Which setup would you prefer for a good 1998 era build...
Would have (2) Voodoo 2's in SLI along with a RIVA TNT AGP
1 - ASUS P2B Motherboard with a Pentium II 450
2. Super Socket 7 Motherboard (recommend one) with an AMD K6-2 400 processor
It depends on what you are looking for. PII is faster but SS7 gives you more flexibility.
Do you have some of these parts already and are looking for a use for them or are you trying to decide what you should buy? If going SS7 I'd seriously consider getting a K6-III or K6-3+.
For a P2B i'd rather put a Pentium 3 in it. I personally think a great board like the P2B goes to waste with a P2 when you can take it all the way up to a 1 Ghz Coppermine. Just my opinion however take it with a grain of salt. I tend to get a tick when I see hardware that is so heavily bottlenecked.
All in all, it just depends what your going to do with it.
I have all the parts outside the SS7 baord, which I'd purchase..
As for the P2B, mine is a Version 1.0 and only supports up to Pentium II from what I have read...other versions of the board support P3's...unless I am wrong on that?
wrote:I have all the parts outside the SS7 baord, which I'd purchase..
As for the P2B, mine is a Version 1.0 and only supports up to Pentium II from what I have read...other versions of the board support P3's...unless I am wrong on that?
I've build many systems based on P2Bs, and upgrade many of them to P3s. I've never had an issue. I suppose it's possible there is a revision which is problematic but I find it hard to believe. Even when looking at just the 440BX chipset in general I haven't ever ran accross a 440BX based board that wouldn't support a P3 at least running at 100mhz FSB. Most should at least officially support Katmai processors, and Coppermine processors should still work even if not officially supported.
Now 440BX boards that support 133mhz FSB or tualatin cpus are another issue.
wrote:As for the P2B, mine is a Version 1.0 and only supports up to Pentium II from what I have read...other versions of the board support P3's...unless I am wrong on that?
Depends on which HIP6xxx chip is soldered near the printer port (Exact code is written on the chip). Mine had an old VRM-chip, I had to replace it to allow the board to run Coppermine based Pentium III's. I think my board was a P2B v1.02.
Edit: I have v1.04 actually.
--> ISA Soundcard Overview // Doom MBF 2.04 // SetMul
wrote:wrote:As for the P2B, mine is a Version 1.0 and only supports up to Pentium II from what I have read...other versions of the board support P3's...unless I am wrong on that?
Depends on which HIP6xxx chip is soldered near the printer port (Exact code is written on the chip). Mine had an old VRM-chip, I had to replace it to allow the board to run Coppermine based Pentium III's. I think my board was a P2B v1.02.
Even with the older one shouldn't it at least support Katmai CPUs?
The old Voltage Regulator Module version can go as low as 1.8 Volt, So Katmai core will work.
--> ISA Soundcard Overview // Doom MBF 2.04 // SetMul
From version 1.12 should officially support Coppermine and while officialy 1.10 didn't support Coppermine, many of them in fact did (like mine).
It's exactly as described by Gerwin.
I have a Revision 1.0 of the ASUS P2B 440BX motherboard, just like the poster here. I got a Pentium III "Katmai" 600MHz, using the 100MHz FSB and having 512KB of L2 cache on a Slot 1 cartridge and it works perfectly fine. In fact, it ignores the CPU multiplier jumpers on the motherboard, so you don't even have to bother with that - though you are welcome to move jumpers around if you want to.
My Windows 98 system is living proof that your motherboard will support up to a 600 MHz Katmai Pentium 3 processor. Just make sure you're using the latest BIOS. You can use the Pentium II and a floppy disk to do that.
wrote:In fact, it ignores the CPU multiplier jumpers on the motherboard, so you don't even have to bother with that - though you are welcome to move jumpers around if you want to.
That's because the Katmai is multiplier locked, but earlier chips in fact had some of their multipliers unlocked (mostly downward).
There was actually a thread about it a while ago, let me see if I can find it (for some reason I never added it to Vogonswiki).
edit: Here it is Which Pentium IIs can be underclocked?
Another one is here, this one is a bit shorter Slowing a 440BX based PC
Also added these threads to the interesting Vogons threads page on the wiki.
wrote:I have a Revision 1.0 of the ASUS P2B 440BX motherboard, just like the poster here. I got a Pentium III "Katmai" 600MHz, using the 100MHz FSB and having 512KB of L2 cache on a Slot 1 cartridge and it works perfectly fine. In fact, it ignores the CPU multiplier jumpers on the motherboard, so you don't even have to bother with that - though you are welcome to move jumpers around if you want to.
My Windows 98 system is living proof that your motherboard will support up to a 600 MHz Katmai Pentium 3 processor. Just make sure you're using the latest BIOS. You can use the Pentium II and a floppy disk to do that.
Great news....I will definately bump it up to a PIII then, just have to see which speeds I have available. I was just going off a list found here that described processors that worked on each version:
http://www.cpu-upgrade.com/mb-ASUS/P2B.html
The only PIII's that werent calling for at least 1.12 were 450 - 500 - 550, none of which I have...the rest were all listed at 1.12.
But good to know that isnt the case...
wrote:Great news....I will definately bump it up to a PIII then, just have to see which speeds I have available. I was just going off […]
Great news....I will definately bump it up to a PIII then, just have to see which speeds I have available. I was just going off a list found here that described processors that worked on each version:
http://www.cpu-upgrade.com/mb-ASUS/P2B.html
The only PIII's that werent calling for at least 1.12 were 450 - 500 - 550, none of which I have...the rest were all listed at 1.12.
But good to know that isnt the case...
The Katmai core goes up to 600MHz, which is kinda the best performer on your P2B if you don't want to overclock. On the other side, I 'member some 450MHz Katmais with faster L2 cache can reach 133x4.5=600.
Dont have any 600 MHZ PIII's but have a 450 PIII which should do the trick..
If I would bump that up to a 500 MHZ PIII, would I see a huge difference in performance?
