I'd love to see this build become reality! That motherboard looks very interesting. If not for the fact that S478 coolers are a pain alone 😀

What about applying third party patches / hacks for things such as support for more than 512 MB Ram or larger hard drives. I don't have any experience with these, always stuck with 512 MB and a 120 GB drive to keep things trouble free.

philscomputerlab wrote:

I'd love to see this build become reality! That motherboard looks very interesting. If not for the fact that S478 coolers are a pain alone 😀

What about applying third party patches / hacks for things such as support for more than 512 MB Ram or larger hard drives. I don't have any experience with these, always stuck with 512 MB and a 120 GB drive to keep things trouble free.

It is actually lga775 so good coolers are a dime a dozen. I recommend this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?It … 104&ignorebbr=1 for brand new ones from newegg. Works great for a Pendium D even!

I have started the base system... and so it begins.

Ordered these parts.

ASRock 775I65G Motherboard
Intel Celeron 450 CPU
Logisys Alpha 6 IC106 92mm LGA 775 Cooler
2 Crucial 256MB, DDR400, CL3 DIMMs
Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB SATA Hard Drive
SATA > IDE Adapter
IDE DVD-R Drive (Black)
Floppy Drive (Black)
HEC 6K28BB8F Micro-ATX Case (black)
Seasonic SS-300ES 300-Watt Power Supply

Sound and video to be figured out later other than knowing that the sound card will be PCI and the video card will be AGP.

I was very, very naughty. I could not help myself... I swear. I just bought 6 Nvidia Quadro FX 3000 graphics cards. They were so cheap. One might end up in this box? So.... anyone need a Quadro FX 3000? Lol!

squareguy wrote:

I was very, very naughty. I could not help myself... I swear. I just bought 6 Nvidia Quadro FX 3000 graphics cards. They were so cheap. One might end up in this box? So.... anyone need a Quadro FX 3000? Lol!

6!? 🤣

Very nice 😀

I know the Rage128 Pro can work in an AGP 4X P4 system, that way you can use modern storage on some of those early SATA motherboards (though watch out for the 48bit LBA thing that can vaporize the record/tables if you stuff it too much), get a kickin' Northwood in there decked with 512MB DDR and Windows 98SE just fine. 😀

You'll get mostly period 3d performance to expect of the era without the dreadful loading/install times.

I may be wrong but it looks like the fastest single thread performance for this board is with a Pentium E6800 3.33-GHz/1066FSB.

Edit: But that requires overclocking the boards FSB. I think instead I would use a E5800 3.2-GHz/800FSB

leileilol, that is an interesting looking card.

With that processor you'll have a Windows 98 monster 😀

Really looking forward to how you go with this. Might grab that board as well, it looks mighty tempting.

philscomputerlab wrote:

I'd love to see this build become reality! That motherboard looks very interesting. If not for the fact that S478 coolers are a pain alone 😀

What about applying third party patches / hacks for things such as support for more than 512 MB Ram or larger hard drives. I don't have any experience with these, always stuck with 512 MB and a 120 GB drive to keep things trouble free.

Using about up to 1GB RAM with Windows 98 does not require any third party patches or hacks. You just need to put two lines in your system.ini file:

[386Enh]
MaxPhysPage=

[VCache]
MaxFileCache=

The first is for limiting the amount of memory "seen" by Windows 98. In my own experience, something like "MaxPhysPage=3C000" works flawlessly which limits the memory "seen" to 960MB. The second is to limit the VCache size.

Here are the links for more detail:

http://thpc.info/ram/ramother.html
http://thpc.info/ram/vcache98.html

A high-end P4 for Win98 feels way overpowered (not that it's bad). It's a pity that Win98 will not utilize the Hyperthreading capabilities, but even single-core performance will have its advantages (for instance, while browsing the web).

Are there really games that can be bottlenecked by slower CPUs (~1GHz P3), and at the same time not do not work properly under WinXP?

dr_st wrote:

Are there really games that can be bottlenecked by slower CPUs (~1GHz P3), and at the same time not do not work properly under WinXP?

I can't think of any. It's more a case of "because I can" 🤣

My thoughts were to use a new, inexpensive, obtainable motherboard that supports 98. I plan on using the Celeron 450 with its low TDP while still performing as well as a fast Pentium 4. Of course I was curious to see just how fast it could go and for Windows 98, with no multiprocessing, the Pentium E5800 looks to be the one without over clocking the front side bus. I am not a fan of overclocking, I much prefer stability and honestly as fast as this thing will be there is no need to overclock. Both the Celeron 450 and Pentium E5800 are cheap and readily available on eBay and I bought both to try. Definitely will not be CPU bound with this system while also drawing little power and running cool. I will be glad to run tests with different CPUs and post the results. What would be a good CPU test to run under Windows 98 that will give consistent and valid results? I know that I can at least compare it with a Pentium 4 2.4-GHz which is also on a 865 board. I will try to get my hands on a Northwood 3.4-GHz Sicket 478 for comparison. Maybe I can have some results within the next week or two.

Edit: imagine the performance with just software rendering at high resolution hehe.

dr_st wrote:

Are there really games that can be bottlenecked by slower CPUs (~1GHz P3), and at the same time not do not work properly under WinXP?

Good question. I'm about to build a KT133A Win98SE system with an ISA slot for DOS games. Honestly, the extra power is just for id Tech 2 games like Quake and Build engine games. I'd like to run these smoothly at 1600x1200, and I'm not sure that a 1000MHz Slot 1 P3 can do that.

3.4 GHz, especially Northwood, might be a bit harder to find. The 3 or 3.2 are much easier. Doesn't have to be the top CPU.

Anything CPU bound, like games at low resolutions, should show a difference in CPU performance. Old 3D Marks can also work. And anything that supports CPU rendering, for example Quake II.

Quake 2 software rendering it is then, I think that will make a mighty fine determination of CPU power!

EDIT: found a Northwood 3.2-GHz

I think you're all forgetting Deus Ex 😀

Hey leileilol,

I will add that to the list, I just have to learn how to benchmark that one. Is it built-in?

Looking forward to this as well, I'm slowly collecting the parts for a similar P4/Win9x box.
The forest section in Dolphin Cove track from Need for Speed 4 seems to bog down when things get busy with police, traffic, etc. I'm not sure if its a game engine limit or CPU based but that was my main focus