Would be best to check bandwidth/latency on those settings... to have an idea what is faster/slower from pseudo-objective point of view.

Yeah there’s definitely something else I need to try. I’ll have a look at some CPU and memory benchmarks

775 - started looking into other tests but not gotten very far. Started doing some tests in Sandra 2001 as it’s the newest version I had to hand that works on win98

In the meantime, I decided to try dual channel at the max overclock using the default 3:2 divider. I’m still on the 5:4 bios but will switch back to the 1:1 bios once I’ve finished my benches with this CPU

With dual channel working fine (but slow) on the 3:2 divider I was able to push 3dmark01se over 21500 points with o/c GPU

Still no e5800. Based on the 1:1 FSB:dram test results so far, It is pretty clear to me now one of those will be faster than this e6700 (not really a surprise is it?) Will be interesting to see how far the e5800 goes at 1:1, for testing at least!

775 - Another CPU in for testing. This time we have an E7500

I could not get it to post this morning. I am still on the 5:4 bios, and I wasn’t sure if it was down to that. but I just needed to remove the CPU, clean the pads and refit.

Et voila!

So this has 1 extra Mb of cache but is quite a bit slower than the E6700, E5800. I don’t expect that cache to make up the difference. But let’s see

Interesting results. E7500 best performing so far in 3dm01se. Forgot to photograph it, but over 22,000 with the GPU overclocked to 425/750. Game 3 (matrix one) in particular sees a big benefit from the extra cache

Edit - I forgot to mention this is with the CPU overlocked to the maximum the board can do - 292 x 11, ~3210MHz. At stock frequency it was still about on the same level as the E6700 clocked at 3.5GHz (292 x 12)

I tried to run aida64 but it crashed. Need to try another version

Wonder how fast an e8600 would be on this board? It will only clock to 2.9GHz, (292x10) but all that cache…

AFAIK, 7.70.7500 is last AIDA64 version that can do x86, while it needs patches it should work on XP.
For Win98 you will need .zip (no installer) one (.exe will not work), if 7.70.7500 won't run maybe try 6.92.6600 ?
Note : ".NET 1.1" might help.

agent_x007 wrote on 2026-10-08, 20:14:

AFAIK, 7.70.7500 is last AIDA64 version that can do x86, while it needs patches it should work on XP.
For Win98 you will need .zip (no installer) one (.exe will not work), if 7.70.7500 won't run maybe try 6.92.6600 ?
Note : ".NET 1.1" might help.

Thanks for that. The only one I tried so far was the standalone / zip version 7.60.something. It loads and I can view some information, but i get multiple error prompts. After loading again, the computer locked up.

I’ll try the others you mentioned and the dotnet framework. I should have it somewhere

Not had any luck with aida64. Tried multiple versions. Either I get an access violation error (on later versions) or the system locks and I get a blank screen/ screen with coloured lines on it. Tried different ram setups including Down clocking the E7500 to 2.2Ghz. No dice.

Perhaps it’s an indication of the system stability with these 266MHz FSB CPUs…

The only CPU I have with 200MHz FSB is the E4400. Still no E5800. I’m going to have to report the seller

So what have I learned so far then?
E7500 works in version 3.30 of the r2.04 bios
E7500 is as good or better than an E6700 thanks to the Extra 1Mb of cache, despite being 266Mhz (or more) slower

It would be interesting to see how a c2d E6700 or E8600 perform. They would both be slower clocks but have more (or a lot more) cache

I’m going to try some other RAM (which has not arrived yet) I don’t know if this motherboard likes this RAM very much. It’s SPD timings are 3-4-4-8 and even though this is for 266MHz it does not seem that happy running anything tighter than that even down at 200MHz

I know this motherboard is meant to be paired with cl2.5 ddr400, so I’ve purchased some corsair value select ram which should be 2.5-3-3-8 at 200Mhz. I used to have this Ram in my nforce2 based Athlon XP back in ~2005, and even though it was meant to be budget ram, it was still good for 225MHz+ at its stock timings. The sticks I’ve found are 256MB each as well, so hopefully this will give fewer software headaches too

775

Another couple of hours of playing around with the ram and FSB on the E7500

I am back on the stock 3.30 bios now. I was seeing errors with the Ram that were not there previously and reflashing the bios seems to have resolved this.

I tried tightening the timings on the RAM at the default 266/177MHz. I was able to get down to 2.5-3-3-6. This helped bump up the 3dmark01se score a bit. But previous record remained intact.

I then tried increasing the FSB slowly. 275/183, 285/190. Still no memtest errors with the RAM at 2.5-3-3-6

At 285/190, I managed to move the 3dmark01se score up to 22288 points with the GPU at 425 / 750

(CPU-Z still not showing correct info. 9x version shows correct clock speed, 1.76 shows correct mem timings but incorrect clock/mem speed
I am just fine tuning at this point and any further gains will be minimal.

I have not found the limit yet of the GPU but based on historical reviews it may go to 450 / 800

I don’t plan on leaving this machine overclocked. Just playing around with it til I get the e5800 and decide what I’m doing for a case for it

775

I decided today I should probably try some games on it

I hadn’t set up any sound card on it yet. My plan was to stick my audigy2 ZS in it.

And it did not work. Not detected. Nothing.

I eventually got it to work. Again like the RAM issues, I think it was bad contacts. For all I know, it never had a pci card in any of these slots before.

Installation was smooth. Much better than on the Athlon. No crashes at all.

Thanks to the author of this thread are due, it really makes the setup a breeze!

[OUTDATED] Installing Windows 9x and DOS drivers on Audigy cards (version 3.1)

I had to use the sbego to tell me the cards irq and dma settings and update the autoexec (which was wrong) and the games I wanted to play.

I got it to work in pure dos with duke nukem 3d. So that’s reassuring! Other late dos titles should also be fine.

There is absolutely no free upper memory on this motherboard to load dos drivers. So free base mem is going to be a problem for some games, but I’ll probably play those on my socket 7 anyway.

Forgot to say - I’ve read that IRQ resources are a potential issue and I could see there weren’t really any left with the Audigy installed - the useless firewire connector took up irq 7 which would’ve been the favourite for the SB emulation. But it seems to still work in windows and dos somehow with it set to irq5, which Sandra reports as being one of the many usb controllers

In windows the emulation doesn’t seem to use an irq at all?

In pure dos using checkit, it shows all the usb irqs as available.

My Athlon setup is moreorless ready for sale now. Has anyone had any luck selling on eBay for the sort of money these things cost?? Not desperate to sell it, but I don’t see me using it with the 775 rig fulfilling almost the same role

I thought about transplanting the socket775 into this case. But if it helps me sell it as a ready to go built PC, I’d be prepared to let it go complete.

Looks smart. I think the tricky thing is if you try to sell locally (collection only) you will get well under market value for it, and if you post it you risk it arriving damaged.

Yeah I really like how it looks. I’m struggling to find something else style wise that I like. This case was BNIB so it’s also in perfect condition. I just don’t know what to do!

RetroPCCupboard wrote on 2026-10-11, 21:37:

Looks smart. I think the tricky thing is if you try to sell locally (collection only) you will get well under market value for it, and if you post it you risk it arriving damaged.

Either way in a good market, it seems hard to do better than about 80% part out value, very sad.

I think I would put the 775 system in the case and sell the Athlon as a CPU/RAM/Motherboard combo. You will get less for it, but more likely to sell and less likely to get a return if the buyer has compatibility issues or doesn't know what they are doing. I'd keep the 5200 as a spare just in case the 5900XT dies.

Athlons can be too much for modern PSUs though. So it is possible that the buyer may still have issues if they dont use appropriate PSU.

Thanks for the replies. Thinking about it today, it would be daft for me to sell it complete. I think the idea of selling it complete came from some form of remorse that I have towards decommissioning it, as it finally works as I originally intended so it feels a shame to take it apart. But as good as it is, I was ultimately a bit disappointed by the performance of it. It is perfectly fine for the most part, but it turns out I wanted something faster.

(I have also not been able to find something better for the 775 to sit in)

I have two PSUs for Athlons, the one in the case at the moment has a 40A 5V rail. I could probably include the PSU in the sale as I won't really need it.

The case came with a nice Antec 380w PSU that is currently in the socket 7. I may put it back in this case, as it will pair nicely with the S775 setup I should think.

Socket 775 update!

The E5800 finally arrived. A full two weeks after I ordered it. If’d been waiting so long I was sure I was going to get a refund, so I ordered another one. And today both arrived! 🤣 there is a phrase we say in the UK about buses which seems appropriate right now…

I might have another use for the 2nd E5800. I have another entire socket 775 PC that I’d totally forgotten about. More on that later.

The Corsair Ram kit arrived as well. But the seller seems to be somewhat of a numpty as they have managed to send me one Corsair stick and one unbranded stick with elpida chips on it. Dang it.

I tried the E5800 from the original seller. Fired straight up! Passed memtest at 200MHz with 2.5-3-3-6 timings (I still don’t trust this ram)

Time for some benchmarks!

And…it’s fine. Results in 3dm01se are near identical to the E7500 at its stock settings and frequency. The extra cache on the E7500 really pushes the numbers up on the lobby benchmarks

Memory benchmarks in Sandra are good, not surprising with the 1:1 sync but this hasn’t translated into better performance.

Time for some overclocking!

Been there, done that. I have three rev 2.04's and one rev. 3.0 775i65g's, p4i65g and conroe865pe all collecting dust. I'd keep the socket A just for its ISA slot. The faster you go, the more you lose (in dos support) and go into winxp territory. Next you're onto radeon x800 PCIe rocket builds

Don’t say that! I really need to be done with builds after this!! 😅😂

Not had enough time for overclocking tonight. The first overclock I tried crashed to desktop in 3dm01se (didn’t have time for a memtest run) This was at 3.5GHz (219x16) I need to tweak the mem timings til I get stability again.

All Sandra tests looked pretty much the same as the E6700 clocked at this speed, just better memory performance

Im putting together a spreadsheet of results which I’ll post at some point.