Define "good"... […]
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Vaudane wrote on 2020-08-18, 16:03:
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The only reason I was sticking with the i440BX was that it seemed to be the chipset that did what I needed. Having a look at the Via chipset now though iirc from [1] they aren't as good.
Define "good"...
If you take the 694X/D/T, it's not so bad
Three disadvantages:
- require chipset drivers not natively included in Windows 98SE, 2k or XP (it's not true Intel-based chipsets don't require drivers, they just have working drivers included in OS)
- 686B southbridge doesn't play ball with Soundblaster Live! cards
- clock-for-clock slightly slower than i440BX
Four advantages:
- native 133MHz FSB support, incl 1/4 PCI divider and 1/2 AGP divider
- AGP 2.0 (4x), so support for 1.5V cards
- native ISA support
- support for 1.5GB of RAM
The 1.5GB RAM is rather irrelevant for period correct stuff (DOS and Win98 get into trouble over 512MB...), the other three are nice, and no Intel chipset supports all three natively. Rare i815 and i820 boards with PCI-ISA bridge can deliver, but the Asus P3C-E (about the commonest board with it) is very hard to find.
No other chipset gives you this natively. Now, personally I consider P3 too new for DOS, so don't mind giving up the ISA slot if I'm only running Win98SE (which means I have SiS635T, i820 and i840 systems) - but if you want a system that can do both, you want that ApolloPro133A (694X/D/T)
So it appears the contenders are the Abit BX133 RAID vs the Abit KT7-RAID
I hope you like soldering... I once found a BX133 RAID that amazingly didn't have visibly damaged caps. Unfortunately it wasn't fully stable - turns out the caps weren't bulging but were still dying. Needed a full re-cap 🙁