb model with the faster memory, but for this rig I doubt it matters much if you went with the 128Mb model which has slower memory)

Thanks for the info. I will look into the ti 4200 deaper until I find a card at a good price and then i will grab it asap. I also have the feeling the GF 4 ti 4200 is the perfect card for the rig. Very suitable for older games and still powerful enough to play some more modern games from 2000 and beyond.

retep_110 wrote on 2023-06-27, 07:20:

I'd say it depends on what you want. If your are into rather peroid correct 90s gaming rig than a pentium 3 is the right choice […]
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I'd say it depends on what you want. If your are into rather peroid correct 90s gaming rig than a pentium 3 is the right choice but if you want to get the most out of your options the more powerful athlon is the the way to go.

I have hp system with a p3 800 mhz and I like it. The cpu will be replaced with 1 ghz coppermine at some point in the future but even 800mhz is decent for late 90s gaming.

I cannot say though if is the best peroid correct solution. Had never a chance to compare the p3 800 mhz with the competition.

The only drawback of the p3 800 mhz is that is starts to show its age with games from 2000.

Very good for 97,98 and 99 games but 2000s game are a different beast. These games from 2000 are still playable but you can feel that a more powerful cpu would be good idea.

So go for the most powerful option if you want to be on the save side and play your games in the best possible quality.

good luck with your search.

That's a good point to think about what I want. My main goal is to play the games in the best possible quality. Having rather period correct rig would be also cool. Never had Pentium 3 but always wanted one. But if the Pentium 3 starts to show it's age from 2000 and beyond then getting the more powerful powerful athlon xp is the better choice.

Athlon / Socket A systems are also generally cheaper.
Probably still not old enough or underrated.

As it was previously mentioned, it can be hard to find a motherboard without faulty capacitors.
Socket A are probably the most affected motherboards. I have 2 or 3 socket A systems with good caps.... and i probably sent 5 or 6 more to the trash.

I agree for Ti 4200 or MX440. Very good choices.
MX440 is DX7 while Ti4200 is DX8. So it will depend on what games you want to play.
Both are cheap. But MX440 is super cheap. (<=10€. Be sure to get a 128bit, avoid low profile / fanless ones)

acl wrote on 2023-06-27, 13:24:

Athlon / Socket A systems are also generally cheaper. Probably still not old enough or underrated. […]
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Athlon / Socket A systems are also generally cheaper.
Probably still not old enough or underrated.

As it was previously mentioned, it can be hard to find a motherboard without faulty capacitors.
Socket A are probably the most affected motherboards. I have 2 or 3 socket A systems with good caps.... and i probably sent 5 or 6 more to the trash.

I agree for Ti 4200 or MX440. Very good choices.
MX440 is DX7 while Ti4200 is DX8. So it will depend on what games you want to play.
Both are cheap. But MX440 is super cheap. (<=10€. Be sure to get a 128bit, avoid low profile / fanless ones)

Thx for the warning about the caps. Luckily the individual in question has motherboards in good condition. So the caps are not a problem yet.

And like I said in general the mx 440 would be good enough for me because I am mostly interested in DX 7 games but you you never can rule out the possibility that I might get interested in some more modern games.

So the Gf 4 ti 4200 would be the safer choice.

@predator If you high quality gaming without any compromises is your main goal then the answer to your question is really simple. Purchase the Athlon system and go with the GF 4200.

You could also take close look at the ati readeon 8500 or 9000 series. They should be rather powerful as well and are not that expensive. But keep in mind that the radeon cards might lack some legacy features for old games.

athlon xp cpus still tend to be affordable. i picked up an xp 1800 palomino a couple months ago for $6 total shipped. you could easily bump that system to an xp 2500 barton or higher.

stanwebber wrote on 2023-06-28, 14:19:

athlon xp cpus still tend to be affordable. i picked up an xp 1800 palomino a couple months ago for $6 total shipped. you could easily bump that system to an xp 2500 barton or higher.

That's not a bad idea. It did not occur to me but after checking out the prices you are right. It would not cost a fortune to upgrade to xp 2500 or higher.

Having more cpu power is always a great thing. The gf 4 4200 should still be a good companion for a high-powered barton system I guess?

I remember Ti4200 + Barton 2500 being the classic bang-for-your-buck gaming combination back in the day. Or Radeon 9600 Pro, if you were able to stretch your budget and spend an extra $50 or so.
Funnily enough, Radeon 9600 Pros are now much cheaper than Ti4200s.

Standard Def Steve wrote on 2023-06-28, 15:21:

I remember Ti4200 + Barton 2500 being the classic bang-for-your-buck gaming combination back in the day. Or Radeon 9600 Pro, if you were able to stretch your budget and spend an extra $50 or so.
Funnily enough, Radeon 9600 Pros are now much cheaper than Ti4200s.

I remember having a XP2400 with a 9600XT and it was a stupidly good combination back then, the 9600XT was far more powerful than it deserved to be for how little it cost.

I still have that 9600XT and it still works perfectly to this day, best tech purchase ever.

I would happily recommend getting a 9600XT if you can find one at a similar price to the Ti4200, the only caveat is that its not quite as compatible with some older DX games but IIRC most of them have workarounds available for a few of the glaring bugs, table fog I think is the only one that cant be fixed or is it paletted textures. (neither is game breaking and games will run just fine without them)

Still totally worth a look if you don't mind doing work around's or games not looking 100% nvidia correct.

Now im getting all nostalgic . .I really want to build that system again, had so many great gaming memories with it .. I do have a XP2400 and the 9600XT along with a Athlon XP PSU with 57 AMPs on the +5v rail...hmmm, wonder if a Abit NF7-S would be the right motherboard. (Cant remember what board the original had in it)

Standard Def Steve wrote on 2023-06-28, 15:21:

I remember Ti4200 + Barton 2500 being the classic bang-for-your-buck gaming combination back in the day. Or Radeon 9600 Pro, if you were able to stretch your budget and spend an extra $50 or so.
Funnily enough, Radeon 9600 Pros are now much cheaper than Ti4200s.

Thanks for your the info. No I would mind stretching a budget overall for 9600pro. It seems to really great card and like you said the prices for the 9600 pro are quite good at the moment. I really need to use the chance.

=Trashbytes post_id=1174087 time=1687967828 user_id=51494] […]
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=Trashbytes post_id=1174087 time=1687967828 user_id=51494]

Standard Def Steve wrote on 2023-06-28, 15:21:

I remember Ti4200 + Barton 2500 being the classic bang-for-your-buck gaming combination back in the day. Or Radeon 9600 Pro, if you were able to stretch your budget and spend an extra $50 or so.
Funnily enough, Radeon 9600 Pros are now much cheaper than Ti4200s.

I remember having a XP2400 with a 9600XT and it was a stupidly good combination back then, the 9600XT was far more powerful than it deserved to be for how little it cost.

I still have that 9600XT and it still works perfectly to this day, best tech purchase ever.

I would happily recommend getting a 9600XT if you can find one at a similar price to the Ti4200, the only caveat is that its not quite as compatible with some older DX games but IIRC most of them have workarounds available for a few of the glaring bugs, table fog I think is the only one that cant be fixed or is it paletted textures. (neither is game breaking and games will run just fine without them)

Still totally worth a look if you don't mind doing work around's or games not looking 100% nvidia correct.

Now im getting all nostalgic . .I really want to build that system again, had so many great gaming memories with it .. I do have a XP2400 and the 9600XT along with a Athlon XP PSU with 57 AMPs on the +5v rail...hmmm, wonder if a Abit NF7-S would be the right motherboard. (Cant remember what board the original had in it)

Thanks for your recommendation as well. And also thx for your warning. I am aware that some legacy features are not supported by the Radeon cards but I need to look deeper into that matter to find out how important these features are too me and how I can work around those problems.

The price situation of the 9600pro is quite good. I have already found a GeCube 9600pro Ati Radeon that does not cost more than the Geforce 4 4200.

The main advantage of the 9600 pro would be the bigger ram. The 4200 ti models I have seen so far where to 64 mb version and not the 128mb version.

Trashbytes wrote on 2023-06-28, 15:57:

I still have that 9600XT and it still works perfectly to this day, best tech purchase ever.

Had one too. Paired with an Athlon64 3000+ s939.
But the card died and i replaced it with a n FX5700...
that died so i replaced it with a 7600GS...
that died so i replaces my entire system because it was now outdated and seemed to kill graphics cards...

My brother bought the same A64 but went with PCIe instead of AGP and used an X600 Pro... which is the PCIe twin of the 9600 Pro (so slower than the XT. Take that ! little bro)

I am team nvidia (just recently got elsa geforce 3 and a gainward geforce 4 ti 4200 64 mb model to replace the riva tnt 2 in my asus p2b system) but when researching about a suitable graphics card th 9600pro from Ati also got my attention. Seems to great card, just could not find one at good price.

I have also read the 9000 series can overheat easisly but I am not sure if the 9600pro is involved in that issue as well. Most warnings were mainly about the 9800pro. So maybe the 9600 is a different animal.

When I was researching about the 9000 series I seems that only the 9800pro has the overheating issues. I could not find any article that was saying the same stuff about earlier cards. This does not mean anything of course because my search was rather superfical. You need to look deeper into the matter to be absolutely sure.

retep_110 wrote on 2023-06-29, 07:13:

When I was researching about the 9000 series I seems that only the 9800pro has the overheating issues. I could not find any article that was saying the same stuff about earlier cards. This does not mean anything of course because my search was rather superfical. You need to look deeper into the matter to be absolutely sure.

Thanks for the warning about potential over heating problems. I will look into that matter asap.

predator_085 wrote on 2023-06-29, 08:15:

retep_110 wrote on 2023-06-29, 07:13:

When I was researching about the 9000 series I seems that only the 9800pro has the overheating issues. I could not find any article that was saying the same stuff about earlier cards. This does not mean anything of course because my search was rather superfical. You need to look deeper into the matter to be absolutely sure.

Thanks for the warning about potential over heating problems. I will look into that matter asap.

Only the 9700 and 9800 series cards had heating issues, this was due to the stupid metal shim ATI added to the edge of the GPU die for these models, the late model 9800 Pro/XT models had a slightly modified setup so didn't suffer as badly as the 9700 Pro did. This is one of the main reasons people here wont recommend these cards as 90% of the time 9700/9800 cards bought second hand will either be dead or dying and any that are still working will likely need cooler modding by the new owner to keep them that way.

The other issue that you can run across with working cards is you get one that has been overclocked heavily which was done back in the day as these cards were excellent overclockers, this in hindsight wasn't great for the cards due to the previously mentioned cooler issues and even with a fixed cooler the overclocked working cards can have a shorter life span. (Though if they are still working after 20 years its a good chance they will keep doing so if looked after)

That said, the 9700 Pro and 9800 Pro/XT cards are exceptionally good cards so known working/tested good cards sell for high prices. I my self have a 9800 XT in working condition and if you are willing to take the required steps at modding the cooler its a great card with a ton of power.

Just if you do get a working one by chance or sheer luck .. don't overclock the old girl, mod the cooler and enjoy one of the truly great ATI cards.