Hello all, thank you for your comments.

So... I got the Epox motherboard, it s a very high end one, nforce ultra and probably the only one of it s time with a microcode display... Wow... It also has a 4 pin cpu input so does good on power.

I have also received a 6600gt bfg gpu... And it has led... What the hell... Never seen one with an led, specially in 2003...

Good thing was that because the Asus board was nforce 2 ultra, did jot have to reinstall windows... It pretty much just works...

Must say, that I have never experienced windows 9x so snappy... It s pretty much instant... Specially because me does not have the dos background stuff loading, etc...

Now... I completely understand why you would recommend a sb live or audigy, I actually have both... An audigy în my high end p4 machine (winxp) and a live on the side... I am aware that both are more high end, have wax, etc... I have never had a aureal vortex and I just like it. Specially because is the 2. În my win 98se machine I use a ess solo 1 sound card and will not change it because of best ever card for dos compatibility....

Back to the 3200+ monster... The epox board is more stable, the power led is at full luminousity where as with the Asus board was half intensity, the board was struggling for power... 3200+ sits at 40 to 45 in idle, the chipset (repasted) is at 35.

Ram wise, I have just tried my luck... I had 512mb in dual channel and added another 256 just to try... Works great, not even the slightest issue. And the cool thing is that it still works in dual channel for the first 512mb... So no reason to go down on the ram.

I have also done a bit of cable management around the cpu and I have tried to hide most of the cables away from the cpu cooler fan... I think that is ok... If you have better suggestions, please fell free to let me know...

I have added a few pics for you...

bitzu101 wrote on 2026-06-15, 00:00:

PSU - 500w - CIT with 30A on the 5v rail , specially bought because the cpu requires a lot of 5v amps... i know it s not very fancy , i know it s cheap... but it does have a back mounted fan and that is a MUST because a bottom mounted psu fan would take all the air from the cpu cooler... (in fact... unfortunatelly , there are no more psu's with back fans...)

That's not an issue. I have only bottom mounted fan PSUs even in cheap top mounted PSU cases.
I haven't had any problems even with a toasty Pentium D 820 (allegedly 95W) or slightly less power hungry X3220 (100W).

In this (hehe) case heat from the CPU should be pulled off in two places - thru PSU and rear fan. While it increases power supply temperature (at least in theory), it also helps to cool down the processor. In theory, because power supply takes the air... either way from the inside of the case.

I'd go with full intake rather than just exhaust. Push the air across the case, not pull.
Remember to install stronger fans for intake.

I already said on the first page I am not looking to change psu... I just Don t want a bottom fan psu. Even if incorrect. When I was a kid I only had rear fan ones so I am sticking to it. If it fails, it was on 10 quid on ebay, I ll just buy another one 😀

A little bit of an update...

NEW GPU!!! Probably most high end gpu from nvidia for win 9x.... The 6800 gt 256 gddr3... A 2 slot card that will demolish anything windows 9x...

I have also installed a few games... My monitor is 1600x1200 and the games still work just fine...

I am still waiting for a few games in the post....

The beauty of this system is that it can also run windows xp if needed... But for that I have a different system... One that I have already posted but I taken the 6800gt out of, and that one will get a new gpu shortly... I will update on that topic....

Nice video card. What monitor are you using? CRT or some 4:3 LCD?

Nice. Back in the day I had Athlon XP 3200+ on A7N8X Deluxe with Radeon 9700 Pro. Later updated to nvidia 6800 GT. So basically same as you have here. Never used it with Win98 though. For me, this GPU is firmly XP territory.

nd22 wrote on Yesterday, 15:02:

Nice video card. What monitor are you using? CRT or some 4:3 LCD?

it is a dell LCD 1600x1200 true 4:3 monitor 😀

If i could find a 1024x768 LCD with true 4:3 , I would buy that as well...

RetroPCCupboard wrote on Yesterday, 18:01:

Nice. Back in the day I had Athlon XP 3200+ on A7N8X Deluxe with Radeon 9700 Pro. Later updated to nvidia 6800 GT. So basically same as you have here. Never used it with Win98 though. For me, this GPU is firmly XP territory.

you are correct , the gpu is more for windows XP...

and I also have a A7N8X motherboard , but I like the epox better...

I also have a high end P4 pc , I will repost in that topic... but I took the 6800 of the p4 to put it in here , and ordered a monster AGP card to put in the P4 for the Xp build...