Hi guys.

I'm planning on building a PC with two graphics cards. I have the following parts available:

- Mobile Pentium 4 552 - 3467 MHz, FSB 533, Prescott core, HT enabled, socket 478
- Pentium 4 661 - 3600 MHz, FSB 800, Cedar Mill core, socket T (LGA775)
- Abit IC7 - socket 478, intel 875 chipset - http://abit.ws/page/de/motherboard/motherboar … fSEARCHTEXT=IC7
- Abit AS8-V - LGA775, intel 865p chipset - http://abit.ws/page/en/motherboard/motherboar … ODEL_NAME=AS8-V
- MSI FX 5900 Ultra
- Leadtek Geforce 6800LE AGP
- Leadtek Geforce 6600GT AGP
- Radeon X800XT AGP
- Voodoo 3 3000 PCI
- Creative Audigy Z
- Creative Sound Blaster LIVE!
- Yamaha DS-XG YMF744

I'd like to be able to run 1998-2002 games at 1600x1200 with detail levels maxed out, run some 2003 and maybe 2004 games like Doom 3 - witch means it will dual-boot win98 se and winxp. I plan on using 2Gb of ram in dual channel if possible, so I'll install PATCHMEM for windows 98 and limit it's amount of usable ram to 512MB. Not sure it will be stable under win98 even with patchmem, I might still have to drop down to 1GB while using later nvidia cards with a large framebuffer... I'd also like to run GLIDE games under win98 - like the unofficial Descent 1 and 2 3dfx patches, GLQuake under Glide, Uprising 2 and so on.

What parts would you chose for this build? Would both video cards be active in windows 98 or do I have to select one in BIOS (init display first PCI/AGP)? Would this cause any hardware / software issues under '98? Has anyone of you tried this before? What is your experience with a setup like this?

Personally I'm leaning towards the Abit IC7 + Mobile Pentium 552 since some games I like act up on faster systems - for example Mechwarrior 3 won't map keys correctly under certain configurations, but it's rather demanding if you expect to run it at high resolutions and 60FPS so it can be sluggish on a period correct build. Dungeon Keeper 2 will crash to desktop on faster builds or lock up - this is where the Pentium 552 comes in. The IC7 can run the CPU at it's full 3467MHz (26x133) or at reduced 1600Mhz (12x133) - this can be selected in BIOS at startup - and maybe trough SETMUL? Haven't tried Setmul on a pentium 4... The IC7 also lets me select the multiplier in BIOS trough Abit softmenu, but I don't remember if any other multipliers work - apart from 26x and 12x....