VOGONS


First post, by biessea

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Hi all,
at the end of the works I made, thanks to your suggests too, I want to showcase to all of you today my finished build of the one system I am more proud of.

IMG-20210524-103311.jpg

Say hello to Centurion, the system with the Tualatin processor in a Via Apollo 266 motherboard thanks to the pin mod, and expecially the SLI of 3dfx Voodoo2, perfectly working in a Win 98SE system.

This is the rig specs:

Motherboard: ASUS CUV266 Socket 370 Via Apollo 266 chipset (VT8633 - VT8233) DDR SDRAM
RAM: Crucial TwinX 512MB paired RAM - 2x 256MB DDR PC2700 RAM 2-3-2-5 CMX256A-2700LLPT
CPU: Intel Pentium 3 Tualatin 1,26ghz @ 1,49ghz - FSB to 159mhz
VIDEO CARDS: Matrox G400 32MB - SLI 3dfx Voodoo2 8MB (Diamond and Creative with Fastvoodoo 4.6 drivers)
AUDIO CARD: Creative Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 SB0060

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tualatin-firstboot.jpg

After months of work I finally can say I did it!
Not simple to adapt the Tualatin in this motherboard doing the pin mod, but after a little soldering trick it has worked! So happy now it works. I think the perfect combination for the SLI of Voodoo2, to throw out all the power they can deliver!
The installation of the SLI was simply, drivers are mature, I just put passive heatsink over the cards to ensure nice cooling capabilities, and after that, considering I have 5 PCI cards in the motherboard (USB extenders, LAN card, audio card, two Voodoo2) I decided to mod the case too: I removed the side panel, painted with a nice black matte color, and make a nice circular design holes, so I can put a 12cm fan from Bequiet! to active cool all the PCI card and the motherboard! I loved the final result!

tualatin-pinmod.jpg

tualatin-cpuz.jpg

I put here all the photos so you can enjoy them!

IMG-20210219-105216.jpg

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Computer lover since 1992.
Love retro-computing, retro-gaming, high-end systems and all about computer-tech.
Love beer, too.

Reply 1 of 12, by H3nrik V!

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Cool! Any idea how much a Tualatin benefits from the DDR memory? SD Ram should not impose any performance penalty, as the memory and fsb would be synchronous?

Please use the "quote" option if asking questions to what I write - it will really up the chances of me noticing 😀

Reply 2 of 12, by biessea

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H3nrik V! wrote on 2021-05-24, 14:17:

Cool! Any idea how much a Tualatin benefits from the DDR memory? SD Ram should not impose any performance penalty, as the memory and fsb would be synchronous?

Thanks!!

Sorry, I'm not sure I understood what you've asking to me.

Computer lover since 1992.
Love retro-computing, retro-gaming, high-end systems and all about computer-tech.
Love beer, too.

Reply 3 of 12, by chrismeyer6

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biessea wrote on 2021-05-24, 22:52:
H3nrik V! wrote on 2021-05-24, 14:17:

Cool! Any idea how much a Tualatin benefits from the DDR memory? SD Ram should not impose any performance penalty, as the memory and fsb would be synchronous?

Thanks!!

Sorry, I'm not sure I understood what you've asking to me.

He's asking if there's a noticeable difference in performance with DDR vs regular SDram.

Reply 4 of 12, by melbar

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Very nice system!

I would like to know the difference between SD vs. DDR ram inside a PIII system also.

Did you run any benchmarks already?
Would be nice if you could perform some 3D benchmarks, e.g. 3Dmark99 and 3Dmark2000.

Edit:
Does anybody know, how it depends about FSB overclocking and installed voodoo2 cards?
Is the a PCI lock in CUV266 BIOS? I think at motherboards this time this feature was not integrated....??

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Reply 5 of 12, by flupke11

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Have a look at the tualatin chipset comparisons here in other threads. The Tualatin benefits in real world less from DDR than, say, the Athlon and the PIV do.

Still, both dual channel SDR-Sdram and DDR-Sdram increase your Tualatin bragging rights tenfold.

Reply 6 of 12, by H3nrik V!

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flupke11 wrote on 2021-05-25, 10:24:

Have a look at the tualatin chipset comparisons here in other threads. The Tualatin benefits in real world less from DDR than, say, the Athlon and the PIV do.

Still, both dual channel SDR-Sdram and DDR-Sdram increase your Tualatin bragging rights tenfold.

Absolutely, bragging rights are worth more than actual performance 🤣 But - dual channel SD? What did I miss?

Please use the "quote" option if asking questions to what I write - it will really up the chances of me noticing 😀

Reply 7 of 12, by biessea

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melbar wrote on 2021-05-25, 05:58:
Very nice system! […]
Show full quote

Very nice system!

I would like to know the difference between SD vs. DDR ram inside a PIII system also.

Did you run any benchmarks already?
Would be nice if you could perform some 3D benchmarks, e.g. 3Dmark99 and 3Dmark2000.

Edit:
Does anybody know, how it depends about FSB overclocking and installed voodoo2 cards?
Is the a PCI lock in CUV266 BIOS? I think at motherboards this time this feature was not integrated....??

Ehy, here I am.
Ok I understood questions now, and yes, I made some graphical benchmark and SuperPi 1Mb benchmark to test the stability of the Tualatin.

I can say I succeed to stay to 159mhz of FSB, so my Tualatin is correctly overclocked to 1,49ghz.

Unfortunately the CUV266 don't have dividers over 133mhz of FSB, so surely PCI cards can (and AGP too) can influence the overclock.

When I finish work and return home I will make other benchmark and post here results.

Unfortunately this board have only DDR RAM slots, no SDR. So i cannot myself compare the benefit of the Tualatin with these RAM.

For what I knew before, a normal Pentium 3 didn't benefit too much for the passage of DDR RAM, but this was valid for the Coppermine, I think Tualatin core has a more complex core and the double of the cache so Probably it benefit more.

I will let you know, thanks you all for all your answers, I am really happy with this system!

Computer lover since 1992.
Love retro-computing, retro-gaming, high-end systems and all about computer-tech.
Love beer, too.

Reply 8 of 12, by H3nrik V!

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Seems there is some, but not much benefit for P3 and DDR (though this i Cu-Mine) https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ddr-pent … iii,316-15.html

Please use the "quote" option if asking questions to what I write - it will really up the chances of me noticing 😀

Reply 9 of 12, by matze79

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DDR and RD is only useful with Dual Tualatin Configurations, if both cpus access memory there is no performance penalty.

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Reply 10 of 12, by chrismeyer6

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matze79 wrote on 2021-05-26, 22:14:

DDR and RD is only useful with Dual Tualatin Configurations, if both cpus access memory there is no performance penalty.

That makes a lot of sence and I can see where that would get you a nice performance boost.

Reply 11 of 12, by H3nrik V!

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Yeah, if chipset can handle it correctly, it makes good sense 😀

Please use the "quote" option if asking questions to what I write - it will really up the chances of me noticing 😀

Reply 12 of 12, by biessea

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Hey,
and from today I have a plus on my old great systems...

I found a Samsung 214T for 60 EUR used and in good conditions.

Ohhhh 1600x1200 seems working at 75hz manually setup.

WOW.

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Computer lover since 1992.
Love retro-computing, retro-gaming, high-end systems and all about computer-tech.
Love beer, too.