Since I want to use Terratec cards with ISA and PCI it looks like I am stuck with a P3 1ghz mobo running Win98se or ME or Win2000

Which OS do you think is best out of these ?

You'd be better off with a Pentium 4 motherboard, one that still has ISA slots, or maybe Socket A with ISA, and Windows XP.

What range of games do you intend to play?

That will determine which OS and HW to buy.

keenmaster486 wrote:

You'd be better off with a Pentium 4 motherboard, one that still has ISA slots, or maybe Socket A with ISA, and Windows XP.

Okay, Yeah I found this AMD Socket A board that supports up to 1200ghz Athlon CPU.
Or I can choose a Intel BX 440 Mobo Socket 370 that Supports 1.4ghz. P3 Tualatin CPU.
P4 mobo with ISA slots are rare and expensive.

What do you think ?

Which to choose ?

I want a good Mobo because I plan on using some high end expensive cards.

Use is Terratec Audio and Media Creation Studio and light Gaming.

You can always go with an Industrial type setup (backplane + SBC) to get PCI+ISA.. but unless you get a PIAGP setup, you will be limited to PCI video. Either way, you would still be stuck on Socket 478.. up to 3.4Ghz single core with HT. The SBCs include an ITE8888 ISA bridge with full ISA support including DMA. You can get backplanes with up to 20 expansion slots.

As far as the highest speed that still has an ISA slot that has DMA support without resorting to super expensive S478 or LGA775 ATX boards, you can go with an Abit KT7A or KT7A RAID.

With a modded BIOS and most likely new capacitors, you can run a Athlon XP Mobile CPU at about 2.4Ghz with a CPU socket wire mod to enable/switch to the higher multipler to get to that speed.

SSDs rock. You have a SATA controller, use an SSD. If the board doesn't have SATA built in and you have PCI slots, get a Promise S150 SATA 1 RAID card as there are drivers for Win9x.

So out of the two , Which would you choose ?

1) AMD K7VAT VIA KT133 SOCKET 462 Socket A board that supports up to 1200ghz Athlon CPU.
Or
2) VIA Apollo Pro133T 596B Mobo Socket 370 that Supports 1.4ghz. P3 Tualatin CPU.

Intel486dx33 wrote:

I want to build a 775 Core-2-Quad gaming computer and install Win 98 , ME or 2000 with Sata drive support.

But you do realize that 98 and ME do not support more than one core?

I don't see a point in installing such old OS's on a Socket 775. This is a Vista-era platform, and you could use it with anything between WinXP and Win10, 32-bit or 64-bit, but ME/2K or older was already retro when those mobos were new.

Azarien wrote:

Intel486dx33 wrote:

I want to build a 775 Core-2-Quad gaming computer and install Win 98 , ME or 2000 with Sata drive support.

But you do realize that 98 and ME do not support more than one core?

I don't see a point in installing such old OS's on a Socket 775. This is a Vista-era platform, and you could use it with anything between WinXP and Win10, 32-bit or 64-bit, but ME/2K or older was already retro when those mobos were new.

P5P800VM with a prescott cpu is a beast on Windows 98 and cheap to build.

Yeah, It's going to be a retro Audio Studio build with Terratec audio cards. One ISA and TWO PCI cards.
Oh, wait. They are all PCI cards. In which case I can go with Socket 755 Core-2-Quad or 1155 i5-3470 CPU.
Or AMD.

What do you think ?

I would recommend Windows XP for that hardware.

tegrady wrote:

I would recommend Windows XP for that hardware.

Seconded.

Is there any reason in particular why you must run Win98SE? All of the hardware you've chosen would work better under WinXP.

tegrady wrote:

I would recommend Windows XP for that hardware.

I would recommend XP for anything. 8088? XP. 486? XP. Pentium 4? XP. C2D? XP. i7 8700K? XP. Ryzen 7? XP. Dual 8 core Xeon? XP.

Intel486dx33 wrote:

I want to build a 775 Core-2-Quad gaming computer and install Win 98 , ME or 2000 with Sata drive support.

Intel486dx33 wrote:

Since I want to use Terratec cards with ISA and PCI it looks like I am stuck with a P3 1ghz mobo running Win98se or ME or Win2000

Intel486dx33 wrote:

Okay, Yeah I found this AMD Socket A board that supports up to 1200ghz Athlon CPU.

Intel486dx33 wrote:

Oh, wait. They are all PCI cards. In which case I can go with Socket 755 Core-2-Quad or 1155 i5-3470 CPU.

Well, this thread started as a complete mess, and then quickly deteriorated. 😀

Depends on what range of games withing a period you want to play on it.

Note that if you want a Windows 9x PC, go with Windows 98. 95 is fine but somewhat lacky and doesn't excel at driver support with newer hardware that claim to be compatible.ME is pretty much Windows 98 Plus! on a single CD with bonus crashes. You'll also need a MoBo with IDE ports or a PCI IDE controller because the 9x's are incapable of being set up from SATA optical drives. Remember, none of the 9x OSes support SMP, so if you go with the Core 2 Quad not only is most of its power wasted, it's also going to have to be paired with a GPU that's supported under your 9x OS, and yes, SSD's will work.

Win2K and XP DO support multiple cores and threads, however the former may still be unable to install from a SATA drive, according to my experience. XP is definitely your go-to option here because it's fully compatible with your LGA775 motherboard and supports a wide range of graphics cards.

If you really want to build a Windows 98 gaming PC, look no further than the Pentium 4 or Athlon series. In my experience, Slot 1 systems with the 440BX chipset are the best for this era.

Yes, It turns out all the Terratec cards I want to use are PCI so I can go with 1155 i5-3470 build and an SSD.
The problem I have is the drivers and programs for the terratec cards only run under Win98/2000 and some on XP.

Intel486dx33,

Here's my recommendation: Get a used socket 754 board for cheap. For CPU, get an Athlon 64 3400+. A Sempron 64 is also great for Win98SE and you should be able to find them really cheap. Stick with 512MB RAM; it is unlikely that you'll ever need more than that. If you do need more RAM, you'll need to pay for the RLoew patch. Stick with IDE drives; if not possible, you can either use a SATA-IDE adapter or buy RLoew's other patch to fix it.

Socket 754 and 939 boards have full driver support for Win98SE. With either of them you'll be able to build an incredibly fast and powerful Win98SE machine.