So I've been informed that an AMD Athlon XP 3000+ at 2GHz can cause problems and malfunction in 98. Can anyone confirm this? I presume Athlon XP 2000+ and Pentium 4s at 2GHz are fine...? I read in Phil's thread he was using a Pentium 4 at 2GHz.

I'm a bit unsure if I need to worry about any specific chipset or not? For a Pentium 4 Socket 478?

In the noughts I ran 3 socket A platforms, Via, AMD and SiS with thoroughbreds from 2.1 to 2.6 ghz and didn't have any specfic problems with them. I was running the K6 patch though. This was on 98SE, official updates only.

BitWrangler wrote on 2026-05-26, 23:44:

In the noughts I ran 3 socket A platforms, Via, AMD and SiS with thoroughbreds from 2.1 to 2.6 ghz and didn't have any specfic problems with them. I was running the K6 patch though. This was on 98SE, official updates only.

Cool. Thanks. Just currently browsing Socket 478 motherboards and wasn't sure if any had advantages/disadvantages over others. The couple I was looking at from Asrock are Intel. There's also quite a lot of choice regarding the Pentium 4s as well. Northwood, Prescott, Willamette, and even Gallatin.

DustyShinigami wrote on 2026-05-26, 23:16:

I'm a bit unsure if I need to worry about any specific chipset or not? For a Pentium 4 Socket 478?

I did a build with an ASUS P4S533 which uses the SiS 645DX chipset. It was incredibly unstable with Windows 98.

Shponglefan wrote on 2026-05-27, 12:02:

DustyShinigami wrote on 2026-05-26, 23:16:

I'm a bit unsure if I need to worry about any specific chipset or not? For a Pentium 4 Socket 478?

I did a build with an ASUS P4S533 which uses the SiS 645DX chipset. It was incredibly unstable with Windows 98.

Thanks for the heads-up. All the more reason why I need some light shed on what works and what I need to stay clear of. And yet looking on The Retro Web, that board has quite a high rating and with no issues reported.

At the moment, I'm looking out for the same board that Phil used as it's supposed to be stable, but there are only so many on eBay, so I definitely want to keep my options open.

Come across an ASUS P4P8T Rev. 4 for about £30. It got 9.8/10 on Retro Web, though it only supports the Prescott and Northwood Pentium 4s.

For Socket 478, boards supporting Northwood and Prescott processors will be the most common.

I'd recommend sticking a Northwood processor, since they consume less power and therefore run cooler. In most cases, performance differences between Northwood and Prescott processors will be pretty negligible.

Shponglefan wrote on 2026-05-28, 16:35:

For Socket 478, boards supporting Northwood and Prescott processors will be the most common.

I'd recommend sticking a Northwood processor, since they consume less power and therefore run cooler. In most cases, performance differences between Northwood and Prescott processors will be pretty negligible.

Great. Thank you for the recommendation. 😀 I'll look at getting those parts next month.

I'll likely go for one that supports 533MHz FSB. Possibly a 3.20GHz one. I'm interested in seeing how low I can underclock it as well as seeing how those late 90s/early 00s games run.

DustyShinigami wrote on 2026-05-28, 16:51:

Shponglefan wrote on 2026-05-28, 16:35:

For Socket 478, boards supporting Northwood and Prescott processors will be the most common.

I'd recommend sticking a Northwood processor, since they consume less power and therefore run cooler. In most cases, performance differences between Northwood and Prescott processors will be pretty negligible.

Great. Thank you for the recommendation. 😀 I'll look at getting those parts next month.

I'll likely go for one that supports 533MHz FSB. Possibly a 3.20GHz one. I'm interested in seeing how low I can underclock it as well as seeing how those late 90s/early 00s games run.

A 3.2 GHz Northwood is a solid choice, I think every Northwood with that Core frequency had Hyper-Threading support as well, note that AFAIK all 3.2 GHz Northwoods and Prescotts have a 800Mhz FSB.

MagefromAntares wrote on 2026-05-28, 16:58:

DustyShinigami wrote on 2026-05-28, 16:51:

Shponglefan wrote on 2026-05-28, 16:35:

For Socket 478, boards supporting Northwood and Prescott processors will be the most common.

I'd recommend sticking a Northwood processor, since they consume less power and therefore run cooler. In most cases, performance differences between Northwood and Prescott processors will be pretty negligible.

Great. Thank you for the recommendation. 😀 I'll look at getting those parts next month.

I'll likely go for one that supports 533MHz FSB. Possibly a 3.20GHz one. I'm interested in seeing how low I can underclock it as well as seeing how those late 90s/early 00s games run.

A 3.2 GHz Northwood is a solid choice, I think every Northwood with that Core frequency had Hyper-Threading support as well, note that AFAIK all 3.2 GHz Northwoods and Prescotts have a 800Mhz FSB.

My only concern is I think I read somewhere that Hyper-Threading is problematic with Windows 98...? Hopefully there's an option in the motherboard's BIOS to disable it.

DustyShinigami wrote on 2026-05-28, 17:05:

MagefromAntares wrote on 2026-05-28, 16:58:

DustyShinigami wrote on 2026-05-28, 16:51:

Great. Thank you for the recommendation. 😀 I'll look at getting those parts next month.

I'll likely go for one that supports 533MHz FSB. Possibly a 3.20GHz one. I'm interested in seeing how low I can underclock it as well as seeing how those late 90s/early 00s games run.

A 3.2 GHz Northwood is a solid choice, I think every Northwood with that Core frequency had Hyper-Threading support as well, note that AFAIK all 3.2 GHz Northwoods and Prescotts have a 800Mhz FSB.

My only concern is I think I read somewhere that Hyper-Threading is problematic with Windows 98...? Hopefully there's an option in the motherboard's BIOS to disable it.

Yes, Hyper-Threading can be problematic with 98 and ME, but luckily most motherboards have the option to disable it.

DustyShinigami wrote on 2026-05-27, 12:07:

Thanks for the heads-up. All the more reason why I need some light shed on what works and what I need to stay clear of. And yet looking on The Retro Web, that board has quite a high rating and with no issues reported.

Are you sure TRW rating is for performance/compatibility, and not completeness of information about it ?

DustyShinigami wrote on 2026-05-28, 01:19:

Come across an ASUS P4P8T Rev. 4 for about £30. It got 9.8/10 on Retro Web

I looked up this board.

First, the score on Retroweb has nothing to do with quality of the board. It has to do with completeness of information in their database.

Second, that is a non-standard form factor (ASUS TriOptix). It's designed for specific compact ASUS cases, not designed to fit in a standard case. It also only has a single AGP and PCI slot, so it would be very limiting insofar as expansion cards.

Personally I would recommend going with a standard ATX board.

Shponglefan wrote on 2026-05-28, 18:16:

I looked up this board. […]
Show full quote

DustyShinigami wrote on 2026-05-28, 01:19:

Come across an ASUS P4P8T Rev. 4 for about £30. It got 9.8/10 on Retro Web

I looked up this board.

First, the score on Retroweb has nothing to do with quality of the board. It has to do with completeness of information in their database.

Second, that is a non-standard form factor (ASUS TriOptix). It's designed for specific compact ASUS cases, not designed to fit in a standard case. It also only has a single AGP and PCI slot, so it would be very limiting insofar as expansion cards.

Personally I would recommend going with a standard ATX board.

Ahhh, I see. My mistake. Still, it would be great if there was a quality rating. But yes, I didn't even realise that about that particular motherboard. I was too busy looking up the model numbers and comparing them on TRW. I didn't even notice or realise that board isn't even a microATX. Very careless of me. >_< But it would ideally need to be a microATX as I have my test build under the desk, which currently has the MSI MS-6156 (BX7) board in it. So it would make sense to put that to use.

So a few other motherboards I've looked at:

MSI MS-6533E
ASRock P4VM8 (I think the AGP slot on this one is white), but comes with RAM and P4 3.2GHz pre-installed. It's a bit grubby and dusty, but can easily be cleaned up

DustyShinigami wrote on 2026-05-28, 22:14:

So a few other motherboards I've looked at:

MSI MS-6533E
ASRock P4VM8 (I think the AGP slot on this one is white), but comes with RAM and P4 3.2GHz pre-installed. It's a bit grubby and dusty, but can easily be cleaned up

Hmm, the MSI MS-6533E only supports 400 Mhz and 533 Mhz FSB, while the ASRock P4VM8 also supports 800 Mhz.
However the MSI MS-6533E is a SIS chipset, while the ASRock P4VM8 is VIA, generally I found SIS chipsets to be a bit more reliable and less driver version hunting than the VIA ones.
Personally I would still choose the ASRock one as the 800 Mhz FSB is the official FSB frequency for a P4 3.2 GHz and for P4s FSB frequency really matters because of their relatively low cache sizes compared to general performance, and generally driver version hunting needs to be only done once and after finding the good driver for a VIA board it can be a good performer.

EDIT: Also note that the MSI MS-6533 without any letters at the end only supports 400 Mhz FSB and that will really cripple the performance of faster P4s, so if going that route make sure it is really a MSI MS-6533E.

MagefromAntares wrote on 2026-05-28, 22:30:

Hmm, the MSI MS-6533E only supports 400 Mhz and 533 Mhz FSB, while the ASRock P4VM8 also supports 800 Mhz. However the MSI MS-65 […]
Show full quote

DustyShinigami wrote on 2026-05-28, 22:14:

So a few other motherboards I've looked at:

MSI MS-6533E
ASRock P4VM8 (I think the AGP slot on this one is white), but comes with RAM and P4 3.2GHz pre-installed. It's a bit grubby and dusty, but can easily be cleaned up

Hmm, the MSI MS-6533E only supports 400 Mhz and 533 Mhz FSB, while the ASRock P4VM8 also supports 800 Mhz.
However the MSI MS-6533E is a SIS chipset, while the ASRock P4VM8 is VIA, generally I found SIS chipsets to be a bit more reliable and less driver version hunting than the VIA ones.
Personally I would still choose the ASRock one as the 800 Mhz FSB is the official FSB frequency for a P4 3.2 GHz and for P4s FSB frequency really matters because of their relatively low cache sizes compared to general performance, and generally driver version hunting needs to be only done once and after finding the good driver for a VIA board it can be a good performer.

EDIT: Also note that the MSI MS-6533 without any letters at the end only supports 400 Mhz FSB and that will really cripple the performance of faster P4s, so if going that route make sure it is really a MSI MS-6533E.

Thanks for the info; good to know. I still haven’t really settled on any yet. Just looking up options that will serve my needs, but are also affordable. I would ideally like to get the same as what Phil got in this thread - 10 Reasons for a Pentium 4 Windows 98 DOS Retro Gaming PC :)

Though they’re a bit pricier at £80-100.

MagefromAntares wrote on 2026-05-28, 22:30:

Hmm, the MSI MS-6533E only supports 400 Mhz and 533 Mhz FSB, while the ASRock P4VM8 also supports 800 Mhz. However the MSI MS-65 […]
Show full quote

DustyShinigami wrote on 2026-05-28, 22:14:

So a few other motherboards I've looked at:

MSI MS-6533E
ASRock P4VM8 (I think the AGP slot on this one is white), but comes with RAM and P4 3.2GHz pre-installed. It's a bit grubby and dusty, but can easily be cleaned up

Hmm, the MSI MS-6533E only supports 400 Mhz and 533 Mhz FSB, while the ASRock P4VM8 also supports 800 Mhz.
However the MSI MS-6533E is a SIS chipset, while the ASRock P4VM8 is VIA, generally I found SIS chipsets to be a bit more reliable and less driver version hunting than the VIA ones.
Personally I would still choose the ASRock one as the 800 Mhz FSB is the official FSB frequency for a P4 3.2 GHz and for P4s FSB frequency really matters because of their relatively low cache sizes compared to general performance, and generally driver version hunting needs to be only done once and after finding the good driver for a VIA board it can be a good performer.

EDIT: Also note that the MSI MS-6533 without any letters at the end only supports 400 Mhz FSB and that will really cripple the performance of faster P4s, so if going that route make sure it is really a MSI MS-6533E.

I reached out to the seller and even the MS-6533E is only 400MHz. So it's looking like ASRock is leading the charge.

DustyShinigami wrote on 2026-05-28, 23:17:

MagefromAntares wrote on 2026-05-28, 22:30:

Hmm, the MSI MS-6533E only supports 400 Mhz and 533 Mhz FSB, while the ASRock P4VM8 also supports 800 Mhz. However the MSI MS-65 […]
Show full quote

DustyShinigami wrote on 2026-05-28, 22:14:

So a few other motherboards I've looked at:

MSI MS-6533E
ASRock P4VM8 (I think the AGP slot on this one is white), but comes with RAM and P4 3.2GHz pre-installed. It's a bit grubby and dusty, but can easily be cleaned up

Hmm, the MSI MS-6533E only supports 400 Mhz and 533 Mhz FSB, while the ASRock P4VM8 also supports 800 Mhz.
However the MSI MS-6533E is a SIS chipset, while the ASRock P4VM8 is VIA, generally I found SIS chipsets to be a bit more reliable and less driver version hunting than the VIA ones.
Personally I would still choose the ASRock one as the 800 Mhz FSB is the official FSB frequency for a P4 3.2 GHz and for P4s FSB frequency really matters because of their relatively low cache sizes compared to general performance, and generally driver version hunting needs to be only done once and after finding the good driver for a VIA board it can be a good performer.

EDIT: Also note that the MSI MS-6533 without any letters at the end only supports 400 Mhz FSB and that will really cripple the performance of faster P4s, so if going that route make sure it is really a MSI MS-6533E.

Thanks for the info; good to know. I still haven’t really settled on any yet. Just looking up options that will serve my needs, but are also affordable. I would ideally like to get the same as what Phil got in this thread - 10 Reasons for a Pentium 4 Windows 98 DOS Retro Gaming PC :)

Though they’re a bit pricier at £80-100.

I have one of these ( ASRock P4i65G ) kicking its heels in a cupboard somewhere - yours if you want it...PM me.