VOGONS


First post, by Brawndo

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One of my recent thrift store pickups was a tower with an ASUS P4P800-E socket 478 motherboard and a 2.80 GHz Pentium 4 CPU. I have a few other P4 towers laying around not being used, as I never had a plan to build a P4 system for any retro reason. I never had a P4 system back in the day either as I was exclusively AMD until Intel released the Core2Duo chips, so I don't really have any experience with P4 systems. I'm just wondering if there's a good reason I should consider building a P4 system around this board for retro gaming purposes. I currently have 2 Windows XP systems already, one an AMD Tbird 1.4 GHz for early XP duty and the other a Core2Duo E6850 for late XP fun. I also have several Windows 98 era PCs so I'm not really lacking anything as far as period correct builds for gaming. Maybe the socket 478 P4 fills a niche I'm not aware of? I also have at least one socket 775 P4 system though I'm not using it either. If I can't find a good use for this board and CPU I'll just offload them.

Reply 1 of 19, by kolderman

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It is the cheapest way to build a late 98 pc. Cheaper than high end Athlon XP that is. Easy to find, stable builds, quality chipset, the niche is 2000-2003 Win98 gaming.

Reply 2 of 19, by zapbuzz

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for windows 98se AND 2000 i'd recommend socket 478 pentium 4 for AGP graphics, not codename Prescott because its larger pipeline is better suited to 64bit computing; if it was a choice. Socket 775 pentium 4, duo, core2 duo quad etc for xp pcie graphics. I started with intel but only trusted AMD beginning with the A series cpu that they don't smoke when the fan fails.

Reply 3 of 19, by Brawndo

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Hmmm, maybe a dual boot 98/2000 system then. I also have a Voodoo 5500 not being used as I haven't decided which system to put it in. Perhaps this could be it.

Reply 4 of 19, by libby

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3GHz+ socket 478 northwood CPUs are cheap, plentiful and make great XP AGP gamer setups

Reply 5 of 19, by kolderman

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Brawndo wrote on 2021-11-04, 04:57:

Hmmm, maybe a dual boot 98/2000 system then. I also have a Voodoo 5500 not being used as I haven't decided which system to put it in. Perhaps this could be it.

You ain't putting it in a P4 if it's agp. Need a via kt333 and athlonxp for that.

Reply 6 of 19, by foil_fresh

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With the i865 chipset you can do digital audio in DOS with PCI sound cards (crystal, aureal, ess solo, ymf7x4) so this can be a (limited) DOS, w98 and XP machine. it's a flexible build.

that being said, i have 2x P4 builds and both of them get no attention - my P3 handles the w98 stuff and an athlon x2 handles the XP stuff.

i suggest just building something with this hardware for fun and then figure out if you think it does something that another build can't do 😜

Reply 7 of 19, by Sphere478

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478 was when we really started transitioning away from classic architecture IMO

A Northwood p4 build is probably the most modern configuration that you could run on many classical operating systems without much trouble.

Sphere's PCB projects.
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Reply 8 of 19, by chinny22

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This I what I did with my P4p800
P4P800 End of Win98 Support Build

It doesn't get much use as my slot 1 PC's are more fun for 9x and LgA775 for XP. but it's nice as an option.
Win2k is another good call, I actually do most my gaming in Win2k now (but again on a dual P3)

Reply 9 of 19, by dormcat

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Brawndo wrote on 2021-11-04, 04:12:

One of my recent thrift store pickups was a tower with an ASUS P4P800-E socket 478 motherboard and a 2.80 GHz Pentium 4 CPU. I have a few other P4 towers laying around not being used, as I never had a plan to build a P4 system for any retro reason. I never had a P4 system back in the day either as I was exclusively AMD until Intel released the Core2Duo chips, so I don't really have any experience with P4 systems. I'm just wondering if there's a good reason I should consider building a P4 system around this board for retro gaming purposes. I currently have 2 Windows XP systems already, one an AMD Tbird 1.4 GHz for early XP duty and the other a Core2Duo E6850 for late XP fun. I also have several Windows 98 era PCs so I'm not really lacking anything as far as period correct builds for gaming. Maybe the socket 478 P4 fills a niche I'm not aware of? I also have at least one socket 775 P4 system though I'm not using it either. If I can't find a good use for this board and CPU I'll just offload them.

You've got the same dilemma as I: A beautiful yet somewhat ponderous Pentium 4 build; what should I use it for?

IMHO the 865PE chipset and AGP port makes P4P800-E Deluxe much more flexible as a Win9x/WinXP hybrid than my P5GDC-V Deluxe with 915G and PCIe port.

Reply 11 of 19, by Sphere478

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Paadam wrote on 2021-11-04, 11:37:

P4P800 is prime candidate for Asus CT-479 + some great Dothan fun!

Ooo I started such a project a while back even got the cpu but never got a board or adapter

Sphere's PCB projects.
-
Sphere’s socket 5/7 cpu collection.
-
SUCCESSFUL K6-2+ to K6-3+ Full Cache Enable Mod
-
Tyan S1564S to S1564D single to dual processor conversion (also s1563 and s1562)

Reply 12 of 19, by Caluser2000

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I have a P4 3.2 HT as my daily driver, typing from it now, for the internet stuff and watching porn on Boobtube in Linux. Some folk here can't understand how it is even possible 🤣.

There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉

Reply 13 of 19, by libby

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Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-11-04, 17:41:

I have a P4 3.2 HT as my daily driver, typing from it now, for the internet stuff and watching porn on Boobtube in Linux. Some folk here can't understand how it is even possible 🤣.

hey if it works it works, don't need much more than that to just watch standard def youtube, check email or browse most websites

Reply 14 of 19, by Caluser2000

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libby wrote on 2021-11-04, 17:44:
Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-11-04, 17:41:

I have a P4 3.2 HT as my daily driver, typing from it now, for the internet stuff and watching porn on Boobtube in Linux. Some folk here can't understand how it is even possible 🤣.

hey if it works it works, don't need much more than that to just watch standard def youtube, check email or browse most websites

Exactly. I see a lot of post roasting Firefox yet I've had absolutely no issues at all with it. It has over 25 taps open at the moment and humming along nicely.

There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉

Reply 15 of 19, by MN_Moody

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Brawndo wrote on 2021-11-04, 04:12:

One of my recent thrift store pickups was a tower with an ASUS P4P800-E socket 478 motherboard and a 2.80 GHz Pentium 4 CPU. I have a few other P4 towers laying around not being used, as I never had a plan to build a P4 system for any retro reason. I never had a P4 system back in the day either as I was exclusively AMD until Intel released the Core2Duo chips, so I don't really have any experience with P4 systems. I'm just wondering if there's a good reason I should consider building a P4 system around this board for retro gaming purposes. I currently have 2 Windows XP systems already, one an AMD Tbird 1.4 GHz for early XP duty and the other a Core2Duo E6850 for late XP fun. I also have several Windows 98 era PCs so I'm not really lacking anything as far as period correct builds for gaming. Maybe the socket 478 P4 fills a niche I'm not aware of? I also have at least one socket 775 P4 system though I'm not using it either. If I can't find a good use for this board and CPU I'll just offload them.

Early Pentium 4's were often slower or equal in performance to late Pentium 3 hardware that have more appeal to retro enthusiasts. Later Pentium 4 stuff w. PCIe was pretty soundly outclassed by C2Duo hardware that basically sells for scrap prices today, and are less likely to have capacitor problems. Everything in the middle was prime "capacitor plague" timeframe which makes them a lot messier to inspect, test and potentially refurbish... perhaps P4's will be popular down the road as their availability dwindles for all of these reasons, but they are hard to recommend for anything but a very specific high powered AGP retro build.

At Free Geek Twin Cities we have a very small retro volunteer staff and workspace, so we have to prioritize which old machines get upcycled vs scrapped. For the most part we don't consider anything post-AGP to be a "retro" system, and being at the tail end of what retro collectors are looking for that fits that criteria, P4 systems are not good sellers in our retail store (and usually sell for less than their raw scrap value). We tend to save nice examples of later "C" variant processor based systems, and early examples with RDRAM as a novelty... but a lot of these end up with capacitor issues so good/desirable examples are relatively few and far between.

Reply 16 of 19, by Brawndo

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MN_Moody wrote on 2021-11-04, 19:13:

and early examples with RDRAM as a novelty... but a lot of these end up with capacitor issues so good/desirable examples are relatively few and far between.

I currently have two P4 systems with RDRAM sitting at home, not using either. One is a Dell box, the other is a custom build with an ASUS board if memory serves. Just haven't really given them any attention. I've done a whole lot of acquiring lately, not so much actually going through what I pick up, though the tide is changing. 🤣

Reply 17 of 19, by MN_Moody

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Brawndo wrote on 2021-11-04, 21:35:
MN_Moody wrote on 2021-11-04, 19:13:

and early examples with RDRAM as a novelty... but a lot of these end up with capacitor issues so good/desirable examples are relatively few and far between.

I currently have two P4 systems with RDRAM sitting at home, not using either. One is a Dell box, the other is a custom build with an ASUS board if memory serves. Just haven't really given them any attention. I've done a whole lot of acquiring lately, not so much actually going through what I pick up, though the tide is changing. 🤣

Yea I have the same problem with 486 era stuff, good thing winter is coming. My only RDRAM gear is slot-1 mainboard of some sort, grabbed it more as a curiosity than something I intend to build a system around, for now.

Last edited by MN_Moody on 2021-11-13, 18:31. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 18 of 19, by cyclone3d

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kolderman wrote on 2021-11-04, 05:41:
Brawndo wrote on 2021-11-04, 04:57:

Hmmm, maybe a dual boot 98/2000 system then. I also have a Voodoo 5500 not being used as I haven't decided which system to put it in. Perhaps this could be it.

You ain't putting it in a P4 if it's agp. Need a via kt333 and athlonxp for that.

An IEI PIAGP system seems to be fully backward compatible from my testing.. Has a universal 8x AGP slot and I did try a couple really old AGP cards in it they worked... need to verify with more testing though.

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Reply 19 of 19, by PTherapist

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Based on your original post, a 478 P4 would fit inbetween your current 2 XP builds. It'd also make a pretty fast Windows 98 build as other people are suggesting, but personally I never ran 98 on anything newer than a PIII back in the day.

I recently rebuilt a Socket 478 PC with a P4 3.0GHz HT, running Windows XP as a rough 2003-era build. It can handle games up to 2003-2004 pretty well and with settings optimizations it handles most 2005 games too, though you'd get better overall 2005+ performance on something better than a P4.