Retro PC Build (1998-2001 era?)

[vintymint]

Okay, I've got this ridiculous idea that most of you are probably going to think I'm just throwing away money trying to execute. Note that I'm doing it for the experience of owning a cutting edge gaming PC at the turn of the century. I need a few examples for reference, I've already got a pretty good idea what I'm looking for but I wasn't into performance PC building at the time so it would be nice to have something to go off of. Maybe a 3DFX Voodoo (2?) build with an appropriate CPU or something in the ballpark of that. A reference such as this (with part numbers especially) would be indispensable.

 

Anybody knowledgeable on the hardware in this timeframe that can point me in the right direction would be much appreciated. Any special considerations I need to take into account would be splendid as well. Thanks.

[TheMechEngineer]

I had a HP Kayak workstation back in the day with support for two Pentium III Slot 1 processors. Man it was an awesome thing.

Try looking around for a dual-CPU computer like that, and with a good graphics card it would be a beast of a machine.

[allmighty_bob]

i'm thinking about doing exactly the same . 
only thing i have locked down is the athlon xp 3200+ cpu tough. it's the best 32bit cpu i can find that's still somewhat available

[vintymint]

I had a HP Kayak workstation back in the day with support for two Pentium III Slot 1 processors. Man it was an awesome thing.

Try looking around for a dual-CPU computer like that, and with a good graphics card it would be a beast of a machine.

Interesting. How did games utilize dual-cpus back in the day? I love the idea of the Pentium IIIs though, probably what I'll use because they have the perfect clock speeds for what I want.

[vintymint]

i'm thinking about doing exactly the same . 

only thing i have locked down is the athlon xp 3200+ cpu tough. it's the best 32bit cpu i can find that's still somewhat available

I wish you luck! I'm glad more people share my enthusiasm in retro pc gaming.

[TheMechEngineer]

Interesting. How did games utilize dual-cpus back in the day? I love the idea of the Pentium IIIs though, probably what I'll use because they have the perfect clock speeds for what I want.

 

I don't think any games used the dual-CPU setup. But it seemed much quicker when loading up Windows XP and multitasking. Mine came with just the single Pentium III 500MHz CPU, so I installed a second one that I had lying around.

Mine was running Windows XP Professional x64 and so maybe that's why it was noticeably faster with the dual-CPU setup.

Even the Task Manager displayed two CPU load graphs, which was pretty awesome.

[King_Tuna]

Its not ridiculous idea! I love retro bulids. Especially older than me, 2002.

I think theres no reason to buy dual CPU. PIII 800 Would fine for most things.

[TheMechEngineer]

Its not ridiculous idea! I love retro bulids. Especially older than me, 2002.

I think theres no reason to buy dual CPU. PIII 800 Would fine for most things.

 

It's possible. The good thing about playing around with Pentium III-era computers is that they're basically all over the place and are often free. I picked up most of my Pentium III's from the dump refuse store or even off the side of the road when there was kerbside collections (the local council here picks up all your old furniture and junk you put out on the road every year or so).

You gotta know where to look though. Pentium III's seem almost non-existent today but when you start scavenging around you soon find out that they're everywhere.

[vintymint]

Okay I've just been searching around and I've found some good stuff to work with.

CPU - Pentium III clocked @ 1.266 GHz (Socket 370)

GPU - Nvidia GeForce 3Ti 500 or ATI Radeon 8500

The Ram is causing me confusion because I'm not exactly sure what standard P3 boards used (SDRAM or DDR) or where exactly to find that tbh. Seems like that would be my biggest hurdle atm.

This is not final but this seems the performance point I want to aim for. Not too modern yet not too old, a true turn of the century machine that showcases what tech had to offer at that point in time.

[You_are_a_cunt]

 

Okay I've just been searching around and I've found some good stuff to work with.

CPU - Pentium III clocked @ 1.266 GHz (Socket 370)

GPU - Nvidia GeForce 3Ti 500 or ATI Radeon 8500

The Ram is causing me confusion because I'm not exactly sure what standard P3 boards used (SDRAM or DDR) or where exactly to find that tbh. Seems like that would be my biggest hurdle atm.

 

 

 

Find a motherboard on socket 370 that can use that CPU and see what kynd of ram it uses. Any specific P3 model? I might be able to help with the ram standard info

[You_are_a_cunt]

I assume this is the CPU you're talking about: http://ark.intel.com/products/27524/Intel-Pentium-III-Processor---S-1_26-GHz-512K-Cache-133-MHz-FSB

If so, the best chipset available for that is the i815T (some motherboards that support that CPU say they have Intel 815E, for some reason) which uses SDRAM

[vintymint]

I assume this is the CPU you're talking about: http://ark.intel.com/products/27524/Intel-Pentium-III-Processor---S-1_26-GHz-512K-Cache-133-MHz-FSB

If so, the best chipset available for that is the i815T (some motherboards that support that CPU say they have Intel 815E, for some reason) which uses SDRAM

Thanks much! That's exactly the CPU. I'll look around accordingly later, first I need to catch some shut-eye. It's after 3am.

[You_are_a_cunt]

Thanks much! That's exactly the CPU. I'll look around accordingly later, first I need to catch some shut-eye. It's after 3am.

 

Yer, I have to deal with CPU and chipset datasheets every now and then. I think I have most of the ARK datasheets for them on my desktop, lol.

[Nena Trinity]

Get a Pentium 4?

[Curufinwe_wins]

Get a Pentium 4?

In many cases at the time the p4 was much worse than the p3. On an asside, the Pentium pro was quite the beast even into the p3 era due to the onboard l2 cache.

[Nena Trinity]

In many cases at the time the p4 was much worse than the p3. On an asside, the Pentium pro was quite the beast even into the p3 era due to the onboard l2 cache.

Athlon?

[NumLock21]

My first build was had a Intel Pentium 3 800EB, got it at the turn of the millennium, had Me and it even ran great with Windows XP. The EB model has a 133MHz FSB, compare to the non EB, which only has a 100MHz FSB. The build lasted for 5 years, just in time for a new build, when Intel introduced their dual core Pentium D. Pentium 3 runs on SD-RAM and nothing else. There are 2 types of them, slot 1 and socket 370. There are even Pentium 3 Xeon where it can run up to dual cpus.

99% of the motherboard during those days have no onboard audio so you'll need to grab a sound card, even if there is, onboard audio is garbage. The most popular sound card of those days were the Creative Sound Blasters. CD-ROMs are the most common and only a few had DVD-ROMs or CD-RWs, DVD-RW haven't existed yet.

For graphics the preferred types are AGP. I had a GeForce FX 5200, my friend told me to grab a GeForce Ti 4000 series cause it's faster, but it only supports DX 8.1. I wanted support for DX9 as that's what GTA VC features, so I went with the FX5200. Performance not to bad, play well with the games I had ran smooth, then again, I wasn't worrying too much with FPS, as long as I can ply it then i was happy with it. The best gpu of that time is the ATi Radeon 9500 Pro and 9600 Pro. Retail price of them was $200 for the 9500 Pro and $300 for the 9700 Pro. Now them socket Pentium 3's cooler and mounting system is a POS, you'll have to be extremely careful with it as the plastic clip to mount the clip is extremely fragile. A lot of users did break it and when that happens, it's basically a new board or if you can find a way to mount the fan on, probably with zip ties or crazy glue.

After that it was the Pentium 4, first gen is socket 423, uses RD-RAM. These sticks must run in pairs and slots not being used must have dummy sticks or else the board will not work. It also requires 3 power connector onto the motherboard, 20pin, 4pin, and 6pin that looked the ones used for AT systems. PSU of today don't have that, so you'll have to look for very old PSU, like from those days to have that type of power connector. The mounting system on them P4, goes directly into the motherboard tray, so those days, there are 4 mounting holes in every case, just for that. Today's case will not have those 4 mounting holes, so you might have to grab some hex nuts and washers so it can be secured the mounting system directly to the motherboard itself and they require pretty long screws so make sure you have that as well if you're planning for a retro P4 build.

On AMD side it's almost similar to the Pentium 3, there is slot A and socket 462. The mounting clip on the socket is extremely fragile and can break off easily if you're not careful. AMD cpus must have thermal paste and cpu fan mounted, before powering on cause they be killed extremely quick, like withing a few seconds of powering on. They also uses SD-RAM as DDR didn't exist yet.

They also run on SD-RAM as DDR didn't exist yet.

Setting the cpu clock speed for those cpus are done manually on the board itself. Auto detect during those days don't work too well.

For internet, it's only dial up during those days so a U.S. Robotics 56K modem. Onboard ethernet don't exist so you'll need to grab a PCI network card if you want to get online and 3com is the only or popular one that most people had.  And finally IDE HDDs as well as a floppy drive.

[TwOne]

I have an AMD Athlon 1200 (non XP), and a MSI K7T Turbo Rev. B motherboard along with some RAM (512MB?) lying around that you might like. I don't know where you live though, and I don't know if I can pay for shipping.

 

 

EDIT: Oh, and I even have a Matrox Millenium + Voodoo2 around.

[allmighty_bob]

I can't say i can think of any. But would there be any problerms with using my old 60gb ssd in this build?
the ssd would be limited by the older SATA ofcourse. But still significantly faster then a hard drive. or so i imagine.
anyone know?