first, most cpu compatibility limitations are decided by the chipset.

socket7: most ali5 and mvp3 boards would meet your criteria.

slot1: bx has superb ram performance but no official 133fsb support, 694 has better 133fsb compatibility but slower performance.

370: most boards supporting tualatin (815eb/epb and 694t) would have problem supporting early viac3 cores until ezra-t.

socket478: most boards in the 800fsb era(prescott and late northwood) have dropped support for willamette as well as early 400fsb northwoods.

Your Socket7's requirement for CPU clockspeed up to 600MHz already killed most options save for the SuperSocket7 ones.

The ASUS P4P800 series will even support Pentium M with ASUS' own CT-479 socket adapter (this just took my attention recently). Great thing about the Pentium M is ts efficiency: much lower power usage than P4, and much better performance per cycle of course. And also, these chips have great headroom for overclocking. Fortunately there are plenty of these boards on the used market today.

Also, if you want to benchmark older AGP cards, you may consider AMD/Socket 462 and (mobile) Barton... as that platform would let you use a faster CPU than the 1.4GHz Tualatin. Try searching this forum for EPOX 8KTA3Pro users.

NitroX infinity wrote:

I collect 3D-Capable, pre-DirectX 9 videocards and plan to benchmark them all at some point on various systems.

Then the motherboard doesn't matter much. if you are comparing just the video cards, then making as few changes between setups is preferred.

Get a late Athlon XP board. Then go nuts. the only time you will need another board is the agp 2x / 4x barrier. 8x boards will only take 4x and 8x. there are "universal" 4x boards but they will downclock 8x to 4x.

matching a motehrboard cpu to the video card when you are testing the maximum performance of the video card is just silly. A voodoo 1 will run on the fastest socket A chip there is. pci is pci.

I should have have added, as a huge 3dfx fan I already have one of the best Socket A motherboards possible; Epox 8K3A+ 😀

@luckybob; performance between chipsets is probably most important for the Slot 1/Socket 370 motherboards considering is the same generation. Test results would be unreliable if one had a good performing chipset and the other a really bad one. One of the goals of the benchmarks is to see which cards benefit the most from faster cpu's/different architectures.

NitroX infinity wrote:

I should have have added, as a huge 3dfx fan I already have one of the best Socket A motherboards possible; Epox 8K3A+ 😀

@luckybob; performance between chipsets is probably most important for the Slot 1/Socket 370 motherboards considering is the same generation. Test results would be unreliable if one had a good performing chipset and the other a really bad one. One of the goals of the benchmarks is to see which cards benefit the most from faster cpu's/different architectures.

Well, I look forward to seeing your results 😀

And as for tips regarding the motherboards, when it comes to Socket 7, Super 7 would be your best bet (AGP + 100mhz fsb support).
There is 1 i815 Slot 1 board, but it's hard to find one (been looking for that 1 myself off and on). Another possible option would be to use one of Intel's Slot 1 rambus boards (official 133Mhz support), but a BX would be just as good (but limited to 100Mhz fsb).

For Socket 370 it's obvious you'll want a s370 board with official Tualatin support. I'm not sure how hard these are now to come by, I got a couple myself from Ebay mostly a couple years ago.

You could try marktplaats or tweakers.net (I see you're a fellow countryman 😉 )if you don't have these boards already.

Does anyone have a suggestion for a socket 370 motherboard that supports Coppermines at 600MHz or 1GHz and VIA C3's?

If you are testing video cards, the motherboard doesnt matter... if you are testing both at the same time.... thats just a bad idea.

440BX boards are probably the best retro rig boards. There's usually not a lot of difficulty getting them to work and a lot of them have good overclocking options if that's your thing. Socket 7 era stuff is going through it's expensive period right now, especially Super 7 boards so Slot 1 is good value at the moment. Intel's stronger FPU performance compared to Super 7 chips translates into better gaming performance, too.

NitroX infinity wrote:

Does anyone have a suggestion for a socket 370 motherboard that supports Coppermines at 600MHz or 1GHz and VIA C3's?

I'd say, just get a Tualatin board for this purpose. Tualatin boards often also support the VIA chips, which more Coppermine boards don't (or support less).

There are so many different Tualatin boards, it's hard to suggest just a few. Best is to search for people selling Socket 370 boards and then check if they support Tualatin. Probably Intel boards won't support anything that's not an Intel chip, so avoid those.
Go with large name brands like Gigabyte or Asus and the like.

Just to give you an indication as to how many s370 boards were made, try looking at this webpage: http://www.motherboard.cz/socket370.htm
Theres LOTS of em! And most won't support Tualatin.

Personally I'd go with trying to find someone who's currently selling a Socket 370 board and then google that board and see which CPU's it supports 😉

I agree with Tetrium and they can be so easy to work with plus they are much less likely to be flaky. Even the crummy PCchips Tualatin boards are heads and shoulders above the quality of a lot of SS7 gear. If you still want to get fancy then hunt down a DDR1 Tualatin board, I even bought one retail a few years ago.

Thanks guys.

nforce4max wrote:

I agree with Tetrium and they can be so easy to work with plus they are much less likely to be flaky. Even the crummy PCchips Tualatin boards are heads and shoulders above the quality of a lot of SS7 gear. If you still want to get fancy then hunt down a DDR1 Tualatin board, I even bought one retail a few years ago.

Forgot to react to this thread, so sorry for the rez.
What I meant to say is that's it's not worthwhile to use a Coppermine board if you have a Tualatin board laying around that can accept any processor that the coppermine board can.
The only reason to get a Coppermine capable board is if you want to use it for Slot 1 CPU's like a Pentium 2. In that case I'd say:Just use a BX board for that.
And on the matter of BX boards, many s370 Coppermine boards will not work with the early pga370 Celerons, it's best to use an early non-coppermine s370 board for that or to use a BX board with a Slot 1-to-s370 adapter. (edit:see below)

Super Socket 7 isn't all that bad and it'll work with much older processors like the Pentium 1 non-mmx and even with the obscure Socket 7 CPU's like Winchip and Rise, something that a Tualatin board cannot do.
Just be sure to get one of the better Super 7 boards. GA5AX seems to have a good record here on Vogons (especially the 4.1 and later ones).

My guess is that Nitrox also wants to bench using slow processors to see how graphics cards perform in CPU starved configurations and that'll be hard if he only uses a Tualatin board.

Edit:Apparently the ASUS CUSL2 will work with the early PPGA Celerons, but the Tualatin version of that board won't, so theres s370 Coppermine boards out there that actually will work with the early Celerons. But not all of them will, so don't assume so 😉

My guess is that Nitrox also wants to bench using slow processors to see how graphics cards perform in CPU starved configurations and that'll be hard if he only uses a Tualatin board.

You sir, are correct! 😀 One of my biggest interests is finding out with what CPU a videocard maxes out and if there are any oddities (Videocard A beats videocard B on a 200MHz CPU but B beats A on a 400MHz CPU, etc.).

NitroX infinity wrote:

My guess is that Nitrox also wants to bench using slow processors to see how graphics cards perform in CPU starved configurations and that'll be hard if he only uses a Tualatin board.

You sir, are correct! 😀 One of my biggest interests is finding out with what CPU a videocard maxes out and if there are any oddities (Videocard A beats videocard B on a 200MHz CPU but B beats A on a 400MHz CPU, etc.).

In that case I'd settle with any decent Slot 1 board (preferably with BX chipset), that should cover any Slot 1 CPU (Klamath, Deschutes and 100Mhz FSB Coppermines) and with an adapter you can even use the early s370 Celerons (the ones that run from about 333Mhz to 533Mhz).

Next you could go for any decent i815 s370 Coppermine board. The ASUS CUSL2 (link to cpu support here http://support.asus.com/cpusupport/list.aspx? … s=&hashedid=n/a )for example will accept 133Mhz FSB Coppermines and will also work with the early s370 Celerons (the ones that run up to 533Mhz).
My guess is you'd want to evade the VIA boards and any i810 boards (the budget chipset made by Intel that doesn't even come with AGP), just go with the i815 ones 😉

Next I'd get an Intel chipsetted Tualatin board. These were never build using Slot 1 so s370 is all you'll be getting. Not all s370 Tualatin boards will work with the 512kb cache Tualatins (aka the Tualatin-s iirc) but many will support them, even if they're not mentioned on their CPU support lists.
I know my GA-60XT (or was it GA6OXT? 😵 ) will work with the Tualatin-s. I'm not sure about weather it will work with the VIA chips though.

Btw, in your VIA chip list in your first post, you forgot to mention VIA's Nehemiah which runs up to 1.2Ghz in s370 form. The 1.0Ghz Nehemias shlould be more common though, I don't really know what chips you already have laying around.

VIA compatibility is a bit sketchy, I found it quite a hassle to find out which VIA chips any particular board supports. Possibly it's similar to how the early Celerons are supported, that the earliest VIA chips only work in Coppermine boards and the Nehemiah's only work in Tualatin boards, but I can't be certain about that.

From top of my head, the earliest VIA chips worked at around 2.0v (same as the early Celerons) while the latest Nehemiah's worked at around 1.4v (same as Tualatin). I did find out that my Nehemiah 1.2Ghz worked in a Coppermine board (the ASUS CUSL2 iirc)...at least for a while. After a couple tests the combo stopped working, after which I put the combo away. But at least I figured out that VIA didn't change some pins around to make it not boot in Coppermine boards like Intel did with their Tualatins, so that solves at least 1 problem 😁

Possibly you could get a pin-modded Tualatin which will at least boot in a Coppermine board, I saw someone on Vogons link to an Ebay page from a seller who had an extensive compatibility list. That might solve your problem of getting a dedicated Tualatin board.

And even though I mentioned to use Intel chipsetted boards in this case, please do not use an Intel motherboard for this! Even though their motherboards are very good, they made their boards incompatible with VIA chips and their Coppermine boards won't work with Tualatins (no matter what you do) because of BIOS microcode.

So in short:
You'll need a decent Slot 1 BX board (preferably one that will work with the early Coppermines, but that's not a must), a decent s370 Coppermine board (preferably one that will work with those early Celerons and early VIA chips) and a decent Tualatin board (with support for Tualatin-s and Nehemias...if you have any of those).

One last thing about Intel s370 chips:The later Intel s370 chips came with a heatspreader and thus are a bit higher then the bare-die Coppermines. There are some Coppermines which also come with a heatspreader btw, they look like plain Coppermines looking at the underside though, that's how I distinguish those. Anyway, the fact that the heatspreader makes them higher might provide trouble when mounting a heatsink. Just be careful not to break any of those little Socket notches. If you do break one, a dash of superglue will fix that for sure 😉
I know theres a Socket A cooler which requires you to screw it to the Socket, those should be compatible with either of those chips (iirc it was the Copper Silent 3 or something 😜 )

And about the P4 boards, I looked up the ASUS P4 board you listed and it seems to come with an AGP 8x slot (not sure if it's one of those x4-only slots though, those look like plain 8x slots with the notch) so it won't work with any AGP Voodoo card. Iirc SiS made a couple P4 chipsets with a real universal x4 AGP port. Maybe one of those would be a better choice for you?

So what boards and which chips do you already have laying around?

(long post, took like 45 minutes to write 🤣 )

If you want to keep it simple and boil it down to TWO boards for all your testing below the Pentium 4 then get:

1. 440BX board with 1.5V voltage support and CONFIRMED tualatin support. This will make you able to test everything from 233mhz PIIs to the latest P3-S 1400. If you are going for 1997-1999 videocards, this rig will cover it. I use my own ASUS P3B-F v1.03 for testing the cards and capturing of my videos. It is a great board with jumperfree settings making switching of CPU's and settings easy and conventient. My 1.4ghz Tualatin is pinmodded by some guy in Korea who did a very professional job on it. I use the CPU in a normal slotklet. If you are planning on using different tualatins, then getting the Upgradeware Slot-t sloklet is the way to go. It can be gotten on Ebay for 20-30 dollars. Then you don't need pinmodded Tualatins. S370 Coppermines, regular S370 and Slot1 CPU's will work straight out of the box with this motherboard.

2. For below 233mhz it depends if you want 50mhz FSB support. I don't know of any Super Socket 7 board with 50mhz FSB option (though the Ali Aladdin V states it on some websites in it's specifications. I don't own a board with this chipset, but maybe someone else here on Vogons can confirm or not). The reason I mention 50mhz support is so that you can run the P75, else the P90 will be the lowest available processor (60mhz support) you can use, like I'm doing on my EPOX-EPMVP3E based on the VIA MVP3 chipset. This board enables me to use all socket 7 processors ranging from P90 all the way to K6-3 500-600mhz. It also supports both FPM/EDO and SDRAM. Great motherboard for the really early videocards as it also has AGP port. The Pentium 90 was the recommended system setup for the Diamond Edge 3D anyway, and if you're planning on testing your Tasmania 3D (which I hope you will!) then you probably want to test with slower CPU's to see the difference between software mode and accelerated. Also having a super socket 7 board gives you the ability to test how the cards ran on current CPU's when they were new. Add to that sometimes the really old cards might behave strangely on the newer chipsets/CPUs, like my Diamond Edge 3D which gives noticebly better performance with a Pentium 133 than a Pentium 3 Tualatin in Nascar Racing!

Just my 2 cents with my experience 😀

I'm not going to mess around with pin-modified processors and Socket370 to Slot1 converters. Too much hassle in my opinion.

Just had a look through my boxes of older hardware, completely forgot I already have a Socket7 board (AOpen AX59 Pro) 😮 And as for the slowest CPU on Socket7 I'll be testing; that's gonna be a 100MHz Pentium with a 66MHz FSB.

That leaves me with Slot1 and Socket370. Just had another look at the CPU's I want for those and made a small adjustment; no more Celeron PPGA's.

I'm also thinking about leaving the VIA C3's alone for now because I can't figure out if Samuel, Samuel 2 and Ezra are PPGA or FCPGA (compatible).

Should make it a lot easier to find a Slot1 and a Socket370 motherboard.

NitroX infinity wrote:

I'm not going to mess around with pin-modified processors and Socket370 to Slot1 converters. Too much hassle in my opinion.

I have the opposite view as I find having one board / PC less gives less trouble when it comes to testing. With more computers/setups there is more to configure, more time used to swapping the cards around, swapping cables, etc etc. But if you have alot of room to have everything, then go ahead 😀

Pin modified processors is only needed for the tualatins IF you don't have an Upgradeware or Powerleap adapter, and tbh I don't see much point in getting more than one tualatin which is the fastest at 1400mhz. You won't get rid of the slot1 to socket 370 adapters for the other CPUs, but I don't think they are very much of a hassle to work with as long as you don't use the small lock clips in the mounters. I've never experienced the adapter falling out of the slot when not using the lock clips when the computer is standing vertically.

NitroX infinity wrote:

I'm not going to mess around with pin-modified processors and Socket370 to Slot1 converters. Too much hassle in my opinion. […]
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I'm not going to mess around with pin-modified processors and Socket370 to Slot1 converters. Too much hassle in my opinion.

Just had a look through my boxes of older hardware, completely forgot I already have a Socket7 board (AOpen AX59 Pro) 😮 And as for the slowest CPU on Socket7 I'll be testing; that's gonna be a 100MHz Pentium with a 66MHz FSB.

That leaves me with Slot1 and Socket370. Just had another look at the CPU's I want for those and made a small adjustment; no more Celeron PPGA's.

I'm also thinking about leaving the VIA C3's alone for now because I can't figure out if Samuel, Samuel 2 and Ezra are PPGA or FCPGA (compatible).

Should make it a lot easier to find a Slot1 and a Socket370 motherboard.

Your Super 7 boards is one of the better ones, it should suit your needs 😉

Easiest way to avoid using an adapter is to simply use 1 Tualatin board (for the Tualatins and the whole range of Coppermines) and 1 BX board (for any Slot 1 CPU of 100Mhz and 66Mhz FSB). That together with your Super 7 board should cover anything from 100Mhz all the way up to 1.4Ghz.
It's hard finding the higher clocked 100Mhz FSB Coppermines for Slot 1 (s370 1Ghz 133Mhz FSB parts are WAY easier to find then the Slot 1 1Ghz 100Mhz FSB part), but you can emulate the 750Mhz and slower Coppermine parts easily by underclocking a faster 133Mhz FSB part.

Sure you can use 133Mhz FSB parts in BX, but only if you overclock the AGP bus which might cause problems on it's own.

So I'd say 233Mhz - 600-ish Mhz (up to 100Mhz FSB) --> Slot 1
600-ish Mhz - 1400Mhz (any standard FSB) --> Socket 370 (Tualatin capable board)

Abit BH6 for Slot1 then. Used to own that sweety with a Celly300A so I'm not a stranger there.