What do you want to do want to run on it on top of Win98SE?

My first instinct would be to go with the So370 and a late Coppermine (or Tualatin) P3. The limitations of i815 (max 512MB RAM) are hardly an issue under Win98SE, the difference in performance between a late P3 and an early P4 is not that big (certainly not for your average Win98-game) and the P3 systems are more reliable due to much lower power draw (so less chance of blowing the VRM on the motherboard or the PSU).

That said, if you also have the CPU's, check what you have. If the So370 system has a low-end Coppermine Celeron and the So478 system a nice late Northwood P4, the P4 would be a better idea. But with a P3-S 1.4 vs a Willamette Celeron 1.7, the So370 would be a no-brainer.

dionb wrote:

What do you want to do want to run on it on top of Win98SE?

My first instinct would be to go with the So370 and a late Coppermine (or Tualatin) P3. The limitations of i815 (max 512MB RAM) are hardly an issue under Win98SE, the difference in performance between a late P3 and an early P4 is not that big (certainly not for your average Win98-game) and the P3 systems are more reliable due to much lower power draw (so less chance of blowing the VRM on the motherboard or the PSU).

That said, if you also have the CPU's, check what you have. If the So370 system has a low-end Coppermine Celeron and the So478 system a nice late Northwood P4, the P4 would be a better idea. But with a P3-S 1.4 vs a Willamette Celeron 1.7, the So370 would be a no-brainer.

Thanks for the reply.

Its going to used for games, Doom, Duke, System Shock and slightly later stuff like need for speed porsche....

My guess is the 845 may have a northwood celeron in it as I remember having and being disappointed by a 2.0a. The 815, I havent a clue, no idea where I even got the board from.

I'm not aiming for period correct with any thing but I really got into PC gaming in the mid to late nineties, so maybe the 815 is a better fit.

Cheers
Weebob

I'd go for Socket 370, but honestly your workload could possibly even be resigned to Slot 1/A. If you want to go Socket 370, I would actually go early Socket A instead, as it's a FAR superior platform. Intel basically stuck beans up their nose and pants on their head for almost everything Socket 370 until the Core 2 series. It's the time when AMD really took off like a jet, and held the price to performance sweet spot until Intel eventually dethroned them with Sandy Bridge, and AMD took the Intel approach of sticking beans up their nose and pants on their head until Ryzen.

tl;dr 370 not good, 478 not good, do slot 1/a or socket a

Ampera wrote:

I'd go for Socket 370, but honestly your workload could possibly even be resigned to Slot 1/A. If you want to go Socket 370, I would actually go early Socket A instead, as it's a FAR superior platform. Intel basically stuck beans up their nose and pants on their head for almost everything Socket 370 until the Core 2 series. It's the time when AMD really took off like a jet, and held the price to performance sweet spot until Intel eventually dethroned them with Sandy Bridge, and AMD took the Intel approach of sticking beans up their nose and pants on their head until Ryzen.

tl;dr 370 not good, 478 not good, do slot 1/a or socket a

Thanks,

Its looking like the s370. I am going to use the components I have rather than buying something as I am unsure how much use this will get. Who knows if I really do use it, then it maybe time to spend a bit.

Ampera wrote:

I'd go for Socket 370, but honestly your workload could possibly even be resigned to Slot 1/A. If you want to go Socket 370, I would actually go early Socket A instead, as it's a FAR superior platform. Intel basically stuck beans up their nose and pants on their head for almost everything Socket 370 until the Core 2 series. It's the time when AMD really took off like a jet, and held the price to performance sweet spot until Intel eventually dethroned them with Sandy Bridge, and AMD took the Intel approach of sticking beans up their nose and pants on their head until Ryzen.

tl;dr 370 not good, 478 not good, do slot 1/a or socket a

In terms of period price/performance I fully agree (and was running the K7S5A at the time to prove it 😉 ), but looking back, and certainly with the games mentioned, even a late So370 system is total overkill. At this time Weebob already has both Intel-based systems, so price is zero. Getting a SoA system together wouldn't be expensive - they're 'old crap', not 'vintage' yet the way So7 and older have become - but would cost something, and it wouldn't actually improve performance in any sensible way with the stuff he's running. Plus SoA ran significantly hotter than So370, so more power consumption, more need for cooling, so more noise and more opportunity for boards or PSUs to decide to die (even if less so than with So478).

If the goal was an XP system, the RAM limitations of the i815 platform would be killing, but as a stable, reliable WIn98SE base I'd do So370 any day, sooner than an early Slot A Athlon or SoA Duron.

For the games he mentioned either board is going to be fine. Just make sure to find a sound card with half decent OPL3 compatibility. DOOM always sounded very weird on "opl3 compatible" PCI cards to me, I prefer to just go with general midi instead.

My primary gripe is the lack of ISA. I would go for a slot 1 - 370 board with an ISA slot and drop in a sound blaster 16 - 64 for less hassle with dos games and genuine sound. That opens up so much more in terms of older DOS games your machine will be capable of (if you care for that kind of thing).

I would use the 478 machine for an an XP machine personally. That chipset can (depending on bios and if the vrm can take it) run all the way up to a northwood 3.06GHz W/ HT.

Thanks for the posts! s370 it is!

I will get a build log going.