I was surprised to find that it's a Pentium II, as I thought all SL3s were Pentium IIIs. Is it an OEM CPU?

http://www.cpu-world.com/sspec/SL/SL358.html

looks like a retail CPU to me?

I'm not sure. I knew some of the very last Pentium IIs used SECC2, but I always thought they were "special" versions. I also didn't know that some very late Pentium IIs also have SL3 serial numbers. I have a late-generation Pentium II 450; it's SL2U7 and uses SECC1. I replaced it with the SL364, which is a Pentium III.

by what I can tell, this is the fastest PII ever made. *shrug* either way it's exactly what I wanted. 😀

If I'm interpreting this correctly, it looks like both your SL358 and my SL2U7 are OEM CPUs.

hm looks like you're right.

AdamP wrote:

I'm not sure. I knew some of the very last Pentium IIs used SECC2, but I always thought they were "special" versions. I also didn't know that some very late Pentium IIs also have SL3 serial numbers. I have a late-generation Pentium II 450; it's SL2U7 and uses SECC1. I replaced it with the SL364, which is a Pentium III.

My CPU is labeled SL356, in cheap SECC2 packaging, and as far as I know it's still a Pentium 2. And it's not that special really.

To me they are rather special because they were released at the same time more or less as the voodoo2 so I can build at least a speed-faithful voodoo2 "new computer" someone could have built at that time.

Good deal, glad you got the board you wanted. That was a good price on the lot of parts too. 😀

I bought an SECC2 PII-400 new back in 1999. I remember being really confused when I got the thing, because it looked and felt like such a piece of shit. I also found it pretty odd that it was manufactured in Ireland. I don't recall that my chip was able to overclock very well (probably because it still didn't have integrated L2 cache), and I seem to recall it was a little difficult finding a proper heat sink at the time (mine was OEM).
I didn't keep it very long, and ended up trading it off to someone else. Not long after it was sold, it simply stopped working. I would guess damage to to exposed core. I never understood why it took those cheap jerks at intel so bloody long to include heat spreaders on their new chips.

Bargain! Well done 😀

GA6-BXE... damn good stuff

AdamP wrote:

If I'm interpreting this correctly, it looks like both your SL358 and my SL2U7 are OEM CPUs.

The problem with that is the BX moniker identifies it as a boxed retail processor... I shall see if it is that when I get it, as the auction has no pictures. The only one with the SL358 according to cpu-world (which has been wrong with other cpus before including one I have now) is a BX moniker CPU.

also, thank you all for being so kind! 😊 not many places will you get congrats for buying old hardware, but I am quite pumped about getting this, as many of you would prolly be too! I think I finally found a place where my love of old hardware is not alone. 😁

sgt76 wrote:

GA6-BXE... damn good stuff

That is my fav mainboard, one of the very few BX's that goes as low as 50MHz with the FSB speed.

Congrats on the terrific haul. Having a pair of matching drives is awesome too. I have a matching backup HDD for both my retro rigs along with drive images, so if one goes, POW, I'm back in business.

Congratulations for being such a jammy *** 😉. All that for £12! And I wish my 440BX boards had FSB speed selection.

And I can't seem to find further info on whether the SL358's retail or OEM. I guess you'll just have to wait and see...

You got everything for an ultimate 1998 P2 rig. You probably got your own plan but I would do:
GA6BXE, 1gb sdram (just for 🤣), P2 450 @ 504mhz (112mhz bus), Matrox G200, Voodoo 2 SLI, SB AWE64, raid card- Promise or something like that, 2x IDE in raid (good use for your Fujitsus!), the usual floppy and cd drives, period correct Enlight tower + 300w psu and Win98SE modded with WINME or SPSE2. Wooo.... sweet.

Personally too, I prefer Slot 1 boards to s370. They seem so much more robustly built...

I havent decided on agp video yet, but I am thinking pretty strongly on putting a simple rage128 in there along with the v2 pair.
As for the sound card, I am still going with an sb16 isa jumpered version. This will be the system I play the bulk of my old games on including most DOS games, and that card is one I had used all the way up until 2000 back in the day.
I will definitely leave the 1GB in, but I will not usually OC this... the beauty of the DIP switches is when I need/want more performance its just a couple of flips and off I go.
I will probably want to stick in an extra ultra33 card, but I have had nothing but problems with the promise ata controllers ever since they were new, so I will definitely not be using one of them, and I simply prefer JBOD and always have, call me simple if you want. I will have DOS 6.22, win95, win2000, and winxp installed on this box for various games and moods.
I have this slot loading dvdrom drive with a beige face I have been saving for just the right system, and this is definitely it. I will try to find a decent cdrw drive for this too, eventually... maybe I can find an old 50 pin SCSI plextor or something.
I definitely want to find another case, but for now the one I used for the p200mmx will house this. It's clean, mostly nice looking, and somewhat period correct in appearance. The fsp 250w with healthy 5v rail will run this system for now.

Sounds like a plan to me. And the Rage 128 has excellent 2d quality- IMHO better than early Nvidias. Nice, nice.... liking this build a lot. Just the period I love to build.