Just looked up prices on Riva 128 PCI cards and wow have they ever gone up in price. I bought a pair only a couple of years ago for far less.

Looking up the sold listings, the real selling prices for them is still much less. They are still going for tens of dollars as opposed to the hundred+ dollars current listings are at.

S3 PCI cards are still pretty cheap.

Archer57 wrote on 2025-09-03, 15:10:

I do think it would be a good idea to get a motherboard with AGP, if possible. If nothing else - because it gives more options, sometimes better and often cheaper options.

As much as AGP videocards can be expensive - interesting PCI stuff is even worse...

The caveat is that super socket 7 motherboards tend to be more expensive since a lot of people like using them for late 90s builds.

Shponglefan wrote on 2025-09-03, 15:25:

The caveat is that super socket 7 motherboards tend to be more expensive since a lot of people like using them for late 90s builds.

Yes...

But something is going to be expensive either way and it is simply my opinion that paying more for the motherboard is better than paying more for a videocard, because motherboard ultimately provides much more options.

Unless they are stupidly, impossible expensive that is, in that case simply looking for cheaper PCI videocard would make sense...

I don't think you'll see much advantage from AGP with an MMX.

From a performance perspective there is no point. It would be more about having the option to upgrade the processor later with an AMD K6-2/3.

But if one goes that route it wouldn't make sense to get a Riva 128 AGP card either, since are better graphics card more suited to late 90s 3D games.

Shponglefan wrote on 2025-09-03, 15:34:

From a performance perspective there is no point. It would be more about having the option to upgrade the processor later with an AMD K6-2/3.

But if one goes that route it wouldn't make sense to get a Riva 128 AGP card either, since are better graphics card more suited to late 90s 3D games.

The OP might consider the possibility that this system will multiply once built as commonly happens here 😁 . If there's a possibility of a 440BX system in the future anyway, makes sense to stick with a 430HX/430TX here rather than going all out with AGP and future-proofing...

Honestly I think a second windows 98 pc may come after this one for late 90's/early 2000's games

I've found this PC on Facebook (in the attachments) What's people thoughts on it as a base? Does the motherboard allow for suitable gpu (s3 trio64, Riva 128 with a voodoo 1 or 2) and sound card (yamaha ymf71x and awe32) upgrades?

Looking around and options seem quite limited local to me

Looks nice, it's one of those Biostars that is Baby AT but has a soldered-on PS/2 mouse port. Hopefully the case exposes it and you can use a PS/2 mouse without worrying about a bracket for it.

Without having looked at the full details of your games list, you might even try out some of your games on the ATI and Sound Galaxy cards it comes with, before buying others, as it should already offer basic SVGA compatibility, and Sound Blaster sound playback and FM synthesis for MIDI.

ALi socket 7 chipset, should be fine, plus you have at least two PCI slots that aren't blocked by the CPU cooler so room for a fancier video card and Voodoo later if you go with that
Some motherboards suggest not mixing 72-pin SIMMs and SDRAM at the same time due to different voltages, so you might change up the RAM a bit.
Only thing I'd immediately add is an ethernet card.

Thanks for the reply. I have asked the seller for some more pictures of the inside and to see it working. He is going to send some over tomorrow evening. Looks like a clean well looked after start to the retro build though. It's roughly around a 2 hour drive from me maybe he would meet me half way or give me a discount.

Renno1983 wrote on 2025-09-03, 18:49:

I've found this PC on Facebook (in the attachments) What's people thoughts on it as a base? Does the motherboard allow for suitable gpu (s3 trio64, Riva 128 with a voodoo 1 or 2) and sound card (yamaha ymf71x and awe32) upgrades?

Looks like a decent system. Motherboard has a mix of PCI and ISA slots as are typical of Socket 7 boards, so you can swap components (video and sound cards) as needed.

Case looks in really good condition which is often one of the biggest challenges I find with older systems.

I agree with the above comment to test out the video and sound cards it comes with for compatibility, as if they end up doing the job, you might be set.

Just realised there was another shot of the back of the case looks like the mouse and keyboard ports are cut out. Anything else you guys can tell by looking at it?

Looks like a standard AT case to me with punch outs for PS/2 ports for keyboard + mouse. Plus an optional punch-out for traditional AT keyboards.

And it has an internal modem...

Doubt I can add much... I still have a running P200MMX system, some might
find it's story interesting:

It's on one of my favorite mainboards for DOS - When I got one, I liked
it so much I bought a second board as a spare.

It wasn't a gaming machine, It was the system upon which I developed
ImageDisk... and the reason it's one of my favorites is that it has one of
the BESTS floppy disk controllers I've encountered in a PC - I've had the
best luck reading many formats of non-DOS diskettes. It does single-density,
odd sector sizes/layouts better that most of the other systems I tested.

In recent years/downsizing I sold off the original ImageDisk system, and
so many people have wanted me to continuing supporting ImageDisk that I
dug out the other board (was still in box) and not having a spare AT case, built
it up on a piece of wood!

You can see it here: Re: Windows 95 on a Breadboard

The motherboard is an Aopen AP5T - an older AT style, 4-30 pin ram slots
plus 2-DDR , 4 PCI + 3 ISA. It has on-board serialx2 and parallel as well
as IDE - but no on-board video.

I like to work from a RamDisk a lot, so it has a 256m DDR stick in it.

Not needing super-video, I just use an old ATI XL-24 ISA card in it.

It also has a NE2000 compatible network card, under DOS I use a "packet
driver" and DDLINK to move images (and other stuff) on/off of it.

In my case it has a 3.5" floppy drive A: with a modified cable which puts
B: at the end - which comes out so I can easily attach other drives (5.25"
or 8" are most common).

---

Case will depend on the board (AT or ATX) - horizontal/tower/size will depend
on where/how you plan to use it (I usually prefer minitowers)

I like the AP5T - but it's old and not going to be available anywhere - you really going
to have to go with whatever you can find.

RAM will likely not be a problen unless it's a type that's hard to get.
For DOS/Win9x reqirements are usually quite low and you are likely to find
sticks of more than you need.

Your power requirement will mostly depend of what video card you use.
For most anything "normal" a 250w should be enough.

Unless you're into floppies (ie: want to use original distribution diskettes,
or have a good supply of your own diskettes), you might want to skip floppies
(diskettes are getting hardish to find) - consider going with something like
the GoTek floppy drive emulator - lets you use a USB stick - to get images on
to "virtual floppies", you can move images to the system using network, and
something like my Xdisk or ImageDisk to write then via the GoTek.

SATA will be a lot easier to find/replace ... but if the board wants IDE and
you have a spare one - why not go ahead and use it. You can always mess with
IDE->SATA adapter later if you need to replace it at some point.

I've always used and had good luck with "Sound Blaster" audio cards,
most of my DOS system have the old SBpro or SB16.

I'm one of the oddballs who still uses DOS5 on most of my DOS systems,
always worked well for me, never really found a reason to go new/bigger
(and never really got into long-filenames under DOS)

I never had brand based problems with CRTs. I think you would want at least
1024x768, possibly 1920x1080 if you have stuff that supports it.