Dual Socket 370 CPUs for a legacy gaming machine-worth it?

I'm thinking long and hard about replacing the motherboard in my Pentium II-based legacy gaming machine that I lifted from a thrift store a while ago. It has a 440LX-based mobo, which is restricted to Pentium IIs running on a 66 MHz FSB. I normally wouldn't replace a mobo just because of that, but I have problems regarding PS/2 mice(moving the mouse severely reduces system performance), USB mice(the mouse will occasionally ''freeze''), and maybe DMA support(could be the crappy old 5.25'' 4 GB HDD rather than the IDE/PATA controller, though).



However, I stumbled upon a listing for a 440BX mobo, CPU, and RAM set. That chipset is a bit old for my taste, since it doesn't support 133 MHz FSB officially, though it can be made to work that way if that one Wikipedia article isn't lying. There are two ISA slots, which will come in handy for old sound cards(DOS games don't take too well to PCI sound cards), five PCI slots(one shares the same space with one of the ISA slots), and there's also an AGP slot to cram an ATI AIW Radeon 8500 into.



But the real kicker? TWO Socket 370s, and a couple of Celeron 533s to fill them in as part of the offer. I didn't even know that dual-socket desktop boards even existed for the time period. The question is, can Windows 98 SE or Windows 2000 utilize the dual-CPU aspect? (I've heard that only Windows XP Pro and Windows Vista really take advantage of multi-core or multi-CPU systems.) The other question is, can I cram a couple of the 1+ GHz Tualatin P3s in those sockets and really ramp up the processing power?



The seller also offers 768 MB of SDRAM, which is quite generous for what is planned to be a legacy gaming machine. (Hell, that's 256 MB more than the family Athlon XP setup I'm typing this on!) Maybe I can have Windows XP running on it with the extra RAM, though bandwidth may still be an issue. Or maybe all the extra RAM, as well as the two CPUs, will turn it into a not-too-shabby rendering computer or a server.



All of this runs up to around 100 US$ with shipping. It's a little expensive, but I do want something that's cheap and also powerful enough to run late-1990s games(particularly CPU hogs like Unreal Tournament and Outcast)and everything before. I can just re-use the drives, case, and PSU from the Pentium II system and maybe my other K6-2 system to keep down costs, and try to sell the 440LX mobo and P2-233 to recoup some of the monetary loss.



(Hopefully, I'm not discussing hardware way too old for this forum...I just want a system that's suitable for playing classic 1990s PC games that doesn't cost so much as to detract from my 2000 US$ modern PC budget, and may also work as a reasonably powerful backup computer should any of the newer ones fail.)Dual Socket 370 CPUs for a legacy gaming machine-worth it?
I don't believe that Windows 98 would be able to support a dual-socket system, but I know that at least Windows 2000 will.For what it's worth, I was able to run Windows XP on my first Gateway which used a single SlotA AMD Athlon okay. With 768MB of RAM, it should be pretty responsive. though with greater than 512MB of RAM, using 2000 or XP is a must, since 98 would trip over itself with a RAM amount greater than 512MB (not without some serious re-tweaking).If you can get some Pentium 3's working in there, it should be particularly respectable and run stuff like UT99 very smoothly. Or if you have to stick with the Celerons mentioned, Quake 3 Arena may still work with smp enabled. Dual Socket 370 CPUs for a legacy gaming machine-worth it?
Thanks for the pointers. I think I'll go for it.



(Oh, and I still don't know what that creature in your Wiitag is. I just can't take my eyes off it for some reason.)
[QUOTE=''NamelessPlayer''](Oh, and I still don't know what that creature in your Wiitag is. I just can't take my eyes off it for some reason.)[/QUOTE]It's actually this:http://pics.livejournal.com/armaina/pic/00146hea
A Tan and Blue striped mewtwo, I doodled. (hehe his character)
wow old stuff.
[QUOTE=''inyourface_12'']wow old stuff.[/QUOTE] VERY old stuff...
[QUOTE=''AARONRULZ1''][QUOTE=''inyourface_12'']wow old stuff.[/QUOTE] VERY old stuff...[/QUOTE]us youngins dont know about such ancient relics as pentium 2's:P hopefully his videocard has one hundred and twenty eight megs though
[QUOTE=''inyourface_12''] [QUOTE=''AARONRULZ1''][QUOTE=''inyourface_12'']wow old stuff.[/QUOTE] VERY old stuff...[/QUOTE]us youngins dont know about such ancient relics as pentium 2's:P hopefully his videocard has one hundred and twenty eight megs though[/QUOTE] 128! 128! 128! 128! 128! CAUSE THERE'S ONE HUNDRED TWENTY EIGHT! THIS IS ONE HUNDRED TWENTY EIGHT! ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY EIGHT MEGS!!!!!111!!!!1!!!!!shift!!!!!!
[QUOTE=''AARONRULZ1''][QUOTE=''inyourface_12''] [QUOTE=''AARONRULZ1''][QUOTE=''inyourface_12'']wow old stuff.[/QUOTE] VERY old stuff...[/QUOTE]us youngins dont know about such ancient relics as pentium 2's:P hopefully his videocard has one hundred and twenty eight megs though[/QUOTE] 128! 128! 128! 128! 128! CAUSE THERE'S ONE HUNDRED TWENTY EIGHT! THIS IS ONE HUNDRED TWENTY EIGHT! ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY EIGHT MEGS!!!!!111!!!!1!!!!!shift!!!!!![/QUOTE]now the infection has spread from the cbpu to the outside forums!
[QUOTE=''inyourface_12''][QUOTE=''AARONRULZ1''][QUOTE=''inyourface_12'']wow old stuff.[/QUOTE] VERY old stuff...[/QUOTE]us youngins dont know about such ancient relics as pentium 2's:P hopefully his videocard has one hundred and twenty eight megs though[/QUOTE]

The AIW Radeon 8500 I plan to install into the replacement mobo with the dual Celeron 533s is a 128 MB model, so no worries there.



Once I get that mobo and dump the Celerons for some 1.4 GHz P3 Tualatins, the 8500 shouldn't be bottlenecked anymore. I'd say that such a system may even be good enough for early-2000s games like Deus Ex and Independence War 2 if it's as fast as I think it is, and in that case, I could have a little two-player LAN action in here without the person on one computer having a major performance advantage...
[QUOTE=''NamelessPlayer''][QUOTE=''inyourface_12''] [QUOTE=''AARONRULZ1''][QUOTE=''inyourface_12'']wow old stuff.[/QUOTE] VERY old stuff...[/QUOTE]us youngins dont know about such ancient relics as pentium 2's:P hopefully his videocard has one hundred and twenty eight megs though[/QUOTE] The AIW Radeon 8500 I plan to install into the replacement mobo with the dual Celeron 533s is a 128 MB model, so no worries there. Once I get that mobo and dump the Celerons for some 1.4 GHz P3 Tualatins, the 8500 shouldn't be bottlenecked anymore. I'd say that such a system may even be good enough for early-2000s games like Deus Ex and Independence War 2 if it's as fast as I think it is, and in that case, I could have a little two-player LAN action in here without the person on one computer having a major performance advantage...[/QUOTE]lol it was a joke, but yeah i would lve to have a comp like that instead of dual booting linux i would run it on there
[QUOTE=''inyourface_12''][QUOTE=''AARONRULZ1''][QUOTE=''inyourface_12''] [QUOTE=''AARONRULZ1''][QUOTE=''inyourface_12'']wow old stuff.[/QUOTE] VERY old stuff...[/QUOTE]us youngins dont know about such ancient relics as pentium 2's:P hopefully his videocard has one hundred and twenty eight megs though[/QUOTE] 128! 128! 128! 128! 128! CAUSE THERE'S ONE HUNDRED TWENTY EIGHT! THIS IS ONE HUNDRED TWENTY EIGHT! ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY EIGHT MEGS!!!!!111!!!!1!!!!!shift!!!!!![/QUOTE]now the infection has spread from the cbpu to the outside forums![/QUOTE] OH NOES!!!11!!!11!!!! :o THE VIRUS OF ONE HUNDRED TWENTY EIGHT!!!! 128 TIMES WORSE THAN SUPER-AIDS!!!!11!!!!shift!!!1!!1 :o
[QUOTE=''Armaina''][QUOTE=''NamelessPlayer''](Oh, and I still don't know what that creature in your Wiitag is. I just can't take my eyes off it for some reason.)[/QUOTE]It's actually this:http://pics.livejournal.com/armaina/pic/00146hea
A Tan and Blue striped mewtwo, I doodled. (hehe his character) [/QUOTE]

That explains why it looks so familiar, then.



But I can't quite place my finger on why my eyes get glued to it. It has a trace of...cute, but it's not the Creative Worlds sort of extremely, irresistibly cute.
[QUOTE=''NamelessPlayer''][QUOTE=''inyourface_12''] [QUOTE=''AARONRULZ1''][QUOTE=''inyourface_12'']wow old stuff.[/QUOTE] VERY old stuff...[/QUOTE]us youngins dont know about such ancient relics as pentium 2's:P hopefully his videocard has one hundred and twenty eight megs though[/QUOTE] The AIW Radeon 8500 I plan to install into the replacement mobo with the dual Celeron 533s is a 128 MB model, so no worries there. Once I get that mobo and dump the Celerons for some 1.4 GHz P3 Tualatins, the 8500 shouldn't be bottlenecked anymore. I'd say that such a system may even be good enough for early-2000s games like Deus Ex and Independence War 2 if it's as fast as I think it is, and in that case, I could have a little two-player LAN action in here without the person on one computer having a major performance advantage...[/QUOTE]Holy crap. You know, I've always, always wanted to experiment with dual Tualatins. My server currently has a single Tualatin 1.4, overclocked to 1.6GHz, and it runs the very CPU-bound 3DMark01 as fast as a P4 running at around 2.5-2.6GHz, using a 7800GS testing card. It also surprisingly handles 1080p H.264 video (from Apple's movie trailer site). The tualatin is what the excellent Pentium M was based on, and of course, P-M evolved into Core Duo, and later on, Core 2 Duo, though C2D is quite different from Core Duo. Run-on sentence?Jesus christ, if you get dual P3-1.4s running in that thing, tell me how it runs! I've always wanted to know. Having said all of that, even the most ''complex'' DOS game should run nice and creamy smooth on a P2-233. I did all of my DOS gaming on a Pentium Classic 200, and never felt the need to upgrade (until Windows 98, Direct X, and accelerated 3D hit the market).
[QUOTE=''NamelessPlayer'']That explains why it looks so familiar, then. But I can't quite place my finger on why my eyes get glued to it. It has a trace of...cute, but it's not the Creative Worlds sort of extremely, irresistibly cute.[/QUOTE]Familiar? You seen my art before o_O?
[QUOTE=''Armaina''][QUOTE=''NamelessPlayer'']That explains why it looks so familiar, then. But I can't quite place my finger on why my eyes get glued to it. It has a trace of...cute, but it's not the Creative Worlds sort of extremely, irresistibly cute.[/QUOTE]Familiar? You seen my art before o_O?[/QUOTE]

That's the first piece of your art I've seen.



But I had a hunch that it was some sort of Pocket Monster. I just couldn't figure out WHICH one. That's what I meant by ''familiar''.
that's awsome man. 2 p3 @ 1.4 ghz and the video card should run all the early 2000s and 1990s games like a charm. Heck my uber comp. in 2000 has a top of the line p3 and a whopping 8MB graphic card. Can you post some pic. if possible after you set it up?
Uh-oh...I just realized a problem.



It turns out that there are THREE revisions of Socket 370. One only supports PPGA Celeron CPUs. The next one supports PPGA and FC-PGA Celerons and Coppermine P3s. The final one is required to make use of a Tualatin P3.



The mobo I ordered, an Abit BP6, [url=http://www.uabit.com/faq_popup.php?model=109%26faq_id=299]reportedly doesn't support Coppermine CPUs, and likely anything based on FC-PGA(2)[/url]. To further drive the point home, it's shipping with PPGA Celeron 533s.



I can get one of [url=http://www.powerleap.ca/Products/Neo-S370.htm]these[/url] to use the Coppermine/FC-PGA CPUs, but the [url=http://www.powerleap.ca/Products/PL-370T.htm]FC-PGA to FC-PGA2 adapter[/url] apparently won't work in a 440BX PPGA S370 mobo.



I can't believe I didn't notice this earlier...stupid Intel and their not changing the physical mobo socket with each revision to confuse the hell out of me...oh well, a pair of 1 GHz Coppermines should still be enough for games like Unreal Tournament, right?
Man, that does suck. :(But from the looks of it, if 1GHz Coppermine P3's are the only way you can go, then that's probably the best thing you can do then.It should be fine with UT99 and Quake 3 Arena, but I wouldn't expect much of a miracle beyond that.
(Okay, so this thread's a few days old, and posting now will result in a bump. But it's not like it's several years old or anything...)



Finally, I have my main legacy PC set up ideally with what I currently have:



-dual Intel Celeron 533 (Mendocino, both topped with Thermaltake Golden Orb HSFs)

-768 MB PC-133 SDRAM (3x256 MB)

-ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon 8500 128 MB (AGP 2x)

-STB Voodoo 2 12 MB (I'm only keeping this around for Glide games)

-Creative SB AWE64 Gold (ISA)

-Abit BP6 (dual PPGA S370, Intel 440BX, 2x AGP)

-10 GB IDE/PATA HDD (I need a bigger drive...)



It totally blows away the K6-2 and P2 systems combined, though it's still got quite a bit to go to catch up with my Athlon XP setup. It's fast enough to encode MPEG-2 video at VGA resolution, the source being my Xbox through S-Video-the question is, can it handle MPEG-4? (The software bundled with the 8500 doesn't seem to have a MPEG-4 codec option.) I'm also going to need a much bigger hard drive for that purpose, given that the 10 GB HDD is divided into 4 GB Win98SE and 6 GB Win2000 partitions, and the latter currently has only 1.5 GB free. I sure hope those 250 GB IDE/PATA drives on Newegg will work in this old machine...



So, my verdict? Worth every single one of those 10,065 pennies. (Now when they figure out the trick to making FC-PGA2 Tualatin CPUs work in a BP6 in SMP mode...I've heard reports of a single Celeron Tualatin working with what seems like a FC-PGA-to-FC-PGA2 on top of a PPGA-to-FC-PGA adapter and maybe some mobo mods, but they aren't common.)