aitotat wrote on 2023-12-02, 09:58:

May I suggest Pro Audio Spectrum 16 as an alternative for 1993 builds? It is better quality card than any early SB16 and in 1993 it is yet unknown how those cards will be supported. So in 1993 the PAS16 would have been an excellent alternative for Creative cards. Plus it gives more variety between all of those builds.

Oh YES ! The PAS 16 or PAS Studio at that time was ahead of the Creative cards. I totally recommend a PAS 16 for a 1993 or early 1994 build.

VivienM wrote on 2023-12-18, 01:34:

One thing you may want to look into: I believe there was an earthquake or something in 1994 that significantly, significantly affected RAM prices for a significant while. I suppose that wouldn't affect the 'ultimate' rigs per se, but it wouldn't surprise me if average RAM quantity stagnated or actually went down for a year or two as a result.

RAM prices in 1994-95 were ridiculous. As a 14-year old that got his first PC in late 1993 I was stuck with 4MB for a while, unable to convince my parents to spend hundreds of dollars on a memory upgrade. A friend's father had a beefy DX2-66 workstation with 16MB and multiple removable HDD trays, which seemed like something totally absurd at the time, we were in awe of that beige full tower.

In my opinion, all these rigs tied to certain years can be misleading and do not always reflect the real place of computer hardware in history.
For example, until the fall of 1997, the fastest PC system was based on a combination of Pentium MMX + 3dfx Voodoo + Matrox Mystic on an Intel i430TX chipset. But in the 1997 Ultimate build you won't see any of the above! In August, the Pentium II and the AGP bus appeared with fast video cards from Nvidia and ATI, which immediately eclipsed all Socket 7 + PCI graphics combinations that existed at that time, making the recent leader obsolete.

Kruton 9000 wrote on 2023-12-18, 08:10:

In my opinion, all these rigs tied to certain years can be misleading and do not always reflect the real place of computer hardware in history.
For example, until the fall of 1997, the fastest PC system was based on a combination of Pentium MMX + 3dfx Voodoo + Matrox Mystic on an Intel i430TX chipset. But in the 1997 Ultimate build you won't see any of the above! In August, the Pentium II and the AGP bus appeared with fast video cards from Nvidia and ATI, which immediately eclipsed all Socket 7 + PCI graphics combinations that existed at that time, making the recent leader obsolete.

The Pentium II launched in May 1997, but it's correct that motherboard that supported AGP came later that fall. By end of 1997 the difference between the newly launched Riva 128 AGP and a Canopus Pure3D 6MB card were trading places depending on the game. Personally I'd go for the Canopus combined with a Matrox Millennium II as that would be the ultimate option for both productivity and gaming. The Riva 128, especially on early drivers were not that impressive when it comes to Direct3D rendering quality. As the OP have said previously, the criteria is only that the hardware were released that year, and available for consumers by December. This is when we'd typically see the "Ultimate" compilations in the magazines.

The voodoo is actually mentioned in the 97 build, and as noted the pentium 2 was the best processor in 97.

VivienM wrote on 2023-12-18, 01:34:

One thing you may want to look into: I believe there was an earthquake or something in 1994 that significantly, significantly affected RAM prices for a significant while. I suppose that wouldn't affect the 'ultimate' rigs per se, but it wouldn't surprise me if average RAM quantity stagnated or actually went down for a year or two as a result.

In looking at specs, it seems like 16MB was pretty standard right through 1995. If there was a chip shortage / price hike, that would certainly explain it.

The other observation I will make is that 16MB in 1993... makes you able to run Windows NT 3.1. Wow.

😁

aitotat wrote on 2023-12-02, 09:58:

May I suggest Pro Audio Spectrum 16 as an alternative for 1993 builds? It is better quality card than any early SB16 and in 1993 it is yet unknown how those cards will be supported. So in 1993 the PAS16 would have been an excellent alternative for Creative cards. Plus it gives more variety between all of those builds.

That's a good point.

There a lot of interesting early 90s sound cards, with a number being arguably better options than anything by Creative Labs.

Given the wide support for the PAS and PAS 16, I may include those in the list as viable alternatives to Sound Blasters.

Kruton 9000 wrote on 2023-12-18, 08:10:

In my opinion, all these rigs tied to certain years can be misleading and do not always reflect the real place of computer hardware in history.
For example, until the fall of 1997, the fastest PC system was based on a combination of Pentium MMX + 3dfx Voodoo + Matrox Mystic on an Intel i430TX chipset. But in the 1997 Ultimate build you won't see any of the above! In August, the Pentium II and the AGP bus appeared with fast video cards from Nvidia and ATI, which immediately eclipsed all Socket 7 + PCI graphics combinations that existed at that time, making the recent leader obsolete.

This is something I wrestled with when originally building the list and setting guidelines. To keep things simple I opted to go by calendar year, but as you say, it does mean certain setups won't make the list.

I've thought about doing an alternative list based on timing of when certain processors released and then building an optimal system specs on that. I'm admittedly curious to see what sort of overlap between different types of builds there was during these years.

That's a future project though.

I remember when we upgraded ram on our 486 circa 1994 or so, it was extremely expensive. We went up to 16mb, I think we had 8 before, but it was hundreds of dollars of 1994 era money. I’d be curious to know the exact prices for that era but I do remember that purchase being a lot of money.

midicollector wrote on 2023-12-22, 01:15:

I remember when we upgraded ram on our 486 circa 1994 or so, it was extremely expensive. We went up to 16mb, I think we had 8 before, but it was hundreds of dollars of 1994 era money. I’d be curious to know the exact prices for that era but I do remember that purchase being a lot of money.

Re: WIN95 16/32MB performance difference much?

1992 30pin Simms:
1MB $30-50.
4MB $150 January 1992, lowest in went would be $100 in December 1992, and back to $130 in December 1994. You needed at least 4 modules on 486. The choices were 4x1, 8x1, 4x4, 8x4 with the last one quite insane.

72 pin simms introduced by IBM in 1990 PS/2 computers, other manufacturers started using them in 1993. You could run 1,2,3 or 4 simms of any size independently.
December 1994 72pin Simms:
2MB $80
4MB $150
8MB $300
16MB $560
32MB $1200
64MB $2800
cheapest optimal combinations: 1x8/2x4, 1x8 + 1x4/3x4, and 1x16. $300-450-560 for just the ram.

rasz_pl wrote on 2023-12-22, 15:02:

72 pin simms introduced by IBM in 1990 PS/2 computers, other manufacturers started using them in 1993. You could run 1,2,3 or 4 […]
Show full quote

72 pin simms introduced by IBM in 1990 PS/2 computers, other manufacturers started using them in 1993. You could run 1,2,3 or 4 simms of any size independently.
December 1994 72pin Simms:
2MB $80
4MB $150
8MB $300
16MB $560
32MB $1200
64MB $2800
cheapest optimal combinations: 1x8/2x4, 1x8 + 1x4/3x4, and 1x16. $300-450-560 for just the ram.

Actually I think other manufacturers were much earlier than that. I have 72pin memory in my Zenith 386-20 which launched in 1990.

vetz wrote on 2023-12-22, 15:56:

rasz_pl wrote on 2023-12-22, 15:02:

72 pin simms introduced by IBM in 1990 PS/2 computers, other manufacturers started using them in 1993. You could run 1,2,3 or 4 […]
Show full quote

72 pin simms introduced by IBM in 1990 PS/2 computers, other manufacturers started using them in 1993. You could run 1,2,3 or 4 simms of any size independently.
December 1994 72pin Simms:
2MB $80
4MB $150
8MB $300
16MB $560
32MB $1200
64MB $2800
cheapest optimal combinations: 1x8/2x4, 1x8 + 1x4/3x4, and 1x16. $300-450-560 for just the ram.

Actually I think other manufacturers were much earlier than that. I have 72pin memory in my Zenith 386-20 which launched in 1990.

sure looks like it https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/zenith … a-syst-z-386-20
but when you look at the jumper doc it shows same board with 30pin sockets https://theretroweb.com/motherboard/manual/32393.pdf so maybe 72pin configuration came as a later revision?
Zenith would even make some sense if you believe wikipedia
"SIMMs were invented in 1982 by James J. Parker at Zenith Microcircuits and the first Zenith Microcircuits customer was Wang Laboratories. Wang Laboratories tried to patent it and were granted a patent in April 1987.[1] That patent was later voided when Wang Laboratories sued multiple companies for infringement and it was then publicized that they were the prior invention of Parker at Zenith Microcircuits (the Elk Grove Village, Illinois subsidiary of Zenith Electronics Corporation). The lawsuit was then dropped and the patent was vacated. "

except "That patent was later voided" is not true at all, Wang kept the patent for 30 pin simms all the way to 2004 and ligitated with everyone in the nineties, even trying their luck against manufacturers of not covered 72pin modules https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district … 15/166/2314770/ so no idea where Zenith is in all of this. Google cant find a single other source to that claim.
Edit: did a little digging and wiki edit that added that bogus "James J. Parker at Zenith Microcircuits" info was this https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=SI … oldid=716265602 by "WA9CBT", this callsign belongs to https://www.radioreference.com/db/ham/callsign/?cs=WA9CBT James J Parker and was obtained in 2017, looks like its a troll entry 😒 I fixed it.

midicollector wrote on 2023-12-22, 01:15:

I remember when we upgraded ram on our 486 circa 1994 or so, it was extremely expensive. We went up to 16mb, I think we had 8 before, but it was hundreds of dollars of 1994 era money. I’d be curious to know the exact prices for that era but I do remember that purchase being a lot of money.

I remember $250CAD for 4 meg 72-pin SIMM in April 1995 or so. Badly needed 4 more megs of RAM to run Office 4.2...

(Oh, the days when office suites required upgrading your hardware...)

That same machine ended up being upgraded to 20 megs (replacing one of the two 4 meg 72-pin SIMMs with a 16 megger) a few years later; I forget how much that cost, but a lot less...

I've been reading some computer magazines from late 1996 to get a vibe of what was considered the best of the day (boot magazine in particular), and I can't actually see any indication that the AWE64 Gold was actually available to consumers that year, seems like it was actually available sometime in 1997. Can anyone confirm?

It seems having a SCSI hard disk and cdrom was considered the bees knees..

stinkydiver wrote on 2025-04-14, 20:25:

I've been reading some computer magazines from late 1996 to get a vibe of what was considered the best of the day (boot magazine in particular), and I can't actually see any indication that the AWE64 Gold was actually available to consumers that year, seems like it was actually available sometime in 1997. Can anyone confirm?

You could be right about that. Both the Wikipedia page and DOS Days website list a November 1996 launch date for the AWE64.

However in combing through late 96 issues of PCMag, it doesn't show up in any ads. And January 1997's CGW ultimate rig build still lists an AWE32.

Shponglefan wrote on 2025-04-14, 21:15:

Both the Wikipedia page and DOS Days website list a November 1996 launch date for the AWE64.

Creative's old milestones page also lists 1996 as the launch year for the AWE64, albeit without specifying the exact date.

I'm guessing the situation is similar to the Voodoo 1. While the hardware was technically available in late 1996, it didn't really become widespread until early 1997.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-04-14, 21:25:

Shponglefan wrote on 2025-04-14, 21:15:

Both the Wikipedia page and DOS Days website list a November 1996 launch date for the AWE64.

Creative's old milestones page also lists 1996 as the launch year for the AWE64, albeit without specifying the exact date.

I'm guessing the situation is similar to the Voodoo 1. While the hardware was technically available in late 1996, it didn't really become widespread until early 1997.

NEC had a system with a Voodoo 1 in December 1996, here is a screen shot of the specs from the Boot magazine review

Source: https://archive.org/details/boot-magazine-com … up?view=theater

Yup, the Voodoo 1 was consumer-available in late 1996 (Monster 3D and Orchid Righteous 3D). Though it really took until 1997 before a decent amount of 3D accelerated games started appearing, particularly GLQuake in early-97.

As for the AWE64, I was curious about manufacturing dates so I checked 6 cards I own. All of them have 1997 manufacturing dates on the PCB.

I also have a Sound Blaster 32 CT3670, which uses the same chip as the AWE64. That particular card has a 45-96 PCB manufacturing date. And looking up a few other CT3670 cards online, they also had 1996 dates.

In theory one might have been able to get a CT3670 in 1996 which is basically the same as an AWE64.

you need to look at CT4380/CT4390 only, those are the AWE64 cards with a 1996 copyright date. from a quick search cards with '96 chip/PCB dates do exist, so it's possible some landed in stores at least in december 1996, or indeed november.