1. My vote for "best Slot 1 MB" goes to AOpen (AX6BC)...I know this may not be the absolute best Slot 1 MB out there (ASUS P3B comes to mind as another really good Slot 1 board). I mostly just like the stability and solid construction of the AOpen boards of this era and some are pretty fast too.

2. If you can get a nice Tyan (made in the USA) dual Slot 1 board go for it, but I think for the most part, for non win2000 SMP (you say you're just running win9x), I would just go with single processor.

3. Not sure

4. I have heard good things here on Vogons about the Diamond Monster MX300. The SB 5.1 Live! Platinum is good too, especially when you can connect to SB_LINK header on MB for better DOS compatibility, but if you're just going strictly Win9x, maybe an Audigy sound board may be a better option as they are readily available and maybe a bit better than the SB Live! for some newer Win9x games with EAX and usually go for peanuts.

What are you thinking for a case and Power Supply? Also something to consider is getting a good Plextor CD/DVD ROM drive, but of course almost anything would suffice for win9x.

Also, I have to ask, why not go with a s370 setup (or even a win9x compatible s478 board for that matter) instead of Slot 1 if you're just going to use it for win9x gaming?

1, I'd say the Intel SE440BX-2 Slot 1 motherboard. 1 x AGP, 4 x PCI and 2 x ISA. Very stable, not the best for overclocking but these days with slot 1 cpu's being so cheap, why would you not choose the speed you're after and forget about overclocking altogether. Also as I recently discovered, this board will take a 1ghz 100fsb pentium 3.

Intel SE440BX-2 + Pentium III 1ghz Slot 1 CPU?

Oh and you can still purchase them brand new in box from eBay.

2,Single cpu. Windows 95/98 cannot use more than one cpu at all. Only an NT based OS can use dual cpu's. NT based systems will also not give you 100% compatibility with all win9x games.

3, If your adamant that you must use a Geforce256 then I'm of the same opinion as retrofanatic. Never owned one before.

4, The sound blaster live 5.1 would be best given your cut off date for this build. You just have to be careful as there are so many different models to lookout for. I believe mine is the SB0060 model. Great card for win9x gaming. Yes the audigy is better but it was made in 2001 I believe.

Now I do have to ask, are you not going to be doing any dos gaming at all? Is there any reason your parts have to be limited to Dec 1st 99? If you don't care about dos at all then as retrofanatic suggested, a socket 478 board would be best. I'd go for the Asus P4P800-SE as I know first hand this board will take a 3.4ghz Pentium 4, has 8x AGP, uses an intel chipset and is windows 98 compatible. You could also go with a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum and a nvidia 6800 Ultra or ATI X850 Pro. Both of these graphics cards were the last windows 98 compatible graphics cards with drivers still readily available. This option would allow you to play "all" win9x games on maximum settings as well as games made all the way up to around 2003-2004.

Thank you guys!

Well, relative to my purism, it's important that every pieces of hardware not has been made after the 31th of December of 1999, only to respect the name of this build "High-End 90's PC" 😀

As i said in the first post, all suggestions are welcome... Do you think there are better graphic cards for directX and openGL?

According to the CPU-World, the pentium 800 is the lastest processor in 90's (?)...

Retrofanatic: I would love suggestions for the case and power supply. I think that the cases of this era was a lack of ventilation, but what do you think about that question?

Relatively to the soundcard, i think my choice goes to the sound blaster 5.1 platinum with drive II module.

What games do you want to play? Because that determines a lot of things. Early games that use Glide for example, some games use Aureal A3D, some EAX.

Older games like Turok, Forsaken and GLQuake get over 100 fps on a fast K6 with a single Voodoo 2. For newer games the requirements of the graphics card quickly increase. A few years later and a Voodoo 2 doesn't cut it anymore.

In general you can't go wrong with a BX440 chipset board. I have three of these AOpen and they are indeed fantastic. Good Japanese capacitors and rock stable.

But I wouldn't get to caught up in this "high end" concept. Get what is affordable and cheap. The difference between a 600 and 900 MHz Pentium 3 isn't that great because the FSB remains at 100 MHz.

You will never be able to build the "ultimate" machine because there are too many variables. You can build the "ultimate" machine on a per-game basis though.

I want to play everything from win95 to win98 games (1995-2000). For ms-dos games (1990-1996) i have my socket 7 machine.

mp10 wrote:

Retrofanatic: I would love suggestions for the case and power supply. I think that the cases of this era was a lack of ventilation, but what do you think about that question?

there are so many choices for sure, and to stay true to the 90's you will just have to hunt for a nice 90's style (beige in my opinion) case. I personally use desktop beige cases that are of course now discontinued that look like this (source: http://www.overclock.net/t/356965/project-t-a … vantage-chassis:

(I have 6 of these HEC 7106 cases and just love them, but they do only use 60mm fans so they are a bit restrictive when it comes to cooling, but like always I am just going to take a hole saw and cut away any extra metal that always restricts airflow and this usually works very well for me...I do it to all my cases.

Realistically, these are a bit hard to find now, so I would just go with a any regular ATX tower case from the 90's and if you can cut away any extra metal restricting fan airflow as I mentioned, you should be more than fine for cooling. Also most cases I remember in the 90's had a 80mm or 90mm fan installed at the front bottom of the case, attached with some plastic bracket that almost always had almost no ventilation in front of it! Usually they were almost always just butted up just a few millimeters away the solid plastic of the front panel, seriously restricting airflow....you can alleviate this by making holes at the front bottom of the case in a discreet location, or just making existing holes a little bigger with a hole saw. I would usually just take out the front fan though and make sure the rear one is of good quality and not restricted. As long as you take this into consideration, as I said, any ATX case from the 90's should serve you well and as for the look, it's of course up to you...I prefer plain jane beige, with no crazy stickers, LED fans, or anything like that.

InWin was a popular brand in the 90's and I believe that they were some of the best cases for that era:

There was also a full tower version of this one as well I can't find a picture of.

According to Wikipedia, Live! 5.1 came out in 2000. With Pentium III 800 you will find that most of them are dated 2000 as well, if that is important to your purism.

d1stortion wrote:

According to Wikipedia, Live! 5.1 came out in 2000. With Pentium III 800 you will find that most of them are dated 2000 as well, if that is important to your purism.

Actually Live! Platinum was released 1999 I believe, so I think he's still ok (but just barely 🤣...I doubt in many places it hit the shelves until Christmas of 1999 or just after 🤣).

Quote from wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_Blaster_Live!

"Sound Blaster Live! Platinum[edit]
Released 1999 [2] Includes Live! Drive IR"

...and according to Creative Labs corporate milestones webpage:
http://www.creative.com/corporate/milestones/ … 1996%20-%202000

"SEPTEMBER 1999
Announced Sound Blaster® Live! Platinum audio card, a digital audio solution that provides a strong set of applications for Internet audio, music applications and gaming. The new accelerator boasts the new Live!™ Drive, an innovative front-end console that provides easy and convenient connectivity to a wide array of analog and digital devices."

mp10 wrote:

I need suggestions for: 1. Best slot 1 motherboard -> Asus P3B-F 2. Single or dual processor -> Single 3. Best Geforce 256 vers […]
Show full quote

I need suggestions for:
1. Best slot 1 motherboard -> Asus P3B-F
2. Single or dual processor -> Single
3. Best Geforce 256 version? -> Not sure, but probably Canopus as they had their own designs and were highend. Remember only Geforce256 SDR came out in 1999, not the DDR version.
4. The sound blaster 5.1 platinum is the best option for the soundcard? -> I would recommend the Vortex2 over the SB Live if you intend to play some DOS games. If this is a build for Win9X games only, then SB Live will do fine.

All the suggestions are welcome...

I love the InWin cases! I will try to find one of them... 😀
Is there any better alternative for the geforce 256 SDR/DDR?

vetz wrote:

mp10 wrote:

3. Best Geforce 256 version? -> Not sure, but probably Canopus as they had their own designs and were highend. Remember only Geforce256 SDR came out in 1999, not the DDR version.

I find out one review of the geforce 256 DDR at December 25, 1999! 😀
http://www.anandtech.com/show/429

Review is one thing, released in stores another. All depends on your way to look at things for this build (like allowing parts built in 2000/2001, but released in 1999). Wikipedia says February 1st 2000 for the DDR:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Nv … Force256_Series

Press release is from 20th of December 1999: http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_20020111_5720.html
Leatek review from 7th of Jan 2000: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/leadtek-w … review,157.html

Reference boards from Nvidia were available for testing as early as October 1999: https://web.archive.org/web/20000119212521/ht … ddr/index.shtml

Up to you if you want to allow the DDR into your build 😀

vetz wrote:

Review is one thing, released in stores another. All depends on your way to look at things for this build (like allowing parts b […]
Show full quote

Review is one thing, released in stores another. All depends on your way to look at things for this build (like allowing parts built in 2000/2001, but released in 1999). Wikipedia says February 1st 2000 for the DDR:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Nv … Force256_Series

Press release is from 20th of December 1999: http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_20020111_5720.html
Leatek review from 7th of Jan 2000: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/leadtek-w … review,157.html

Reference boards from Nvidia were available for testing as early as October 1999: https://web.archive.org/web/20000119212521/ht … ddr/index.shtml

Up to you if you want to allow the DDR into your build 😀

Thank you Vetz! 😀 I think i will choose only hardware released in stores at 1999.

retrofanatic wrote:

Actually Live! Platinum was released 1999 I believe, so I think he's still ok (but just barely 🤣...I doubt in many places it hit the shelves until Christmas of 1999 or just after 🤣).

The talk was about 5.1 Platinum, not Platinum.

d1stortion wrote:

retrofanatic wrote:

Actually Live! Platinum was released 1999 I believe, so I think he's still ok (but just barely 🤣...I doubt in many places it hit the shelves until Christmas of 1999 or just after 🤣).

The talk was about 5.1 Platinum, not Platinum.

It need to be the Sound Blaster Live! Platinum (not the 5.1) with the Drive ir...

edit: Sound Blaster Live! Platinum CT4760P
font - http://www.ask.asia.creative.com/wwenglish/ge … _list_audio.htm

Now the problem is:

What's the difference between:
Sound Blaster Live! Platinum (CT4760P)
Sound Blaster Live! X-Gamer (CT4760X)
Sound Blaster Live! MP3+ (CT4760M)

How can i identify the cards?
I think the code present in the different models is the same (CT4760)...

d1stortion wrote:

retrofanatic wrote:

Actually Live! Platinum was released 1999 I believe, so I think he's still ok (but just barely 🤣...I doubt in many places it hit the shelves until Christmas of 1999 or just after 🤣).

The talk was about 5.1 Platinum, not Platinum.

You're right. Point taken.

They are all the exact same card. Each model will look identical, all having the model number CT4760 printed on the board "without" the additional letter at the end. The difference being that the models you've mentioned came with additional software. X-Gamer came with some free games, MP3+ with some music editing software and the platinum which came with the live drive. My CT4760 platinum came with the live drive II. I personally prefer the live drive II than the IR version as I didn't require a remote control. I believe creative only released the live drive II in Europe though so you may have to source it out from a seller on that side of the world.

EDIT: if you do choose to use the CT4760 model, make sure you download the liveware 3.0 ISO and install the drivers from there as the live 5.1 drivers which are more commonly found will not work with the older live.

mp10 wrote:

I want to play everything from win95 to win98 games (1995-2000). For ms-dos games (1990-1996) i have my socket 7 machine.

Yes but what games exactly. 6 years is a long time to cover with one machine and you will not be able to cater for every game optimally.

A3D for example was used by many earlier games, but later games use EAX.

What resolution do you want to play?