PARKE wrote on 2022-02-13, 15:44:

That is a Shuttle Hot slotket. It has auto voltage & manual jumper settings 1.3=>3.5 volt but no jumper for Cyrix cpu's.
HOT-C003 (Print-Version).pdf

I've never used the Cyrix jumper. I've always used the Coppermine setting for both VIA Nehemiah and VIA Ezra-T and never had any issues.
Not entirely sure what the Cyrix jumper is supposed to do, but whatever it is, it's definitely not needed, at least not for these late VIA CPUs.

You are most likely right - I have no idea what these jumpers actually do. One old slotket review mentioned that it was meant to accomodate a soon to be released Cyrix Jupiter cpu.

PARKE wrote on 2022-02-13, 17:09:

You are most likely right - I have no idea what these jumpers actually do. One old slotket review mentioned that it was meant to accomodate a soon to be released Cyrix Jupiter cpu.

Jupiter? There was another skunkworks Cyrix??? Turns out it might not be so exciting, only reference I found https://www.eetimes.com/cyrix-establishes-x86 … obile-division/

bloodem wrote on 2022-02-13, 06:25:

The VIA C3 Ezra-T (in conjunction with this board) is a retro gamer’s dream. 😀

I did read that some games don't work with it, because the programmers didn't think anyone would use something else than Intel or AMD?
Doesn't sound like a "retro gamer's dream" to me. Compatibility is king.

RaiderOfLostVoodoo wrote on 2022-02-13, 19:31:

I did read that some games don't work with it, because the programmers didn't think anyone would use something else than Intel or AMD?
Doesn't sound like a "retro gamer's dream" to me. Compatibility is king.

I think there were some issues affecting earlier Cyrix CPUs, but that's definitely not the case with late VIA C3 processors.
In fact, I have yet to encounter a DOS or Win98 game that has issues with these CPUs, and I've been playing with them for over 6 months now. My honest conclusion is that an Ezra-T/440BX platform is more compatible than SS7 could ever hope to be. Everything just works. The same can't be said of SS7 - I actually love the SS7 platform because it's usually very finicky.
3DMark99 is literally the only exception that I found (it has a bug that causes issues with the Nehemiah and other more modern CPUs). It does work perfectly with the Ezra-T, though.

Bottom line, even if there are some extremely rare exceptions (like some obscure games that might have issues with these CPUs), I still consider this to be the most compatible, stable and flexible DOS/Win98 platform.

I actually found a Slotket that supports Coppermine, Via and Cryix via jumper setting, its has auto detect for frequency and jumper settings for 66/100/133 but no voltage settings that I can see, I'm guessing the voltage is set via the CPU jumper..

You don't really need a slotket with voltage jumpers (which is only useful for overclocking purposes).
That jumper simply overrides the voltage request signal that the CPU sends to the motherboard. Without it, the motherboard will simply provide the default voltage for that particular CPU (in the case of the Ezra-T, it's 1.45V).
Based on my experience, most of these 1 GHz Ezra-T CPUs will overclock just fine to at least 1.2 GHz (9 x 133 MHz) without needing a voltage bump.

bloodem wrote on 2022-02-14, 07:20:

You don't really need a slotket with voltage jumpers (which is only useful for overclocking purposes).
That jumper simply overrides the voltage request signal that the CPU sends to the motherboard. Without it, the motherboard will simply provide the default voltage for that particular CPU (in the case of the Ezra-T, it's 1.45V)

Ill get that one then, I dont really want to overclock it..more down clock it to meet program needs.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-02-14, 07:22:

Ill get that one then, I dont really want to overclock it..more down clock it to meet program needs.

Well, I actually do recommend overclocking the Ezra-T (it responds very well to higher FSB speeds, allowing you to reach the performance of a Pentium 3 Katmai 600 MHz), but you won't need to increase the voltage for that (as I said, all Ezra-T CPUs that I tried work just fine at 1.2 GHz (9 x 133MHz).
This will give you even more flexibility, allowing you to achieve very playable framerates with most Win98 games.

bloodem wrote on 2022-02-14, 07:29:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-02-14, 07:22:

Ill get that one then, I dont really want to overclock it..more down clock it to meet program needs.

Well, I actually do recommend overclocking the Ezra-T (it responds very well to higher FSB speeds, allowing you to reach the performance of a Pentium 3 Katmai 600 MHz), but you won't need to increase the voltage for that (as I said, all Ezra-T CPUs that I tried work just fine at 1.2 GHz (9 x 133MHz).
This will give you even more flexibility, allowing you to achieve very playable framerates with most Win98 games.

The Slotket does have a jumper for 133 FSB so that will be useful, can you change the multiplier via software or is it FSB only?

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-02-14, 07:42:

The Slotket does have a jumper for 133 FSB so that will be useful, can you change the multiplier via software or is it FSB only?

That slotket FSB setting won't help you, unfortunately. Because if you set it at 133 MHz from the get-go, you will most likely get no POST (10 x 133 = 1.33 GHz, which is probably out of reach for most Ezra-T CPUs).
The multiplier (as well as other settings) can be easily modified with the setmul utility. However, there's a catch: you can only modify the multiplier after a successful POST, because the CPU will always boot with a 10x multi, and to my knowledge there's no way of forcing a different multiplier at a hardware level. This is why a motherboard like the GA-6BXC is so important: it allows you to change the FSB on the fly from within Windows/DOS.

Here are some of my benchmark results notes, in case anyone is curious/interested:

--== TESTED ON 440BX chipset (Gigabyte GA-6BXC REV 1.9 with VRM mod) & VIA C3 "Ezra-T" 1000 @ 1260MHz (FSB133/9.5 multi) ==--
RAM: 3 x 128 MB SDRAM PC133 SAMSUNG (NOTE: 3 memory modules are a bit faster than a single or dual module configuration - seems that with 3 modules the Memory bank interleave is automatically activated by the motherboard BIOS?!)
VGA: Asus V7700Ti GeForce 2 Ti (OC @ GeForce 2 Ultra speeds - 250 MHz core / 460 MHz memory)
__________________________________________________
3DMark99 default: 5831 3DMarks / 8546 CPU Marks
3DMark00 default: 5807 3DMarks / CPU score: 335
SuperPi 1mil: 9 min 48 sec

ALL TESTS PERFORMED WITH SOUND (Creative SB Live 5.1 SB0220 / Best sample rate conversion quality) UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED.
GLQuake 640 x 480 x 16: 224.1 FPS
Quake 2 640 x 480 x 16: 124.5 FPS
Quake 2 640 x 480 x 16 Software: 33.9 FPS
Quake 2 3DNow Patch 640 x 480 x 16: 145.3 FPS
Quake 2 3DNow Patch 640 x 480 x 16 Software: 33.0 FPS (yes, strange, it's a tiny bit slower in Software mode with the 3dnow patch)
Quake 3 640 x 480 x 16 Demo4/Default quality: 53.6 FPS
MDK2 640 X 480 X 16 / Hardware T&L / Max Texture Quality: 81.99 FPS (NO SOUND ACCELERATION)
MDK2 640 X 480 X 16 / Hardware T&L / Max Texture Quality: 82.46 FPS (WITH SOUND ACCELERATION)
Expendable 640 x 480 x 16: AVG 64.09 FPS / HIGH: 81 FPS / LOW: 40 FPS (WITHOUT SOUND)
Expendable 640 x 480 x 16: AVG 52.43 FPS / HIGH: 85 FPS / LOW: 36 FPS (WITH SOUND: EAX)
Unreal 640 x 480 x 16: AVG 53.88 FPS / HIGH: 108.63 FPS / LOW: 20.66 FPS

Hmm you have given me plenty to think about and I've learned a thing or two as well !

Going to just leave the FSB at 100 and use setmul and the other utility you listed previously and if an auction I have goes my way I will have a Antec Sonata 3 case for it too.

Thanks 😁

Great! If it helps, here are two batch files that I created for the Ezra-T & Gigabyte GA-6BXC board for quickly jumping between default & overclocked speeds (in my case, both tools are on the D: partition) :

VIA C3 HIGH SPEED.bat

1@ECHO OFF
2D:\setmul\setmul.exe 9.5
3D:\softfsb\smb.exe /sp 10 133
4cls

VIA C3 NORMAL SPEED.bat

1@ECHO OFF
2D:\softfsb\smb.exe /sp 10 100
3D:\setmul\setmul.exe 10
4cls

Of course, you can play with both smb and setmul to basically hit all important speeds points (286, slow 386/fast 386, 486DX-33, 486DX2-66, 486DX4-100, Pentium 66, Pentium 100, Pentium 133, Pentium MMX 233).

bloodem wrote on 2022-02-14, 09:16:

Great! If it helps, here are two batch files that I created for the Ezra-T & Gigabyte GA-6BXC board for quickly jumping between […]
Show full quote

Great! If it helps, here are two batch files that I created for the Ezra-T & Gigabyte GA-6BXC board for quickly jumping between default & overclocked speeds (in my case, both tools are on the D: partition) :

VIA C3 HIGH SPEED.bat

Copy code to clipboard

1@ECHO OFF
2D:\setmul\setmul.exe 9.5
3D:\softfsb\smb.exe /sp 10 133
4cls

VIA C3 NORMAL SPEED.bat

Copy code to clipboard

1@ECHO OFF
2D:\softfsb\smb.exe /sp 10 100
3D:\setmul\setmul.exe 10
4cls

Of course, you can play with both smb and setmul to basically hit all important speeds points (286, slow 386/fast 386, 486DX-33, 486DX2-66, 486DX4-100, Pentium 66, Pentium 100, Pentium 133, Pentium MMX 233).

Awesome !

Won the case so itll have a nice shiny home.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-02-14, 09:32:

Awesome !

Won the case so itll have a nice shiny home.

Congrats! Be sure to show us the final build, once you have it ready (pics, or it didn't happen!). 😁

bloodem wrote on 2022-02-14, 10:21:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-02-14, 09:32:

Awesome !

Won the case so itll have a nice shiny home.

Congrats! Be sure to show us the final build, once you have it ready (pics, or it didn't happen!). 😁

Since im in Australia .. the CPU will naturally take 3 months to get here from China.

Funny thing is . .the GPUs I ordered from the Ukraine 13 days ago arrived today ...less than a fortnight ..call me impressed.

The Rev 2.0 motherboard im looking at grabbing comes with a P3 500 on it ...not a bad deal if the seller accepts my offer.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-02-14, 10:26:

Since im in Australia .. the CPU will naturally take 3 months to get here from China.

Funny thing is . .the GPUs I ordered from the Ukraine 13 days ago arrived today ...less than a fortnight ..call me impressed.

Well, you might also get a bit of a surprise with the CPU as well.
Not sure what method this seller uses for shipping, but I purchased multiple CPUs from him in the past 6 months, and they've all arrived in 2 - 3 weeks (delivered by a local courier service, not by the national post - which is a bit odd, but I've seen it happen before with certain Chinese sellers).
I'm from Europe (Romania), and deliveries from China usually take ~ 1.5 - 2 months.

bloodem wrote on 2022-02-14, 10:36:

Well, you might also get a bit of a surprise with the CPU as well. Not sure what method this seller uses for shipping, but I pur […]
Show full quote

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-02-14, 10:26:

Since im in Australia .. the CPU will naturally take 3 months to get here from China.

Funny thing is . .the GPUs I ordered from the Ukraine 13 days ago arrived today ...less than a fortnight ..call me impressed.

Well, you might also get a bit of a surprise with the CPU as well.
Not sure what method this seller uses for shipping, but I purchased multiple CPUs from him in the past 6 months, and they've all arrived in 2 - 3 weeks (delivered by a local courier service, not by the national post - which is a bit odd, but I've seen it happen before with certain Chinese sellers).
I'm from Europe (Romania), and deliveries from China usually take ~ 1.5 - 2 months.

I hope so . .China post is efficient but horribly slow.

How fast the GPUs got here from the Ukraine really did surprise me, I figured they would be about as fast as stuff from Russia is ...not fast but not China post slow either.

Does the Ezra-T require a motherboard with Tualatin support? Or will it work with any 440bx board that can supply the correct voltage?

pixel_workbench wrote on 2022-02-14, 14:49:

Does the Ezra-T require a motherboard with Tualatin support? Or will it work with any 440bx board that can supply the correct voltage?

I know that the "T" in the Ezra-T can be misleading, but no, it does not require a Tualatin compatible MB (and neither does the Nehemiah).
In fact, the GA-6BXC is one of the older boards, based on the Intel 440BX chipset, so it's obviously not Tualatin compatible 😀