I have a GA-PCV2 board with a C3 Nehemiah 1GHz and planning to use a HIS Vanta PCI 16 Mb as there's only one PCI slot available on the board and that's the strongest card I have for it. I would have loved a 3Dfx Voodoo 3 PCI though.

only nehemiah core? i have one that's a samuel2 core (800mhz) and i've been running it with the standard igpu that it has (Trident CyberBlade i7) because it only has pci slots.
have other via machines (EDEN 400MHz -based of c7 esther core- with IGP -via unichrome pro-; C7 esther 1.8ghz with 9500gt -truly a waste for that cpu-; via nano isaiah 1ghz with via chrome9 hd)

I run a Voodoo 3 3500Tv and a Matrox M3D in mine. 1.2ghz CPU but does 1400 without any problems.

I think that C3 Nahemiah 1GHz (7.5x133) is equivalent of P3 600 MHz (6x100) so it work with Voodoo3 3000 AGP

I had run some tests about 10 years ago with the Nehemiah at 1.2 GHz using Matrox G200. In DOS Quake 1 at 640x480, 21.7 fps. A PIII copper mine at 550 MHz scored 21.8 fps.

In Quake 2, software mode, at 640x480, I noted 37.3 fps for the Nehemiah at 1.2 GHz. Similarly, the same PIII-550 scored only 29 fps. It took an Athlon at 600 MHz to beat the Nehemiah, with 39.9 fps. I suspect that the Nehemiah at 1.4 GHz would equate to the Athlon 600.

I've seen three recommendations for a Voodoo3. Does a Voodoo3 scale up to the levels of an Athlon 600 and at what point (what CPU) is the Voodoo3 too slow?

I can't exactly answer your question but I noticed that even covingon celeron @ 266 MHz is sufficient for Voodoo3 for games from 1998-2000 at 1024x768 resolution

I'm using mine in conjunction with an AGP FX 5200 + Voodoo 2. Not sure if the FX 5200 is overkill for the Nehemiah, but it felt like a good fit. Both are somewhat later parts that weren't that fast for contemporary applications, but do a really good job at DOS & Windows 9x gaming. The Voodoo 2 is obviously for added Glide compatibility. I may add a second one for SLI, but haven't decided yet.

LubieCipy wrote on 2021-10-03, 10:35:

I can't exactly answer your question but I noticed that even covingon celeron @ 266 MHz is sufficient for Voodoo3 for games from 1998-2000 at 1024x768 resolution

Not calling you a liar but what games did you test?

I find it hard to believe that Unreal/UT would run acceptably at that resolution on a cacheless Celeron.

I'm sure there are others as well.

same as Jasin, my v3 2000 hardly runs ut at more than 30fps with a p3 450 (katmai)

weldum wrote on 2021-10-04, 21:20:

same as Jasin, my v3 2000 hardly runs ut at more than 30fps with a p3 450 (katmai)

Yes, that sounds about right.

My k6-3+ @ 500mhz will pull off about 45fps at 800x600 with my Voodoo 3 2000 PCI, I would imagine 30fps would be pushing it at 1024x768
My Voodoo 3 3000 AGP and my Coppermine at 1GHZ will play nicely at 1024x768 but that is a whole different story than a Covington.
I'm talking timedemo scores. Actual gameplay varies by a lot.

exactly, at 1024x768
now i have it on a duron 950 and it performs way better, almost 70fps

So is a Voodoo3 suitable for a 1.4 GHz Nehemiah, or does would this CPU benefit from a more powerful graphics card?

i think it's okay, it may be as capable as a 950mhz coppermine or equivalent

V2SLI + Savage4 Pro 32MB.

I realize this is not really viable for most folk, but I've paired my Nehemiah 1.2 running at 1466MHz with a Voodoo5. From various benchmarks found online, I've come to the conclusion that for 3D games the Nehemiah core is about as fast as a Coppermine or Athlon at half the frequency. So I figure my Nehemiah is roughly on par with a Pentium III 733 or maybe even a 700. Voodoo3 would have fit pretty nicely, but the Voodoo5 provides most of the compatibility of the V3 with more oomph for those more demanding games. This combination has served me well for a number of years now and it essentially completely replaced my K6-III+ setup (which now houses a Riva 128 and Voodoo2 12MB).

feipoa wrote on 2021-10-04, 22:16:

So is a Voodoo3 suitable for a 1.4 GHz Nehemiah, or does would this CPU benefit from a more powerful graphics card?

I would say it would be a pretty decent match.

Garrett W wrote on 2021-10-05, 00:34:

I realize this is not really viable for most folk, but I've paired my Nehemiah 1.2 running at 1466MHz with a Voodoo5. From various benchmarks found online, I've come to the conclusion that for 3D games the Nehemiah core is about as fast as a Coppermine or Athlon at half the frequency. So I figure my Nehemiah is roughly on par with a Pentium III 733 or maybe even a 700. Voodoo3 would have fit pretty nicely, but the Voodoo5 provides most of the compatibility of the V3 with more oomph for those more demanding games. This combination has served me well for a number of years now and it essentially completely replaced my K6-III+ setup (which now houses a Riva 128 and Voodoo2 12MB).

I've been playing with the idea of a Nehemiah build for some time now. I've got one little micro atx case and a PCI only socket 370 board that would make a fun little rig.
I might have to buy a chip just to try it out.

It's essentially just as flexible (if not more IMO) as a K6+ chip and you get (much) better performance if you want it. The K6-III+ system I had was lovely and I used it as my go-to retro system, but there were a lot of games I wanted to play from 1998-1999 that did not run to my satisfaction. As it stands, the system I built with the Nehemiah is mostly great and if I happen to need better performance for some particular game, I can always just drop in a Tualatin.

I dig it. Massive thanks to @gerwin for their phenomenal "SetMul" utility, it's helped countless people through the years 😀.

Jasin Natael wrote on 2021-10-04, 21:18:

Not calling you a liar but what games did you test? […]
Show full quote

LubieCipy wrote on 2021-10-03, 10:35:

I can't exactly answer your question but I noticed that even covingon celeron @ 266 MHz is sufficient for Voodoo3 for games from 1998-2000 at 1024x768 resolution

Not calling you a liar but what games did you test?

I find it hard to believe that Unreal/UT would run acceptably at that resolution on a cacheless Celeron.

I'm sure there are others as well.

Sorry for delay 😀 it took me a while to find the old tests. Games with build in timedemos (Quake 3, turok 2 etc.) scores 25-35 fps in 1024x768 and even 1280x1024. It is obvious that the CPU is a bottleneck so the results at 640x480 are very similar. I did not check UT 😀