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First post, by psychofox

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I plan to do a tualatin build and i have 2 very similar motherboards>

Epox EP-3VSM - this one i have used years ago and it was quite good and stable board. But if i recall correctly, it did not support high end tualatin processors.
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/epox-pronix-ep-3vsm

and i recently got this baby:
Chaintech 6VIA5T
Changed couple bulged caps and it works.

Which one would you choose and why?

Reply 1 of 4, by zyga64

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Epox board has newer bios available (02/07/2002), and retroweb page you've linked says it supports almost (Mendocino is the exception) everything Socket 370 (even fastest Intel Pentium III-S 1400).
So my bet is on Epox.

1) VLSI SCAMP /286@20 /4M /CL-GD5422 /CMI8330
2) i420EX /486DX33 /16M /TGUI9440 /GUS+ALS100+MT32PI
3) i430FX /K6-2@400 /64M /Rage Pro PCI /ES1370+YMF718
4) i440BX /P!!!750 /256M /MX440 /SBLive!
5) iB75 /3470s /4G /HD7750 /HDA

Reply 3 of 4, by dionb

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zyga64 wrote on 2023-08-09, 08:53:

Epox board has newer bios available (02/07/2002), and retroweb page you've linked says it supports almost (Mendocino is the exception) everything Socket 370 (even fastest Intel Pentium III-S 1400).
So my bet is on Epox.

No FC-PGA2 board will support PPGA Mendocino, and both support all Coppermine and Tualatin CPUs so that's not a reason to choose between the two.

These are essentially identical boards with same chipset, same features, same layout.

One is green, the other brown. I'd choose based on colour...

Edit: not quite same layout. I probably prefer ATX connector placement on the Epox board.

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