schmatzler wrote on 2024-05-19, 19:30:

While that may be true, it's not unusual anymore. I consider the Abit VH6T one of the best retro motherboards out there, good luck getting one for 100$. That's already very cheap, especially here in Europe.

Yup, Tualatin-compatible motherboards have price tags up in the stratosphere. At least the Tualatins can be modified to work in a Coppermine board.

schmatzler wrote on 2024-05-19, 19:30:

GemCookie wrote on 2024-05-19, 19:27:

US$100 is way too much for a Slot 1 or Socket 370 motherboard.

While that may be true, it's not unusual anymore. I consider the Abit VH6T one of the best retro motherboards out there, good luck getting one for 100$. That's already very cheap, especially here in Europe.

Limited supply and an increasing demand have driven prices up.

And just as you said that, one seems to have appeared in the UK right now for £60+shipping+import fees WITH the 1.4 GHz P3.

watson wrote on 2024-05-19, 20:03:

And just as you said that, one seems to have appeared in the UK right now for £60+shipping+import fees WITH the 1.4 GHz P3.

If it works, that's a really good deal!

According to the seller, it's in excellent condition. I'm not buying it, because shipping from UK to Germany is usually handled by Hermes and they tend to smash up packages hard.
I hope someone else on this forum will be able to get it, though! 😀

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2024-05-19, 19:38:

Some specific models are sought after, but average 440BX mobos, which are not praised by overclockers, aren't that pricy. There's no hype about Acorp and Chaintech motherboards, for example.

I did find a Chaintech 6BTM0 at $209 just minutes after your post... no Acorp tho.

PcBytes wrote on 2024-05-19, 20:34:

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2024-05-19, 19:38:

Some specific models are sought after, but average 440BX mobos, which are not praised by overclockers, aren't that pricy. There's no hype about Acorp and Chaintech motherboards, for example.

I did find a Chaintech 6BTM0 at $209 just minutes after your post... no Acorp tho.

There is actually one listed as "Chaintech 6BTM-0" for $50+big postage, but EU import charges would kill the "deal".
The VH6T is gone...

Basically everytime an internet celebrity mentions retro, the RETRO TAX goes up by dramatically.

PC retro gaming was pretty blessed so far (not nearly as ridiculous as Amiga 1200 and higher, which had a retro tax hike of hundreds of % in the last years), and certainly not as bad as NES games which went up by thousands of %), but we're in the danger zone already.

Pentium 3 have massive retro tax slapped on them already. And there's not that much on sale, anyway. There's a ton of Pentium 4, but there doesn't seem to be much demand for them.

You know it's bad when even the most mundane A7N8X-X (so plain spartan A7N8X) sells for "big" $$$ locally.
Trust me, I've managed to earn nearly $110 by selling kits made out of literally common parts more or less.
One of them was an A7N8X-X, Athlon XP 2500+, FX5600 and a 160GB HDD, and XP SP3, which sold for $66.

Yuri_Yslin wrote on 2024-05-19, 21:16:

Pentium 3 have massive retro tax slapped on them already. And there's not that much on sale, anyway. There's a ton of Pentium 4, but there doesn't seem to be much demand for them.

I still think the P4 is a bit underrated for retro gaming especially when paired with an industrial board w/ ISA slots.

Though all it would take is for a reasonably popular YouTuber to do such a build and demand for those parts will go up.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-05-19, 22:14:

Yuri_Yslin wrote on 2024-05-19, 21:16:

Pentium 3 have massive retro tax slapped on them already. And there's not that much on sale, anyway. There's a ton of Pentium 4, but there doesn't seem to be much demand for them.

I still think the P4 is a bit underrated for retro gaming especially when paired with an industrial board w/ ISA slots.

Though all it would take is for a reasonably popular YouTuber to do such a build and demand for those parts will go up.

+1
You say you already have a 486 to cover most your dos games so you can probably not worry about an ISA slot.
For the few dos games that need something more powerful then the 486 Using the sound blaster emulation of a SBLive thru Audigy 2 may be enough and prefect for the 9x focus of the build as well.

If you do have your heart set on a P3 (it is more authentic to the era after all) I've found anything that demands more than a 600Mhz Katmai works fine in XP and much more powerful PC's
Faster is still better but don't feel like you have to pay crazy prices for the GHz CPU's

VivienM wrote on 2024-05-19, 16:39:

Yuri_Yslin wrote on 2024-05-19, 16:14:

Thank you guys. The motherboard issues you mention feel a tad discouraging, which is a bit of a shame, since the case is in real […]
Show full quote

Thank you guys. The motherboard issues you mention feel a tad discouraging, which is a bit of a shame, since the case is in really good shape and not yellowed at all.

For 100$ (or 20$ more) I could get this one instead:

https://www.olx.pl/d/oferta/pentium-iii-800mh … 99-IDYW21y.html

However, the seller does insist on picking it up in person, which is rather lame, since he's from another city and I'm not sure if I'll convince him.

Also the case is fugly. Not the most important thing, but...

VIA chipset, too, which is... interesting. Not sure how people feel about that chipset on a retro system...

I always stay clear of anything non-Intel TBH, but a BX which would be the retro "correct" doesn't officially support 133 fsb, which is a pity though ..

Yuri_Yslin wrote on 2024-05-19, 10:09:

For example, there's a rig sold for about 80 $ here (Europe) that has a Pentium3 and a Geforce2 MX 440 on board. The seller listed the P3 as "550MHz".

+asus P2b-ae is not a terrible rig. Yeah, its Asus OEM for Sony, but at least its 440BX. Normally BX board alone will cost you at least $50.

Sure, ideally you would hunt for proper Asus P2B (200-300zl), 20-40zl slotket, 10zl Celeron 900 (Pentium 3 ~800MHz speed) or 30zl Tualatin Celeron 1300MHz (requires mods to slotket), with something like Celeron 1400-1500 MHz (hard to find) being best. P3 Tualatins are bad choice due to 133MHz fsb requirement.

If it helps, these were the prices in RON I paid for most of my BX boards.

- ABIT BP6 + 2x Celeron 333- 422 RON
- ABIT BE6-II - 225 RON
- Soyo 6BA+IV - 20 RON
- LuckyTech P6BX2 + 700MHz P3 on Slotket - free
- FSC D1107 systemboard - free
- ASUS P2B - 200RON

chinny22 wrote on 2024-05-20, 02:11:

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-05-19, 22:14:

Yuri_Yslin wrote on 2024-05-19, 21:16:

Pentium 3 have massive retro tax slapped on them already. And there's not that much on sale, anyway. There's a ton of Pentium 4, but there doesn't seem to be much demand for them.

I still think the P4 is a bit underrated for retro gaming especially when paired with an industrial board w/ ISA slots.

Though all it would take is for a reasonably popular YouTuber to do such a build and demand for those parts will go up.

If you do have your heart set on a P3 (it is more authentic to the era after all) I've found anything that demands more than a 600Mhz Katmai works fine in XP and much more powerful PC's
Faster is still better but don't feel like you have to pay crazy prices for the GHz CPU's

^ This. We put waay too much emphasis on the CPU for a good many of these late 90's early 00's gaming PCs. I had to temporarily lower the clock for my 1 GHz PIII to 750 MHz because I was testing a video card that was not happy with the 133 MHz FSB, and the video card more than made up for the difference even though the CPU clock drop was big. A sub-1 GHz 133 MHz FSB Coppermine is probably totally fine on any i440BX board, even with the out-of-spec FSB. The chipset was legendary for a reason. Additionally, I think the Ti4200 was one of those video cards that doesn't really care about the AGP overclock at all, so you can probably run the system at full blast anyway and not have a care in the world...

...and like chinny here pointed out - if you *need* faster, an AthlonXP/P4/Core2 setup can be had for less than an elusive Tualatin P3 build...

PcBytes wrote on 2024-05-19, 21:32:

You know it's bad when even the most mundane A7N8X-X (so plain spartan A7N8X) sells for "big" $$$ locally.
Trust me, I've managed to earn nearly $110 by selling kits made out of literally common parts more or less.
One of them was an A7N8X-X, Athlon XP 2500+, FX5600 and a 160GB HDD, and XP SP3, which sold for $66.

Based on a 20-25 year nostalgia cycle, it kinda makes sense demand for early 2000s hardware is heating up.

People are going to be looking to rebuild systems of their youth, so Athlon XP / P4 systems are going to start becoming in greater demand.

That coupled with the capacitor plague issues for motherboards of that time, means working boards are going to be rarer and start to command a higher price.

as a rule, if you want to save some money then don't try to optimise the components. a Pentium 3 700mhz or 1ghz will have different prices but not all that much difference is noticed when playing typical games. same goes with cards.

you could even (shock!) consider a celeron 😀

a motherboard that can take a wide range of celerons and P3s would be good, you can start out as cheap as it needs to be and then if you do find higher performance components at the right price over time you can get them, and in the meantime you can enjoy the system

Also, I am amazed how good this community is compared to toxic cesspool called Reddit. So many knowledgeable friendly people, wow. 😀

As for the P3 rig: I guess it can wait if the proprietary Asus board is a bit too risky, although we're indeed nearing the 25-year "point of no return" where things start drastically pumping in price due to nostalgic people throwing money at their "youth rigs", so I would rather not wait too long. P3 was waaaaaaaaay more common than Amiga 1200, but I still can't believe how hard those have pumped: I bought one for 500 PLN in 2015 and I felt ripped off because people got theirs 2-3 years earlier for 200-300 PLN.

Nowadays the go for 2500-3000 PLN, in other words: the price increased five-sixfold. Sick.

And don't get me started on Amiga 4000. I think it was priced at around 8000 PLN at 2018. I'm scared to check how expensive it is nowadays.

What exactly do you want to achieve by building this reto pc with a Pentium 3? Do you care more about the ability to run, for example, DOS/Win9x games, or do you care about full hardware compatibility and originality? If you only want to run games, you can assemble the hardware even on the fast Core2Duo and install Windows 98 with the original DOSbox, which sometimes works better than real DOS.

PcBytes wrote on 2024-05-20, 11:34:

If it helps, these were the prices in RON I paid for most of my BX boards. […]
Show full quote

If it helps, these were the prices in RON I paid for most of my BX boards.

- ABIT BP6 + 2x Celeron 333- 422 RON
- ABIT BE6-II - 225 RON
- Soyo 6BA+IV - 20 RON
- LuckyTech P6BX2 + 700MHz P3 on Slotket - free
- FSC D1107 systemboard - free
- ASUS P2B - 200RON

Was that recent? It's like US$100 for the BP6 with Celerons? Sounds pretty reasonable

H3nrik V! wrote on 2024-05-20, 20:02:

PcBytes wrote on 2024-05-20, 11:34:

If it helps, these were the prices in RON I paid for most of my BX boards. […]
Show full quote

If it helps, these were the prices in RON I paid for most of my BX boards.

- ABIT BP6 + 2x Celeron 333- 422 RON
- ABIT BE6-II - 225 RON
- Soyo 6BA+IV - 20 RON
- LuckyTech P6BX2 + 700MHz P3 on Slotket - free
- FSC D1107 systemboard - free
- ASUS P2B - 200RON

Was that recent? It's like US$100 for the BP6 with Celerons? Sounds pretty reasonable

December 2023, right near New Year's Eve for the BP6 w/ Celerons. Same chap that sold me that BP6 with the Celerys bought a Zida 6DLX w/ Celeron 433 on a slotket last month.

The BE6-II was around the COVID years (2020-2021 or so), the 6BA+IV was around a year earlier, the P6BX2 and FSC were two or so months ago, and the P2B was around late 2020-2021, before I had got the BE6.

Yuri_Yslin wrote on 2024-05-20, 18:23:

we're indeed nearing the 25-year "point of no return" where things start drastically pumping in price due to nostalgic people throwing money at their "youth rigs", so I would rather not wait too long.

I am not convinced that this is because of "youth rigs". If all software would work on todays hard and software just as well, many people wouldn't bother. It will be interesting in the future, when it is the games that are failing to run, not the machines. Likely, there will be no way back, even if you have the machine.