VOGONS


First post, by Carlos S. M.

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Well. I started a thread about a kinda odd type of motherboards, Socket 478 motherboards with PCI-E slots which are not really common compared to their AGP counterparts, but still useful for some thing and maybe make fun with them, especially when testing and comparing. Not all motherboards supports Willamette and/or FSB 400 chips (especially Intel chipset ones)

OS Support for these boards:
Windows 98 SE/ME (VIA chipset only, 915 may support it as well, but no guarrantee about onboard deices)
Windows 2000
Windows XP
Windows Server 2003
Windows Vista/2008
Windows 7
Linux

Here an extensive list of motherboards (Updated as of 27th February 2019), it might be incomplete:

Color legend/Notes:
Supports All socket 478 CPUS
No Willamette support
No FSB 400 Northwood/Willamette support
CPU Support is incomplete or unknown

Intel 915P:
ASUS P4GD1
Albatron PX915P4C Pro
Colorful C.915P-478
PC Partner 915PAS4-A46P
PC Partner 915PMS4-A48P

Intel 915PL:
ASUS P4GPL-X

Intel 915G:
HKEPC MP-i915GM
PC Partner 915GAS4-A46G
PC Partner 915GMS4-A48G
Esonic 915G478 (crippled to single channel RAM)
TG 915G115B

Intel 915GL:
AsRock P4Dual-915GL (PCI-E x16 @ x4)

Intel 945G/945GC:
AsRock P4i945GC
Biostar 945GC-M4
MSI 945GCM478/945GCM478-L (MS-7536)
TJ-945GC (?)
ITZR 945GCFBBL2
ITZR 945GFBAL2
Esonic I945GS478
Reo 945GC MB
KOLOE ZX-I945LM4
945G C4G
LXT-945 GM
ITZR/Esonic 945GFBAL

Intel G31:
Biostar G31-M4
MARSHAL MAMR-G31-478

Intel G41:
Esonic G41FBCL2
KOLOE G41LM4
KOLOE G41LM4-478
ITZR G41FBCL2
ITZR G41FBBL2 (crippled to single channel RAM?)
ITZR/Esonic G41FBAL2 (crippled to single channel RAM?)

VIA PT890:
FIC P4-890T

VIA PT880Pro/Ultra (AGP+PCI-E, PCI-E x16 @ x4):
ASUS P4V800D-X
AsRock P4Dual-880Pro

VIA P4M900:
AsRock P4VM900-SATA2
Biostar P4M900-M4

VIA P4M890:
AsRock P4VM890
AsRock P4VM890 R2.0
Aptron P4M890AL

ATI Radeon Xpress 200:
AsRock P4Twins-HDTV
Asus P4RD1-MX

Last edited by Carlos S. M. on 2019-02-27, 00:59. Edited 3 times in total.

What is your biggest Pentium 4 Collection?
Socket 423/478 Motherboards with Universal AGP Slot
Socket 478 Motherboards with PCI-E Slots
LGA 775 Motherboards with AGP Slots
Experiences and thoughts with Socket 423 systems

Reply 2 of 42, by clueless1

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It seems like I might have one at work in a decommissioned system. I'll have a look. Thanks for compiling this list, Carlos!

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
OPL3 FM vs. Roland MT-32 vs. General MIDI DOS Game Comparison
Let's benchmark our systems with cache disabled
DOS PCI Graphics Card Benchmarks

Reply 6 of 42, by Paadam

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I used P4GPL-X for years with Asus CT-479 adapter and Pentium M 750 @ 2.6 GHz. PCI'E slot was filled with 7950GT at first, then 8800GT later. That system rocked! Still have CT-479 and Pentium M 750 working in P4P800-SE system, sold the P4GPL-X with regular 478 CPU back in 2009.

Many 3Dfx and Pentium III-S stuff.
My amibay FS thread: www.amibay.com/showthread.php?88030-Man ... -370-dual)

Reply 7 of 42, by PhilsComputerLab

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SW-SSG wrote:

Asus P4RD1-MX (Radeon Xpress 200).

AMD chipset on a 478 motherboard? That's pretty cool 😀

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Reply 8 of 42, by Carlos S. M.

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PhilsComputerLab wrote:
SW-SSG wrote:

Asus P4RD1-MX (Radeon Xpress 200).

AMD chipset on a 478 motherboard? That's pretty cool 😀

It was an ATI Chipset and this one was made before AMD bought ATI, ATI started making chipsets since 2002

SW-SSG wrote:

Some boards to maybe add: Colorful C.915P-478, PC Partner 915PMS4-A48P (both Intel 915P); Asus P4RD1-MX (Radeon Xpress 200).

Adding them to the list

What is your biggest Pentium 4 Collection?
Socket 423/478 Motherboards with Universal AGP Slot
Socket 478 Motherboards with PCI-E Slots
LGA 775 Motherboards with AGP Slots
Experiences and thoughts with Socket 423 systems

Reply 9 of 42, by Tetrium

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I once had an opportunity to acquire a DDR2 PCI-E s478 board and regretfully I didn't take it 🙁

Carlos S. M. wrote:

Adding them to the list

Mind if I create a list on Vogonswiki based on your list here, Carlos?
It would fit nicely with the s370/Tualatin/C3/ISA list me and another Vogoner made a while ago 😀.

Whats missing in your collections?
My retro rigs (old topic)
Interesting Vogons threads (links to Vogonswiki)
Report spammers here!

Reply 10 of 42, by Carlos S. M.

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Tetrium wrote:
I once had an opportunity to acquire a DDR2 PCI-E s478 board and regretfully I didn't take it :( […]
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I once had an opportunity to acquire a DDR2 PCI-E s478 board and regretfully I didn't take it 🙁

Carlos S. M. wrote:

Adding them to the list

Mind if I create a list on Vogonswiki based on your list here, Carlos?
It would fit nicely with the s370/Tualatin/C3/ISA list me and another Vogoner made a while ago 😀.

Yes. No problem

We can still use this thread for some info and reporting some motherboards

What is your biggest Pentium 4 Collection?
Socket 423/478 Motherboards with Universal AGP Slot
Socket 478 Motherboards with PCI-E Slots
LGA 775 Motherboards with AGP Slots
Experiences and thoughts with Socket 423 systems

Reply 11 of 42, by Tetrium

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Carlos S. M. wrote:
Tetrium wrote:
I once had an opportunity to acquire a DDR2 PCI-E s478 board and regretfully I didn't take it :( […]
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I once had an opportunity to acquire a DDR2 PCI-E s478 board and regretfully I didn't take it 🙁

Carlos S. M. wrote:

Adding them to the list

Mind if I create a list on Vogonswiki based on your list here, Carlos?
It would fit nicely with the s370/Tualatin/C3/ISA list me and another Vogoner made a while ago 😀.

Yes. No problem

We can still use this thread for some info and reporting some motherboards

Cheers 😀. I've added this page to the list of interesting Vogons threads, I'll add this list on its own page once I can take my time to do it.

By all means continue, my list is to add, not to replace 😜.

Whats missing in your collections?
My retro rigs (old topic)
Interesting Vogons threads (links to Vogonswiki)
Report spammers here!

Reply 12 of 42, by Kamerat

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Paadam wrote:

I used P4GPL-X for years with Asus CT-479 adapter and Pentium M 750 @ 2.6 GHz. PCI'E slot was filled with 7950GT at first, then 8800GT later. That system rocked! Still have CT-479 and Pentium M 750 working in P4P800-SE system, sold the P4GPL-X with regular 478 CPU back in 2009.

The Asus CT-479 were really nice. Had a couple of them and used them with a Pentium M 730 and Celeron M 350 on a P4GD1 and P4C800-E Deluxe. The CT-479 also ran in a couple of unsupported boards too: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthrea … ed-motherboards

Unfortunately none of the CT-479's survived my abuse. 😢

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Reply 13 of 42, by PhilsComputerLab

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Got the MSI 945GCM478 yesterday. One cap popped after turning it on, so I replaced all the VRM incoming caps with some lovely Panasonic 😀

I'm benching this board at the moment, so any questions please let me know ASAP as I will pack it away soon enough.

I've finished benchmarking Northwood 3.4 and now Gallatin 3.4. Both CPUs got detected without any issues, no warnings about power draw, but at least the EE 3.4 is not on the supported list.

BIOS is fairly minimalistic. It uses DDR2 memory, so it's running at 333 MHz, that's the highest memory divider available. Flashed the latest 1.2 BIOS from a boot floppy, no issues and no complaints so far.

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Reply 14 of 42, by Carlos S. M.

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PhilsComputerLab wrote:
Got the MSI 945GCM478 yesterday. One cap popped after turning it on, so I replaced all the VRM incoming caps with some lovely Pa […]
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Got the MSI 945GCM478 yesterday. One cap popped after turning it on, so I replaced all the VRM incoming caps with some lovely Panasonic 😀

I'm benching this board at the moment, so any questions please let me know ASAP as I will pack it away soon enough.

I've finished benchmarking Northwood 3.4 and now Gallatin 3.4. Both CPUs got detected without any issues, no warnings about power draw, but at least the EE 3.4 is not on the supported list.

BIOS is fairly minimalistic. It uses DDR2 memory, so it's running at 333 MHz, that's the highest memory divider available. Flashed the latest 1.2 BIOS from a boot floppy, no issues and no complaints so far.

I guess 333 is the base memory clock, so the RAM is running at DDR2 667 speeds

with FSB 800, all the standard possible RAM speeds are:
DDR 320 (200/1.25, FSB800 doesn't support DDR 333)
DDR/DDR2 400 (200/1)
DDR2 533 (200/0.75)
DDR2 667 (200/0.6)
DDR2/DDR3 800 (200/0.5)

What is your biggest Pentium 4 Collection?
Socket 423/478 Motherboards with Universal AGP Slot
Socket 478 Motherboards with PCI-E Slots
LGA 775 Motherboards with AGP Slots
Experiences and thoughts with Socket 423 systems

Reply 15 of 42, by PhilsComputerLab

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Carlos S. M. wrote:
I guess 333 is the base memory clock, so the RAM is running at DDR2 667 speeds […]
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I guess 333 is the base memory clock, so the RAM is running at DDR2 667 speeds

with FSB 800, all the standard possible RAM speeds are:
DDR 320 (200/1.25, FSB800 doesn't support DDR 333)
DDR/DDR2 400 (200/1)
DDR2 533 (200/0.75)
DDR2 667 (200/0.6)
DDR2/DDR3 800 (200/0.5)

That sounds right. I can take some BIOS screen-shots. The divider can be set manually, but 200:333 is the highest available.

Actually, I should start doing some motherboard review videos. Not so much about the performance, but about features, BIOS options, that sort of stuff.

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Reply 16 of 42, by Carlos S. M.

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PhilsComputerLab wrote:
Carlos S. M. wrote:
I guess 333 is the base memory clock, so the RAM is running at DDR2 667 speeds […]
Show full quote

I guess 333 is the base memory clock, so the RAM is running at DDR2 667 speeds

with FSB 800, all the standard possible RAM speeds are:
DDR 320 (200/1.25, FSB800 doesn't support DDR 333)
DDR/DDR2 400 (200/1)
DDR2 533 (200/0.75)
DDR2 667 (200/0.6)
DDR2/DDR3 800 (200/0.5)

That sounds right. I can take some BIOS screen-shots. The divider can be set manually, but 200:333 is the highest available.

Actually, I should start doing some motherboard review videos. Not so much about the performance, but about features, BIOS options, that sort of stuff.

Fair, also is worth mentioning the Intel 945GC only supports DDR2 400/533/667, so 200:333 is the fastet possible. Many LGA 775 945GC mobos supported FSB 1066 and 4 GB RAM (shrunk to 3.25 GB though) unofficially, idk about these uncommon Socket 478 with modern chipsets, like this MSI mobo and the AsRock P4i945GC cappable of running FSB 1066 or more than 2 GB RAM, the G31 mobo should do FSB 1066 and 1333 fine, plus DDR2 800 support. Anyways good luck with that mobo.

What is your biggest Pentium 4 Collection?
Socket 423/478 Motherboards with Universal AGP Slot
Socket 478 Motherboards with PCI-E Slots
LGA 775 Motherboards with AGP Slots
Experiences and thoughts with Socket 423 systems

Reply 18 of 42, by agent_x007

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When VRAM is more important than RAM 😀

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Valid : https://www.3dmark.com/fs/15471792
Pretty good for 15 year old CPU (first HT enabled model of Pentium 4).
Usable RAM for Windows 7 32-bit on this platform = ~3,12GB (3200MB).

Board sadly doesn't support Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3,2GHz (Gallatin).
I confirmed it (not sure if ucodes are the issue, because CPU cooler was cold even after few minutes)

PS.
Going over 4096MB VRAM usage = instant crash/error (because virtual memory in 32-bit Windows is limited that way 😁).

157143230295.png

Reply 19 of 42, by candle_86

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quite interesting, so in theory you could pair a celeron 1.5 (slowerst cpu with PCIe access I'd imagine) with say a GTX 1080 Ti