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Good mobo for pentium III 733 ? *UPDATE*

G

galt

Senior member
It's as if I have amnesia. I can't for the life of me remember what motherboards were popular/recommeded when the intel pentium 3 "e" processors came out. I found a p3 at home last night, its either a 700 or a 733, what I know for sure is that its a coppermine, with the on-die cache. I remember the i820 and i840 boards were good, but I really dont want to spend a lot on rdram. The i815 chipset comes to mind, but I can't remember any good motherboards based on it.

The catch is that the cpu is a slot 1, so my choices arn't many. So what I need is the name of a good slot1 p3 motherboard (I dont want fancy stuff like raid and whatnot, just a plain vanilla board is more than enough). I have some pc133 ram lying around, a vid card and a power supply. What mobo would you guys recommend I get? I also realize it'll be very hard trying to find an old slot1 p3 mobo on sale anywhere, but I'll take what I can get.

So again, any recommendations?

UPDATE: Went and checked, its a cumine 733 (133fsb). I did see a lot of i820 boards on ebay as well. Now if I can find some cheap rdram, I'll buy one of 'em. Else ... back to looking for a nice slot 1 mobo that had agp and 133fsb support (preferably intel chipset).
 
I have an Asus P3V4X that's still running my 700, and can run it at 933. A good board, but a lot of folks did perfer the Intel chipsets in those days. I never had a problem with that board though, it was a nice one. That's my $0.02. Peace.
 
If it's 100 MHz you can use newer BX, or via, or i815, with several good boards from Abit and Asus. If it's 133 you need one of the "BX133" boards that overclock the BX chipset, or a via, or i815 (e, ep). Most (all?) i815 were socket not slot-1 though.

If you don't need AGP slot you can find a lot of i810 slot one boards fairly cheap, with onbaord xxxtreeeme graphics 😛

I have an old Abit BF6 (BX, 100 MHz) I'm not using anymore, PM me if in USA and interested.
 
Usually VIA and SiS boards were more unstable than their P4/AXP counterparts at this time, but some argue otherwise.

440BX is only for 100Mhz FSB chips, but its generally the best.
815E can do 100/133, but Ram is limited to 512MB, and theres only 1 slot1 815E board
820 can do 100/133, and RDRam doesnt need to be installed in pairs, and the motherboards are usually dirt cheap (Asus P3C series for instance)
840 most can only do 133, RDRam needs to be installed in pairs, but the motherboards are usually dirt cheap

RDRam isnt as expensive as most people would want you to think, but they are expensive in large quantities (>512).
 
RDRam isnt as expensive as most people would want you to think, but they are expensive in large quantities (>512).
Click to expand...
Out of curiosity do 133 MHz p3's need PC600 or PC800 for best speed? PC600 should be fairly cheap now since it's too slow for P4s.
 
When I acquired my P3 550 slot 1, I picked up the Abit VT6X4, found one off ebay on the cheap. Runs nice, does 100/133, has AGP 4x, and I read some positive reviews. The Abit SH6 would have been nicer, being a slot 1 815E, but it was too hard to find. Only one I found was twice as expensive as my VT6X4 and from a shady vendor.
 
Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
RDRam isnt as expensive as most people would want you to think, but they are expensive in large quantities (>512).
Click to expand...
Out of curiosity do 133 MHz p3's need PC600 or PC800 for best speed? PC600 should be fairly cheap now since it's too slow for P4s.
Click to expand...

PC600 is much too slow. It was never produced in high volumes, you'd definitely be much better off with PC800. RDRam increases more than proportionally as it raises its clock speeds, even for the P4, high FSB/clocked RDRam modules can best i875PE boards running at DC 400.

You can get no frills Asus 820 boards on eBay for less than $10 (+shipping). Last time I checked, even reference Intel 840 boards were going for less than $20 sometimes (+shipping).
 
I still have an ABit BF6 system as a backup system (BX chipset, supports Intel Pentium III 450 to 800 MHz Processor cartridge). Seem to remember these were a popular choice back then.
 
Originally posted by: galt

UPDATE: Went and checked, its a cumine 733 (133fsb). I did see a lot of i820 boards on ebay as well. Now if I can find some cheap rdram, I'll buy one of 'em. Else ... back to looking for a nice slot 1 mobo that had agp and 133fsb support (preferably intel chipset).
Click to expand...

Well then, you're pretty much out of luck. The only slot1 133FSB capable (official that is) SDRam board is the *very rare* Abit SH6. Last time I checked, those were not cheap. If you want an Intel 133FSB board, your best choice is an 820 + RDRam. Even with the added cost of Samsung PC800 RDRam on eBay (say 256MB), it'd probably still be cheaper than the SH6 alone..
 
Originally posted by: dexvx


Well then, you're pretty much out of luck. The only slot1 133FSB capable (official that is) SDRam board is the *very rare* Abit SH6. Last time I checked, those were not cheap. If you want an Intel 133FSB board, your best choice is an 820 + RDRam. Even with the added cost of Samsung PC800 RDRam on eBay (say 256MB), it'd probably still be cheaper than the SH6 alone..
Click to expand...

Not true. The P3V4X is an SDRAM board and it is officially 133FSB capable.
 
Checked RDRAM prices on newegg, and what I saw is way more than I am willing to spend. I've got a ps, cpu, sdram, keyb and mouse. All I need is a cheap motherboard to go. If I choose an i820/i840 solution, I'll be paying a lot for rdram. I guess its time to go looking for a p3v4x then ...
 
I used a VIA Apollo pro chipset motherboard, a Gigabyte GA-6VX-4x and still use it as a backup system. It had decent stability and would allow you use SDRAM The ASUS board featuring that chipset is really nice as well.
 
Tyan's S1854 / Trinity 400 board was a good board for slot 1 (it also supported socket 370) it's the Via Apollo Pro 133A chipset, still use one to run my old slot 1 733 it has 3 sdram slots fyi. Hope this helps.... 🙂
 
Originally posted by: galt
Checked RDRAM prices on newegg, and what I saw is way more than I am willing to spend. I've got a ps, cpu, sdram, keyb and mouse. All I need is a cheap motherboard to go. If I choose an i820/i840 solution, I'll be paying a lot for rdram. I guess its time to go looking for a p3v4x then ...
Click to expand...

I suggest eBay. I bought a couple 128MB PC800 sticks for around the $15 mark.

On a side note, depending on what kind of video card you're going to put in, a 440BX board like the Asus P3B-F/Abit BE6/II can suit you fine.
 
Originally posted by: dexvx
Originally posted by: galt
Checked RDRAM prices on newegg, and what I saw is way more than I am willing to spend. I've got a ps, cpu, sdram, keyb and mouse. All I need is a cheap motherboard to go. If I choose an i820/i840 solution, I'll be paying a lot for rdram. I guess its time to go looking for a p3v4x then ...
Click to expand...

I suggest eBay. I bought a couple 128MB PC800 sticks for around the $15 mark.

On a side note, depending on what kind of video card you're going to put in, a 440BX board like the Asus P3B-F/Abit BE6/II can suit you fine.
Click to expand...


You must have gotten really lucky. I just checked eBay, and the cheapest I found was 128mb pc800 for 45$. Thats about the same as newegg's price. If I find it for 15$ again, I'll get two. But at the current price, I think I'd be better off without it.

 
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