if you're going for full accuracy, I think the SB0060 is from 2000? and the first live drive came in 1999?
someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

it's correct. It's close enough.

I gauge things like your computer from a early BX board or a later bx board. There are 2 types of 440BX computers Early 440BX and Late 440BX.Yours is a Early 440BX with Later Components of later 98 like Q3 or Q4 to 1999.

So I just look at this time period in 2 ways. 440BX time period is 1997 to 2001. With the Defacto OS being 98se which is 1999. I dont see any value in limiting such a wide time span for BX boards as a 1998.

I think the Hard Drive is personally irrelevant because they were still manufacturing and improving SCSI hard drives well into the mid 2000s like 2006, they were still manufacturing 68 pin SCSI HDDS.

SB live is not from 1997?

I donw want to stick to 1998, can be like 1997-1999

SB live is from 1998, but the SB0060 is a later model live 5.1
the first versions are CT4620 and CT4670 and the first live drive came with a platinum version in 1999 iirc.

I was still rockin an AWE64 value back then ^^

256MB would be astronomical for 1998, but I see no reason to limit yourself here. It's not like a Voodoo 2 SLI/SCSI system is typical — it's a fairly high-end build anyway. Might as well get 512MB.

4GB harddrive is too small. Also, beware that SCSI drives tend to be very loud and I would assume that older/smaller capacity drives can roar like a fighter jet.

How about front panel from SB Live, which 1998/1999 SB card can work witch it?

the op has good taste!!!

i actually like the sound of old scsi drives. i used to have ibm ultrastars in my original build from back then although, they weren't very loud.

my new p2b-s build has compaq enterprise ultra-2 drives and they sound like a fat kid jumping on a bag of potato chips. 😁

I think your on the mark, the difference between Live! cards is marginal in real world, if you already have one I wouldn't go out and buy an earlier card.
128MB would be max ram in a PC, but again down to cost not because it wasn't possible, I wouldn't loose sleep over having 512MB

Here were the 2 PC's in our household as reference

Very close to my PC I got new in late '98
P2 400 (Couldn't afford P2 450)
64MB RAM (Plenty back then, but agree 128MB is reasonable for high end)
TNT 16MB (Voodoo 2 was an option but TNT was the better buy)
Onboard SB PCI128 (but did dream of the Live!)
10GB IDE drive (SCSI should at least be around the same size)

and rest of the families PC they got in 99 which was more budget then mine
P2B ZS
C500 on slocket
TNT2 M64
SBLive! Value
8GB HDD IDE

jheronimus wrote:

256MB would be astronomical for 1998, but I see no reason to limit yourself here. It's not like a Voodoo 2 SLI/SCSI system is typical — it's a fairly high-end build anyway. Might as well get 512MB.

Oh yes, this was absolutely high-end. The ASUS P2B-S board was still twice as expensive as the ASUS P3B-F in late 1999. Limiting it to fit in a time correct budget is a missed chance in my opinion. If the OP's P2B-S has the right VRM he can run a 1Ghz Coppermine on it. My own P2B-S revision 1.03 runs with an 1100 Mhz Celeron on slotket (by lack of a faster fsb 100 cpu).

edit
for ilustration:

chinny22 wrote:

Very close to my PC I got new in late '98 P2 400 (Couldn't afford P2 450) 64MB RAM (Plenty back then, but agree 128MB is reasona […]
Show full quote

Very close to my PC I got new in late '98
P2 400 (Couldn't afford P2 450)
64MB RAM (Plenty back then, but agree 128MB is reasonable for high end)
TNT 16MB (Voodoo 2 was an option but TNT was the better buy)
Onboard SB PCI128 (but did dream of the Live!)
10GB IDE drive (SCSI should at least be around the same size)

Weirdly I still have the spreadsheet from a similar computer I built in dec/jan 98/99.

Asus P2B-LS ($357)
Pentium II 400 ($351)
128MB RAM ($186)
SB Live! ($194)
9.1 GB SCSI HDD ($432 - was this for two drives? I don't remember)

I think I had a Matrox G200 around that time which I probably used with an M3D for a minute before the Geforce 256 came out later in '99.

edit: Added prices.