I updated first post with my new retro Ultimate machine configuration. I have now new MB, case (Coolermaster HAF X 942, with 9 cards slots) and PSU, CPU + CPU water block, but its still under construction - WinXP and Win7, Linux are fine, but Win98 would need other ATI x800 card with different cooler, because of slots position design, which i have in other location. I finally have some nice per OS Bios profiles possibility, so make bios setting for OS, its now possible without hassle, with HP O.E.M MB, i only switched primary GPU and was lazy to adjust anything else, it worked, but i wasnt optimal.

I also have some minor problems, which need mostly only time (order on eBay, wait and test) to solve:
- some missing modular PSU cables for Enermax infinity PSU 650W, i ordered some generical cables to test, some maybe has to be modded manually, its still placeholder before i get Silverstone Nightjar fanless - which im using in other machine
- USB 3 controller in PCI-E 1x slot is not working, maybe because additional power is not plugged, because of some heatsink in way some modded molex would be maybe needed
- front USB2 ports are not working - missing front header cable, some cable which could be modded is on way
- i need some Fans 12V to 7V adapters to make some more silent.. I received with case 4 good (after i removed 4 leds on each) Dead silence 15 cm fans, but they could be more silent, otherwise Noctuas will solve it for some. Even without fans CPU is running fine on 4.3 GHz and could probably do more, i dont need it know, i need to add some reasonable Geforce 970 card for WInXP+ first
- i need some 8 cm Noctua 4 pin fan under cards slots, case have some special holder for it.. i it would need some fan cable Y cables (that 10 years old PSU has some Fan header cable too)..
- DOS, there MB has IDE controller, but its some Gigabyte special Sata/IDE controller (probably Micron chip one).. and so far typical DOS drivers.. XCDROM.SYS , GCDROM.SYS, VIDECDD.SYS are not working, so i would need other CD-ROM driver.

Only hard and complicated thing its really which additional cards to use and their optimal placement for best multiboot flexibility.. With this new case and MB, for example now have finally option to use two or even triple slots GPUs at the bottom without blocking some precious slots for other cards.. and Aureal and Yamaha combo.. or option to use only 1 sound cards and PCI videocard, i also have some PCI-E TV turner / video recording card - option now, which making machine even more flexible.

Its like IQ testing from movies and childhood toys, but there are much more of shape and their combinations..

There one really big advantage of Bios Profiles, you can disable not used devices for Dos profile and have plenty of EMS memory, even with Auto settings.

I "fixed" DOS CD-Rom problem, it worked only when controller was in AHCI mode, that problem for some DOS and Win98 stuff, so i used cheap IDE to Sata adapter, and contected it to Intel sata controller and with it IDE mode with VIDECDD.SYS is working.

I also finally have X800 in the machine, so i can mess with Win98. Fan adapters are installed too.

Otherwise not enough free slots problems, mainly because of big gpus coolers, have probably only one 1 solution, except to use really some slow 1 slot videocards.. and that is small 1 slot watercooling adapter water cooling setup, so far i have only cpu loop.. i dont like mess with whole watercooling and but its solution, if really want best of the best, even for retro / multiboot machine.. Or some very custom heatsink above the cards, or behind the cards, where is lots of space..
You can see 1 slot gpu water blocks here: https://youtu.be/LXOaCkbt4lI?t=404

I created my new X58 machine working issues list to fix.. i know, that im greedy and something never would be idea.. or not without big effort, but it could at least show, that nothing is perfect. Sometimes issue is only money..

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15m29S … of=true&sd=true

Most fascinating thread Ruthan... you have gone above and beyond when it comes to creating a retro-build.

Now, it's time for me to compare your build to some others, when it comes to the final price/value ratio.

With some developers help, i could be much better - see 2nd post.. + Tiido is probably able to mod newer MBs for PCI /(with PC-link) so almost on ISA level compatibility-- for DOS PCI sound cards compatibility, only he has other priorities and lots of projects.. and he cant be bribed to change project order, even when he is financial distress 😀

Other wall is PCI-E gen 1 videocards support (for Windows 98 and for DOS - if dont have PCI slots or PCI-E to PCI adapter) - some newest MBs dont work with them and vendors dont care, i started thread about it:
WIP-Newest chipsets and PCI-E gen1 videocards compatibility?

Otherwise i made Win98 working on Z170 - GA-Z170-HD3(DDR4 version, im using 1 - 3000 MHz stick), it has 2 PCI slots. It would need more time and testing, but its at least somehow working.

I used Geforce 730 for XP+. And Geforce 6200 Turbocache for Win98. I had problem to make Yamaha 744 working (i tried few drivers from Vogons library, but i sound never worked - exclamation mark on Legacy audio virtual device, when i disable it no sound, or no boot), but Aureal Vortex 1 is working, also disk operations are slow Promise Sata 300 TX4 PCI and Micron PCI-E Sata II are working - but only without DMA - 3 MB/s. Rloew has some patch for on board Sata - 21 bucks and other 10 for CD for bigger speed.
So far i tested Diablo II shareware - fine, Warcraft III demo - fine. Quake 3 demo - is not working broken picture, same Unreal Tournament in Opengl, its working with Direct3D and Glide (nglide 1.0.5), but its freezing after minute of games.. These graphics problems, could be because im using unofficial NV 82 drivers, moded for 512 MB Geforce 7 -Rloew patch.. i have to test unmoded drivers.

Yo, Ruthan, I've tried to simplify your build-text a bit - is my edited version correct? Is this the hardware you're using at the moment?

Build: “Ruthan’s special”

MB: Gigabyte EX-58-UD5 - X58 board (3x PCI-E Long, 1x PCI-E 4x, 1x PCI-E x1 + 2x PCI, on board IDE and Floppy, primary GPU selection slot selection, Bios profiles per OS)
CPU: Xeon X5680 - 6c/12threads (40 PCI-E lines)
RAM: 8 GB DDR3 @ 1866 MHz (MB supports up to 24 GB)
HDD: WD Raptor 160 GB
GPU1 (DOS+W98): ATI 800 XL GPU (GV-RX801256V)
GPU2 (XP+): GeForce 730 (placeholder for GeForce 9xx - it’s able to boot to Dos too - primary GPU slot selection option is in HP O.E.M Bios)
SC1: AOPEN AW744L II Yamaha XG YMF744 YMF724 OPL3 PCI (IDE DVD-RW connected through cheap SATA to IDE dongle, because SATA DVD drivers have no audio header + CD-ROM DOS audio is working - with analogue audio cable,no floppy, but i have floppy on board header)
SC2 (W7+): Realtek 889 HD Audio (Enabled - it was disabled for a majority of the testing, but it has no influence on compatibility)
NIC: Realtek Gigabit onboard NIC.
PSU: Enermax Infinite 650W modular PSU
CASE: Coolermaster HAF X 942 case (has room for 9 expansion slots!)
COOLER (cpu): Fractal Celsius S24 (closed-loop water cooler, fairly silent)
PERIPHERALS: Logitech PS/2 mouse and keyboard

If my edit is correct, and you like the layout, then feel free to use this Build-list in your first post.

Few changes happened, i changed MB few months ago and its still in rebuild process.
Storage: 240 GB WD cheap SSD
+ DVD rom on Sata to IDE cable
SC3: Aureal Vortex 2
- i have General Midi adapter for Yamaha 744 - from Rayer
NIC2 - Broadcom 5721M
USB3 - VIA VL8xx

ruthan wrote:

Few changes happened, i changed MB few months ago and its still in rebuild process. Storage: 240 GB WD cheap SSD + DVD rom on Sa […]
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Few changes happened, i changed MB few months ago and its still in rebuild process.
Storage: 240 GB WD cheap SSD
+ DVD rom on Sata to IDE cable
SC3: Aureal Vortex 2
- i have General Midi adapter for Yamaha 744 - from Rayer
NIC2 - Broadcom 5721M
USB3 - VIA VL8xx

Oh? So you're not using the Gigabyte EX-58-UD5 - X58 board any more then?

Board and rest is ok, Raptor HDD was removed.

Sorry mistake - its IDE cd-rom on Sata cable with some Sata to Ide cheap adapter.

ruthan wrote:

Otherwise i made Win98 working on Z170 - GA-Z170-HD3(DDR4 version, im using 1 - 3000 MHz stick), it has 2 PCI slots. It would need more time and testing, but its at least somehow working.

I used Geforce 730 for XP+. And Geforce 6200 Turbocache for Win98. I had problem to make Yamaha 744 working (i tried few drivers from Vogons library, but i sound never worked - exclamation mark on Legacy audio virtual device, when i disable it no sound, or no boot), but Aureal Vortex 1 is working, also disk operations are slow Promise Sata 300 TX4 PCI and Micron PCI-E Sata II are working - but only without DMA - 3 MB/s. Rloew has some patch for on board Sata - 21 bucks and other 10 for CD for bigger speed.

It looks like that board uses the ASMedia ASM1083 PCIe-PCI bridge while many other Gigabyte boards uses a bridge from ITE. I have an adapter with the ASM1083 bridge and one with a Pericom bridge and they're not playing nice along with my Yamaha PCI cards.

Yeah in other thread, i already did external PCIE-PCI testing with these bridges.
PCie-to PCI, PCI to ISA, # of slots multipliers - bridges, risers, backplanes, research, especially for DOS, WIP.
But i wanted to try if it is on board that bridge could be better integrated.. and that it can work.

Thanks for the link. BTW, have you ever seen the datasheet for the ASM1083? It would be interesting to see what can be changed via the PCI registers.

Is it the same Asmedia bridge, Ruthan, that you borrowed me on extra PCIE x1 to PCI adapter? That bridge behaved very crappy in my MB. The computer just turned off during POST when the adapter was plugged in. When tested on other H55 MB it was not visible by PCI scan at all. So I don't wonder it doesn't work, ITE would be better.
I have some chipset/bridges/SIO datasheet collection at home but probably no much asmedia there...

On my system latest nvidia 82 beta drivers worked fine with 256MB GF 7900GT under Win98, I can play Quakes/Unreal OpenGL without artifacts/crashes. Only issue was that windows shutdown didn't work - need to restart instead. I tried some 512MB VGA years ago without a patch and I got Win98 in safe mode only.

Datasheep is wide term - saw only this - http://www.asmedia.com.tw/eng/e_show_products.php?item=114 ..

Based on that, I would say it's worth trying to email them to ask for one, if I were you.

ruthan wrote:

Datasheep is wide term - saw only this - http://www.asmedia.com.tw/eng/e_show_products.php?item=114 ..

Kamerat wrote:

Thanks for the link. BTW, have you ever seen the datasheet for the ASM1083? It would be interesting to see what can be changed via the PCI registers.

ruthan wrote:

Datasheep is wide term - saw only this - http://www.asmedia.com.tw/eng/e_show_products.php?item=114 ..

This is only some brief feature list, not a datasheet. I looked at my lib and don't have any Asmedia bridge DS. They may give it only under NDA. If it would be easy available, Google will find it...

RayeR wrote:

This is only some brief feature list, not a datasheet. I looked at my lib and don't have any Asmedia bridge DS. They may give it only under NDA. If it would be easy available, Google will find it...

As i wrote its wide term, for some products you can find something what is named datasheet and have less informations, worst of for these are some capture cards vendors.. its more some advertising leaflet than anything else..

I just tested my need dual channel memory for X58 machine.. I still dont understand how is memory frequency setup working, because it seems that my memory settings, even XMP profiles are completetly ignored and only way to change memory frequency is BLC.. not because board has indendent PCI-E frequency settings its not big deal. Maybe this is Xeon thing and it works fine with Core i7.
I had not time or mood to mess with voltage, so i just take advantage of closed loop water cooler and it running fine at @4.5 GHz (25x180) all cores, original speed is 3.3 GHz, due memory setting memory is only on 1800 (BCL - 180, so there is some x10 multiplier for memory speed i guess ), stick are 2400 MHz.. and other thing to improve is triple channel i have only 2 sticks.

Here is Geekbench 3 result you can compared it with you machine.. single core performance is never good on lots of core machine, but score 3000 is good enough not great (my unlocked Core i7-5960X has some score), but multicore is great - 16 000.
https://browser.geekbench.com/geekbench3/8768678

So it on level on normal consumer desktop Skylake / Kabylake CPUs in multicore view.. Only that new 8xxx/9xxx Intel 6/8 cores architecture is much faster (DDR4 memory probably helps too):
https://browser.geekbench.com/geekbench3/8626373 // Stock unlocked, 2800 MHz dual channel mem

Here is for comparision unclocked 5960X (DDR4 too), 8 core, only dual channel mem, quad is possible, memory is 2800 MHz:
https://browser.geekbench.com/geekbench3/8640290

Ok some points from Xeon 56xx overclocking on Gigabyte board:

1. You can do to anything with memory speed, even when is XMP profile loaded etc, all SPD multipliers settings are ignored, memory speed is simply BLC * 10.
2. Its possible change cpu multiplier from 12-26* - at least on my 5680, someone recommeds use lesser 22,23x.. for me worked best 25.
3. If OC settings fail, you need restart computer twice, if it doesnt help you need to wait some time to cool down, overclocking setting is saved in Bios profile.
4. I was able to setup up to 5 GHz - non turbo all cores speed, turbo is cca + 200 MHz, in Bios, but OS crashed during loading.
5. There is nice possiblity to setup PCI-E speed to 100 MHz, indepedently on other clocks.
6. OS is stable around ~ 4.5 GHz for no turbo speed - with BLC 180.
7. VCC and QPI voltage increase not helping me, its right opsite, i spend lots of time to change voltages from anything from 1.2 to 1.35 VCC a QPI, but without increase i was always able to get better speed.
8. CPU temperature is still low, its not something that caps overclocking capabality, so fans speeds no water cooler, are still quite silent.
9. Xeon dont support i dont find right utility to reporting its Power Usage in W as more modern CPU - i tried Rivar Turner, Hwinfo.
10. for my CPU is basic QPI speed ~6400, even it get few hunder MHz higher its not booting - problem is that there is not some multiplier settings for it, just x44 - defalt and 36x - settings nothing, if there would be other multiplier overclocking would be much better. I dunno if it si Gigabyte thing, or Xeon limit.
11. Uncore speed - i dunno what exactly it is it seems that speed for L3 cache and some other unknow things.. I tutorials i read that you have to keep it 1.5 x 2 mem speed, for me with mem speed 1800 MHz, i get with overclocking unstable around 3000 MHz. But i discovered that there is big impact to try it tune as possible - i gain with it other 2 thoundsands in Geekbench.
12. If you have similar CPU as i fast DDR3 memory is waste, i 1866 MHz seems enough it would give you 4700 GHz base clock, i will move my 2400 MHz memory to other machine, where i can get advantage of it.

My result, is not some overclocking empty victory, it seems that around this speed i could be stable for games..
https://browser.geekbench.com/geekbench3/8769445