AGP 7950GT - good luck finding one for anything less than the cost of a kidney though.

Really though, you will not want that card as it has support for palletized textures. Ideally, you would want to get a Geforce FX card is you are going to be playing older games that use palletized textures.
Plus, with a newer gen card you are going to be severely CPU limited.

The AGP speed doesn't matter as much as the voltage though.

You will want to look for universal AGP cards.... both notches in the AGP connector.... and only the better brands unless you can confirm that the card actually supports the different voltages as some cards and some motherboards back then were not made to specs and you can fry one or both if you use the wrong type of card.

ATI : Radeon X800/X850 series unofficially or Radeon 9800XT officially.
Nvidia: original non-bridged GeForce 6800 series card with an early driver (safe option) or GeForce 7800GS/7950GT (not safe option, might have problems with new drivers).

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2020-08-28, 21:16:

ATI : Radeon X800/X850 series unofficially or Radeon 9800XT officially.
Nvidia: original non-bridged GeForce 6800 series card with an early driver (safe option) or GeForce 7800GS/7950GT (not safe option, might have problems with new drivers).

Thank you for the fast replies, I will have more luck finding ATI models than Nvidia I think.

However locally the Nvidia FX5200 is the easier card to find, but from what I searched it is not regarded as a good card. Am I wrong?

P.S.: Nice Disturbed reference!

Geforce 6 family cards (6600 and 6600GT at least) are unstable under Windows 98SE on my 815EP with all driver versions I have tried.

Geforce FX 5900 is fine . FX 5900 XT , which also work fine, can be found easily at, IMHO, decent prices .

darry wrote on 2020-08-28, 21:20:

Geforce 6 family cards (6600 and 6600GT at least) are unstable under Windows 98SE on my 815EP with all driver versions I have tried.

Geforce FX 5900 is fine . FX 5900 XT , which also work fine, can be found easily at, IMHO, decent prices .

Hello darry, had to return for even more help! Followed your advice on getting the Tualatin, thanks again

GeForce 6600 also use HSI bridge, so it's predictable that they'll have quirks with old chipsets.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2020-08-28, 21:41:

GeForce 6600 also use HSI bridge, so it's predictable that they'll have quirks with old chipsets.

And that bridge chip gets hot too . It probably isn't worth it for my setup (Tualatin 1400 512K), but if I could get my hands on an early non-bridged AGP Geforce 6800 family member, I would definitely try it .

andre_6 wrote on 2020-08-28, 21:20:

However locally the Nvidia FX5200 is the easier card to find, but from what I searched it is not regarded as a good card. Am I wrong?

If you want to push your system as much as possible, FX5200 will not do that. It is very low end and not the latest generation you could run, much less power than other cards that have been recommended.

Thanks, so I guess I will have to look for an FX5900 or higher if I want to really push it. I would be tempted to try the AGP Geforce 6800, but how would I know if it is non-bridged? Does that mean a card without the SLI connections, so to speak?

andre_6 wrote on 2020-08-28, 22:52:

Thanks, so I guess I will have to look for an FX5900 or higher if I want to really push it. I would be tempted to try the AGP Geforce 6800, but how would I know if it is non-bridged? Does that mean a card without the SLI connections, so to speak?

AFAIK :

Early versions of the Geforce 6800 family were natively AGP and required a bridge chip when used on a PCI Express card . No bridge chip was required on an AGP card .

Later versions of the Geforce 6800 family were natively PCI Express and required a bridge chip when used on an AGP card . No bridge chip was required on a PCI Express card .

The physical SLI connector/bridge is distinct from the aforementioned bridge chip .

MSI 815 EPT Pro has universal AGP, it should be voltage compatible with any AGP card.

If you are benchmarking in windows 98, the geforce 4 cards tend to perform best because of the driver overhead of later cards. This is true even if you are using a faster CPU.

pixel_workbench wrote on 2020-08-29, 00:00:

MSI 815 EPT Pro has universal AGP, it should be voltage compatible with any AGP card.

Regarding the board, a few questions please:

I saw that I need to update the BIOS to version 7.4 to support the Tualatin 1400mhz 512k. I never updated a BIOS before.

Is that the same procedure for all boards of the same socket, or is every board brand different? I saw a tutorial putting the bios files in a floppy and booting from it. I assume that was the standard procedure?

And finally, do I need to apply thermal paste to the Tualatin cpu? If so, in which way/area? I'm still looking to find a compatible cooler.

You can update in Windows via universal Award flash utility.

mothergoose729 wrote on 2020-08-29, 00:07:

If you are benchmarking in windows 98, the geforce 4 cards tend to perform best because of the driver overhead of later cards. This is true even if you are using a faster CPU.

I don't have much experience as you probably realised, so would you recommend a GeForce 4 Ti variant over an FX5900 for example? I have a GeForce 4 MX440, but Vogons taught me that the MX line it's not the same as the other Geforce 4 ones.

I'm looking for the best possible performance to respect the CPU speed, I'm particularly curious to see the difference in playing SimCity 3000 and Quake III Arena after I complete the build. Even Outlaws ran slowly in my previous Celeron 600mhz / obscure Supergrace board/ GeForce 4 MX440 build.

pixel_workbench wrote on 2020-08-29, 00:00:

MSI 815 EPT Pro has universal AGP, it should be voltage compatible with any AGP card.

AGP compatibility will not be an issue, but instability under Windows 98 SE on an 815EP using an AGP Geforce 6000 family card (at least those using a PCI Express to AGP bridge) is a known issue, AFAIK .

andre_6 wrote on 2020-08-29, 00:19:

mothergoose729 wrote on 2020-08-29, 00:07:

If you are benchmarking in windows 98, the geforce 4 cards tend to perform best because of the driver overhead of later cards. This is true even if you are using a faster CPU.

I don't have much experience as you probably realised, so would you recommend a GeForce 4 Ti variant over an FX5900 for example? I have a GeForce 4 MX440, but Vogons thaught me that the MX line it's not the same as the other Geforce 4 ones

I'm looking for the best possible performance to respect the CPU speed, I'm particularly curious to see the difference in playing SimCity 3000 and Quake III Arena after I complete the build. Even Outlaws ran slowly in my previous Celeron 600mhz / obscure Supergrace board/ GeForce 4 MX440 build.

The Geforce FX 5900 is definitely a faster card than the Geforce 4 Ti . However they will both likely be bottlenecked by the CPU (which is what you want if you want maximize the CPU's abilities) , so it's hard for me to say what the speed difference would be on your CPU . I'm almost certain somebody has compared these graphics chips with a Tualatin and posted results on Vogons .

darry wrote on 2020-08-29, 00:28:

andre_6 wrote on 2020-08-29, 00:19:

mothergoose729 wrote on 2020-08-29, 00:07:

If you are benchmarking in windows 98, the geforce 4 cards tend to perform best because of the driver overhead of later cards. This is true even if you are using a faster CPU.

I don't have much experience as you probably realised, so would you recommend a GeForce 4 Ti variant over an FX5900 for example? I have a GeForce 4 MX440, but Vogons thaught me that the MX line it's not the same as the other Geforce 4 ones

I'm looking for the best possible performance to respect the CPU speed, I'm particularly curious to see the difference in playing SimCity 3000 and Quake III Arena after I complete the build. Even Outlaws ran slowly in my previous Celeron 600mhz / obscure Supergrace board/ GeForce 4 MX440 build.

The Geforce FX 5900 is definitely a faster card than the Geforce 4 Ti . However they will both likely be bottlenecked by the CPU (which is what you want if you want maximize the CPU's abilities) , so it's hard for me to say what the speed difference would be on your CPU . I'm almost certain somebody has compared these graphics chips with a Tualatin and posted results on Vogons .

Will look for it, thanks.

Having a Tualatin yourself, how do you apply thermal paste to it, if at all? Do you put a little paste on the center like with the Coppermine cores, or something else? Every build I see on Youtube skips that step and just shows the cpu/heatsink/cooler combo mounted, so I don't even know if there's thermal paste there

I always put a rice grain sized drop of thermal paste in the center of the cpu, and place the cooler on top, which will spread it out.

As far as video cards, if you're not dead set on having the ultimate possible hardware just for the sake of having it, a Gf4 mx is a decent card for windows 98 games. Gf6 requires a later driver, which causes buggy graphics in some games, like Need for Speed 3, for example. And a Pentium3 is too slow to fully utilize a Gf6, so you'll never see it perform like a Gf6 would in a faster system. A Geforce4 ti4200 would be a more useful choice for a Pentium3, and not crazy expensive. You can also try a Radeon 9600pro, it as fast as the most expensive Geforce 4, but typically even cheaper.