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First post, by Daniel4200

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I just bought what I think is a PC Partner vib878ds
It came with a AMD k6-2 400mhz cpu.

Does anyone know anything about the motherboard.

I will build it into a windows 98 PC just for fun.

I have a sound blaster 128 , ati rage XL (to start with).

Will a standard ATX psu be ok with this or should I be looking for somethin specific.

Reply 1 of 19, by nickles rust

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I think the definition of "super" is 100MHz+ bus speed. Sometimes an AGP slot is included in the definition, but I've seen some motherboards that I would call super that didn't have one.

Reply 2 of 19, by Daniel4200

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nickles rust wrote on Yesterday, 15:40:

I think the definition of "super" is 100MHz+ bus speed. Sometimes an AGP slot is included in the definition, but I've seen some motherboards that I would call super that didn't have one.

I have always found the super socket 7 status confusing. I think this motherboard supports 66, 75, 83, 95 and 100mhz FSB.

That is as long as I am looking at the corect motherboard specs and manual.

Reply 3 of 19, by aVd

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Hi, @Daniel4200,
To me it looks like a Super Socket 7 motherboard with VIA Apollo MVP3 chipset. The board supports 100MHz FSB and has AGP 2x slot, but I have no idea if the BIOS recognizes AMD K6-III(+) CPUs correctly. You can find more info, BIOS dumps and manuals for this board here.

P.S. Ok, you already know about TRW site.

DOS fan :: artificial "intelligence" - not a fan... not a fan at all :: is freeware a lie, when human freedom is a fundamental lie?

Reply 4 of 19, by Daniel4200

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aVd wrote on Yesterday, 15:53:

Hi, @Daniel4200,
To me it looks like a Super Socket 7 motherboard with Apollo MVP3 chipset. The board supports 100MHz FSB and has AGP 2x slot, but I have no idea if the BIOS recognizes AMD K6-III(+) CPUs correctly. You can find more info, BIOS dumps and manuals for this board here.

I guess my best option it to get it up and running with the K6-2 and have a poke around in the bios.

Reply 5 of 19, by rmay635703

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Super has always meant PC100+ with a minimum of 100mhz FSB.

Sort of wierd PIi never got the distinction but whatever.

The best super 7 boards had agp and support beyond 100mhz FSB & pc100
Generally 95mhz, 96mhz and 97mhz were also supported for the strange 433,466 and 533 CPUs.

The pentium era was strange in that it had a primordial era that had both 5 volt and 3.3 volt chipsets that may have had a slow memory controller and possibly even poor 66mhz FSB support and EDO support didn’t really exist, EDO tolerance perhaps but not support.

The more mainstream era with early socket 7, faster chipsets 66mhz and Intels so called turbo frequency with limited or unstable support for a 75mhz overclocked FSB used for 6x86. Early slow and buggy sdram support was introduced on some boards in this time. Split vio/vcore was occasionally supported.

Then Late socket 7 support where the overclocked FSBs of 75,83 became stable, mainstreamed and even some chipsets started supporting a Cyrix specific async 33mhz pci clock for use with the new FSBs .
Sdram support improved but many early sdram modules were still unstable and flaky due to the early JDEC timing specs being too loose.
Oddly 90mhz FSB became a rare but usuable overclocked speed on some motherboards.
Some unscrupulous vendors (cough PCCHIPS m590) would market it as pc100 before the term really existed.
Cyrix even made a small number of of 6x86 pr350 CPU’s that spec’d the odd 90mhz FSB.

Super 7 as popular as it was, was actually we’re socket 7 died and quit getting innovation, the standard was supported comparatively many years but nobody made new chipsets after about 98, with the few released late being rare and usually with poor reliability. Sis 540 comes to mind.

Last edited by rmay635703 on 2026-03-14, 16:34. Edited 2 times in total.

Reply 6 of 19, by Twisted Six

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100FSB and AGP definitely fits the criteria of a 'super 7'.

If you tolerate this, then your children will be next.

Reply 7 of 19, by aVd

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Daniel4200 wrote on Yesterday, 16:02:

I guess my best option it to get it up and running with the K6-2 and have a poke around in the bios.

You already have AMD K6-2 AFR 400MHz CPU and the manual, so you can run it at 4 x 100MHz FSB by setting the correct jumpers combination.

Good luck!

DOS fan :: artificial "intelligence" - not a fan... not a fan at all :: is freeware a lie, when human freedom is a fundamental lie?

Reply 9 of 19, by dionb

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"Super Socket 7" is a marketing term and means whatever the marketeer in question wanted it to.

In general it meant AGP, 100MHz and SDRAM, but whether that "AGP" meant a slot or integrated VGA over AGP interface could differ, "100MHz" sometimes was "max 95MHz" and even SDRAM could be optional.

From a technical point of view, it was more like a Socket 7 board that implemented the third BF2 multiplier pin and voltages down to 2V.

Here you have an MVP3, which ticks all those boxes unambiguously.

Reply 10 of 19, by Disruptor

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If you search for BIOS updates that fixes issues like HDD size limit and support for processors even including K6-2+/K6-3+ you should try the homepage of our dear Vogons member Chkcpu:
http://www.steunebrink.info/k6plus.htm

If you intend to play DOS games too on that machine it is probably better to use an ISA sound card.

For a K6-2 a standard ATX power with 150-200 Watt supply would be sufficient.
A probably missing -5 V supply line can be ignored except if you use some very old ISA sound cards or so.

Reply 11 of 19, by Daniel4200

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Disruptor wrote on Today, 04:00:
If you search for BIOS updates that fixes issues like HDD size limit and support for processors even including K6-2+/K6-3+ you s […]
Show full quote

If you search for BIOS updates that fixes issues like HDD size limit and support for processors even including K6-2+/K6-3+ you should try the homepage of our dear Vogons member Chkcpu:
http://www.steunebrink.info/k6plus.htm

If you intend to play DOS games too on that machine it is probably better to use an ISA sound card.

For a K6-2 a standard ATX power with 150-200 Watt supply would be sufficient.
A probably missing -5 V supply line can be ignored except if you use some very old ISA sound cards or so.

Thanks for the tip and advice regarding the power. I appreciate it.

Reply 12 of 19, by st31276a

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According to my understanding, the apex of socket 7 is with the 233MMX. Chipsets like 430TX already has sdram support.

What makes a socket 7 “super” for me is the higher-than-66 standard FSB speeds, the higher multipliers and the wide range VRM.

When you feel it is a waste to plug a 233MMX into it, it is probably a super.

Reply 13 of 19, by mkarcher

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If we are talking about the CPU interface, that is what's actually at the socket, I would define anything that can properly run the K6-2 family without overclocking mainboards chips "Super Socket 7", so this is BF2, FSB100 and Vcc at 2.2V for split-voltage CPUSs. OTOH, if you use "super socket 7" as a term that defines a whole platform, I would expect PC-100 SDRAM support and some AGP-connected video solution as well.

I actually don't know how many consumer mainboards exist that have super socket 7 CPU support as defined above, but miss out on the expected platform features, but I'd expect only some niche boards or possibly big brand systems that were purposefully designed to not have PC100 or AGP would miss out on this features. If this is indeed the case, the distinction of "super socket 7 CPU support" and "super socket 7 platform" is mostly academic anyway.

Reply 14 of 19, by Repo Man11

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I forget the brand, but years ago I ended up with a Socket 7 AT motherboard using the Via VP3 chipset that had an AGP slot. Since the VP3 only officially supported 66 MHz FSB (and could go no higher than 83), IMO it did not meet the classification for SS7.

After watching many YouTube videos about older computer hardware, YouTube began recommending videos about trains - are they trying to tell me something?

Reply 15 of 19, by aVd

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Hi, guys,
An interesting discussion has been developed here on the topic.

Just as an weird example, I have a "(Super) Socket 7" motherboard based on VIA Apollo VPX chipset with 100MHz FSB support, SD-RAM PC100 support, and 2.2V MMX CPUs support (official BIOS support for AMD K6-III, but no K6-2+/III+), but without AGP slot or integrated AGP video (Apollo VPX has no AGP support). Officially VIA Apollo VPX chipset doesn't support 100MHz FSB and 100MHz SD-RAM, but in reality the practice often differs from the theory.

For me, any motherboard with support for 100MHz (or more) FSB, 2.2V (or less) MMX CPUs and SD-RAM PC-100 (or PC-133) can be called "Super Socket 7 motherboard". After all, the AGP slot is not a socket 😀

DOS fan :: artificial "intelligence" - not a fan... not a fan at all :: is freeware a lie, when human freedom is a fundamental lie?

Reply 16 of 19, by Daniel4200

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Thanks everyone. I have learned a little bit more about the FSB speeds and multipliers thanks to all of your input. This will help out when I get the board up and running.

Reply 17 of 19, by SSTV2

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If i had to define what a super socket 7 motherboard is, definition would sound like this:

A motherboard with an older generation "Socket 7" processor interface, that contains a chipset which is a direct competitor to Intel's "440LX" or "440BX" chipsets in terms of its features.

For example PCChips M590, at first glance it would seem that this is a simple AT socket 7 motherboard without an AGP slot, but its "SIS 5591" chipset supports AGP 2x, USB, UDMA33, 3 SDRAM channels of up to 256MB per channel and an official 66MHz FSB, thus it still falls under super socket 7 category as this chipset is a direct competitor to the 440LX.

Reply 18 of 19, by rasz_pl

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Sadly 'Super Socket 7' was never all that Super. Poor AMD had to be very creative with marketing to stay relevant even in the low end segment until finally rolling out K7.

https://github.com/raszpl/sigrok-disk FM/MFM/RLL decoder
https://github.com/raszpl/FIC-486-GAC-2-Cache-Module (AT&T Globalyst)
https://github.com/raszpl/386RC-16 ram board
https://github.com/raszpl/440BX Reference Design adapted to Kicad

Reply 19 of 19, by jakethompson1

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rasz_pl wrote on Today, 21:36:

Sadly 'Super Socket 7' was never all that Super. Poor AMD had to be very creative with marketing to stay relevant even in the low end segment until finally rolling out K7.

That's how I always understood it--AMD pushing motherboards fitting to host a K6-2 or K6-III.

Did Cyrix play any role in defining it? They reached oddball bus speeds like 75 MHz or 83 MHz before AMD, but seems they're just called Socket 7.