I've bought some socket 370 1.4 GHz Tualatin SL6BY CPUs, but I'm reluctant to mess about with my Powerleap adapter, in order to test them all. An easier way to test them would be to use a socket 370 mobo. Can someone recommend one please? Ideally, it would have 2 ISA slots. Thanks a lot.
Two ISA slots is going to be hard to do, on an 'official' Tualatin board. I think there was a version of the Soyo 7VBA that fit the requirements, or if one ISA slot will suffice, then the MSI 694T would probably be much easier to find.
You're probably going to end up stuck with a Via chipset no matter what... i815 boards with ISA slots were slim on the ground anyway, and Tualatin supporting ones are even rarer.
Thanks a lot! As luck would have it, I think, a Soyo 7VBA has just appeared on ebay, but I'm a bit suspicious about the wording in the listing. I might put a £1 bid on it, and just see if I end up being the winner..
Gigabyte als made a few models with 1 ISA slot.
What is harder to find, a mainboard or another Powerleap?
Are 815 boards faster than VIA chipset boards + ISA slot?
wrote:What is harder to find, a mainboard or another Powerleap?
My reluctance to use the PL adapter for testing is just because it's harder to disengage it from the mobo, and then remove the CPU from its grasp in order to test another CPU, than it is to simply insert another CPU for testing in to a socket 370 on a mobo.
Wow those adapters aren't cheap anyway...
Thanks a lot! As luck would have it, I think, a Soyo 7VBA has just appeared on ebay, but I'm a bit suspicious about the wording in the listing. I might put a £1 bid on it, and just see if I end up being the winner..
Well, the caps look OK, and it doesn't appear to be beat-up or anything, so chances are good that a new CMOS battery would make it good to go. I'd say it's worth the risk of a few bucks, anyway.
@Mau1wurf1977
Powerleap adapters are hard to come by, much more so than S370 Tualatin boards, and they're usually quite pricey as well.
i815 boards are generally a bit faster than Via Apollo boards, 10% is the commonly accepted average difference I believe, but the big thing is that the Via chips can be quite finicky... not really the greatest thing for quick and easy stability testing and benchmarking. They can certainly be made to work OK, and some people don't have any problems with them at all... so if that's all that's available, it's not the end of the world by any means.
Nice, thanks for the info!
I'm after a 370 board for a 1.4 PIII as well, but no need for ISA and would prefer the 815 chipset.
Seeing the P4 was out and about as well, I'm assuming there aren't than many decent S370 boards?
What brands / models can be recommended?
Without the need for ISA, the choices open up quite a bit. You're still somewhat limited in options compared to regular Coppermine boards and all that, but I think all the major motherboard manufacturers released at least one or two Tualatin models.
The best bet would just be to do a little searching on places like Tom's Hardware Guide and Anandtech, there were quite a few places that did 'roundup' articles about Tualatin boards, so you can pick out your favorites from there and go hunting on eBay or wherever.
Excellent, thanks !
ASUS TUSL2-C comes to mind, of course. There really are quite a few boards with Tualatin support if you do some Google searching...
The problem with 815 boards is that 512MB limit which quite frankly sucks to a very high degree. I can load my 440BX board up with more RAM than that. The VIA mobos don't have that limitation. 815 is probably superior in every other way though.
The problem with 815 boards is that 512MB limit which quite frankly sucks to a very high degree.
The way I see it, though, what're you realistically going to do on a PIII that requires more than 512MB RAM? Or, more to the point, given the wide availability of much newer hardware for similar prices, why would you choose to use a PIII for things that would be better suited to a more modern system?
Good point, P4 part combos and PCs are really cheap at the moment.
wrote:The way I see it, though, what're you realistically going to do on a PIII that requires more than 512MB RAM? Or, more to the point, given the wide availability of much newer hardware for similar prices, why would you choose to use a PIII for things that would be better suited to a more modern system?
No argument there. 512MB goes quite far really for this hardware. But you have to admit that it's silly for a 440BX motherboard to be able to support twice the amount of RAM. 😉
I love 815 otherwise. My TUSL2-C has not disappointed in any other regard. It's definitely an improvement over 440BX in every other way.
i815 B-Step Tualatin Motherboard Roundup - July 2001:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/806
VIA Apollo Pro266 boards (DDR! on S370):
But you have to admit that it's silly for a 440BX motherboard to be able to support twice the amount of RAM.
Oh, yeah, it's not just silly... the entire principle of it pisses me off. The RAM capacity is a ridiculous and completely artificial limitation based out of Intel's idiotic Rambus obsession. It annoys me that they did that, just as it annoys me that they arbitrarily changed the pinout of the Tualatin and priced it out of the consumer market in order to push full-scale upgrades to their terrible P4 platform.
wrote:But you have to admit that it's silly for a 440BX motherboard to be able to support twice the amount of RAM.
Oh, yeah, it's not just silly... the entire principle of it pisses me off. The RAM capacity is a ridiculous and completely artificial limitation based out of Intel's idiotic Rambus obsession. It annoys me that they did that, just as it annoys me that they arbitrarily changed the pinout of the Tualatin and priced it out of the consumer market in order to push full-scale upgrades to their terrible P4 platform.
Agrees.
And about the i815 chipsets, didn't it have the added handicap that it won't work with memory modules larger the 256MB?
If yes, is this chipset compatible with memory modules that are 256MB single sided? Or will they only recognize half of it?
wrote:The problem with 815 boards is that 512MB limit which quite frankly sucks to a very high degree.
The way I see it, though, what're you realistically going to do on a PIII that requires more than 512MB RAM? Or, more to the point, given the wide availability of much newer hardware for similar prices, why would you choose to use a PIII for things that would be better suited to a more modern system?
This is in fact a good question.
However, a couple years back when I was still starting up and completing my 1st couple rigs, the 512MB limit was really a limit.
One thing a 1.4Ghz P3 would be nice for is for using it as a retro XP rig. I love the fact that P3 consumes so little power compared to the Athlon and even more so, the hotheaded P4.
Having DDR on a P3 is nice from a retro builders point, instead of having to use higher end SDRAM, you can simply toss some of yer old downbinned spare DDR modules in there 😜
I'm using a Soyo 7VBA133U mobo ATM. I think it fits what you're looking for- has 2 ISA slots is pretty overclockable. Construction is to high standards with none of the annoying PCI bus conflicts these chipsets can be known for. There's plenty of space around the socket for bigger coolers like those socket A ones, ATA 100, ability to take high density ram modules (1.5gb max limit), AGP 4x, front USB headers. What more could you ask for from a retro s370 platform? 😁
I imagine that it's similar to a KT133A motherboard in a lot of ways.\
