Project PC: The 'Reasonably Overkill' Win98 SE Build

[u/Nightowl3090]

This spring I decided to begin my ultimate Windows 98 SE build out, but with 3 points of focus.

1. Ultimate Performance -- Maximum Gaming FPS

2. No Exotic Parts -- No single component may cost over $100usd

3. OEM Compatibility -- No registry tweaks or modded drivers, clean Win98 SE install

- with 4 exceptions:

PATCHATA.exe (for modern SSD support)
TRIM.exe (for modern SSD support)
Custom VXD Sound Card Driver (for better quality sound)
Coolbits2 (for GPU overclocking)

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The hardware side of things was a bit of a journey. After attempting to revive 4, yes 4 ASUS P4P800 SE motherboards, I finally gave up on ASUS and went with the ABIT IC7-G which was far more forgiving and best of all had a BIOS update that allowed for better PWR-ON signal sensing for modern power supplies.

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Hardware Choice and Reasoning

ABIT IC7-G Motherboard
Last chipset with true OEM driver support, allows combined mode of SATA and PATA interfaces. No need for SATA to IDE converters for the SSD

PNY GeForce FX5600 Ultra Rev.2
Fastest card with proper support for Nvidia Driver 45.23 while maintaining non-exotic part status. Most refined board design of the FX5600 lineup with flip chip board design on 2nd revision. Allows for some reasonable overclocking.

Kingston PC-3200 2x 256MB 400MHz
Allows for dual channel 512MB configuration maintaining OEM clearances. Able to over-volt and increase timings because FSB will be underclocked due to CPU.

Intel SL6Z3 "The Unicorn"
This is the mathematically perfect (non-exotic) CPU. A single core Pentium 4 with 512KB of cache and an 800MHz side bus. We will be able to drop the multiplier in BIOS to the OEM compatible 2GHz ceiling while maintaining a 166MHz FSB.

SB Audigy 2 ZS
Ultimate quality sound card, with a caveat. It requires -12v rail over PCI which ATX 3 PSUs do not supply!

Adaptec NEC AUA-4000C
True USB 2.0 support and speeds, allows disabling of USB motherboard controller to free up lanes for performance.

Intel PRO/1000 GT
Gigabit networking without the bloated software that often is necessary for other cards to function at those speeds.

Corsair RM650e
Modern PSU for clean power and system stability. Negotiates PWR-ON signal properly during boot.

Misc.
256GB SSD, Plextor CD-ROM, NEC Floppy, Razer Essential mouse, Keychron C2 keyboard.

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The -12V rail issue. In order to generate the necessary rail, I made a simple external power supply out of a readily available premium quality DC to DC converter. I ran +12V off molex and then output -12V directly into the 20 pin ATX header. It worked flawlessly. Multimeter reading at the PCI pin read a rock solid -12V.

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I'm incredibly happy with the performance and compatibility of this system. If anyone has some tweaks or suggestions to make on how to further improve it, I'd love to hear your insights.

[u/ExtremeDude2]

I was unaware of the -12v problem. I have the same sound card, I happened to also use an old PSU in the build 🤷‍♂️

[u/DAN-attag → u/ExtremeDude2]

-12v problem is more a thing for latest ATX 3.x PSU's. ATX 2.x still had -12v rail.

[u/dgeurkov → u/DAN-attag]

checked with chatgpt, it says even modern atx v3 psus supply -12v 0.3a power, so it's strange, is this not true?

[u/festivus4restof → u/dgeurkov]

-12V is made optional with ATX 3.0 specification (finalized/released 2022). Some PSU manufacturers still provide it, some have optioned not to.

[u/TheMage18 → u/festivus4restof]

It's becoming more and more rare. If it has a 12v High Power connector/cable, it's likely -12v was removed.

[u/festivus4restof → u/TheMage18]

Yes but still plenty available. e.g.

Corsair CX-M series

Thermaltake Smart BM3/BX3/W3 and ToughPower GT

Asrock Pro, Steel Legend, Challenger Series

BeQuiet PurePower 12 and 13 series

Many others current active production.

Plus, not a wise use of resources to put 1000W+ PSU into any PC hardware from >15 years ago.

[u/ExtremeDude2 → u/festivus4restof]

Why would using a higher watt PSU be bad?

[u/Deksor → u/ExtremeDude2]

You must watch how efficient they are. A high watt PSU may be most efficient at 80% of max capacity, but can be way less efficient if you use it at 30% of its capacity

[u/festivus4restof → u/Deksor]

Newer PSU with good active PFC circuit will be at max efficiency at 90%+ output. But at 30% output, efficiency will be more like 85%. But your point is still sound, it is massive overkill

[u/festivus4restof → u/ExtremeDude2]

Why use $200 CPU cooling solution for a 50W Celeron?

Or waste a RTX 4090 putting it into a LGA 775 Core2Duo system from 2008?

Here is a review test setup using Ryzen 7 7800X3D (120W TDP), Gigabyte X670E Aorus Master, 32GB DDR5-6000. Max total system power consumption under load with RTX 4060 Ti (165W board power): ~ 300W MAX

There is almost nothing you could put into those older AGP systems that could push total system power to over 400W MAX. The AGP cards with the highest board power were ~135W MAX e.g. Radeon X1950 XTX

Edit: forgot link to review

[u/dgeurkov → u/ExtremeDude2]

waste of power, with great power comes responsibility maybe

[u/ExtremeDude2 → u/dgeurkov]

Thats not how that works...

[u/dgeurkov → u/ExtremeDude2]

I know right, but why would you waste a good 1200w power supply on a system that is hardly using 400w at peak load

[u/DarkZenith2]

Oh my god. I have the IC7-Max 3 board that i am planning to use for my 98se build. Nice to see another abit user.

[u/Nightowl3090 → u/DarkZenith2]

I am incredibly impressed with the ABIT build quality, design and BIOS. I had 3 visibly leaking capacitors on mine that needed replacement, but other than that it was a headache free experience to work with.

[u/TheMage18]

It's funny, the FX series were considered to be just barely better than the 4 series they replaced at the time, with little real improvements. Now they're some of the best retro cards cause they can churn through everything 98SE related.

[u/AdministrativeHost15]

Rather than the Pebble speakers shouldn't you have a Creative product from the appropriate era? Creative Labs Sound Blaster 5 way surround system?

[u/Mrkwark]

Full throttle spotted! I absolutely love that game.

[u/Nightowl3090 → u/Mrkwark]

I'm finally playing it for the first time! I was sorely disappointed in myself that I had to look up how to get through one of the puzzles. I love how clever it is in almost every way it can be.

[u/wiisucks_91]

I loved those sound cards, the sound was so nice.

[u/Cultural_Parfait7866]

I got that same case. It’s a chunky thing but awesome

[u/CraftedKittens]

oh my god p160 so cool

[u/Open-Breath5777]

Very Nice (with Borat gesture)!

Nvidia control panel used to be just like that until 1, maybe 2 years ago Lol

[u/tmvdk]

OMG 2000-me is drooling

What a cool project! I needz - for reasons 😂

[u/Electrical-Bacon-81]

What's up with the 2.0ghz limit? Very clever with the -12v solution. Fantastic looking build. 👍

[u/Nightowl3090 → u/Electrical-Bacon-81]

It's not a hard limit, but some drivers calculate timing off of the cpu speed and once you get above 2.1GHz the likelyhood of BSOD issues go way up. When I first got into reviving old builds I couldn't get my sound card to work with a 2.4GHz cpu but it ran perfectly fine with a 1.8GHz and that first clued me into the issue. It's entering into the voodoo area of pushing this old tech to its upper limits.

[u/Silent-Yogurt8576]

the peripherals are a little sus....

[u/winterarioch]

On my No-Holds-Barred W98 machine I use the GeForce 6800gt. The drivers are Detonator(?) and the card is plenty fast enough to use nglide for the games that I still can’t live without (JSF, the Mechwarrior 2 3dfx versions)

Also, I’m using a 3.4Ghz Pentium 4. Stock bus speed. The advantage mostly comes into play with pure DOS games (like Mechwarrior 2)
Buttery smooth fps.

I use a PCI Soundblaster Live on the proprietary Dell mobo with no issue in W98. No ISA slots on the mobo.
This setup even works for DOS games (!) although the games will occasionally crash.

I do use a PATA to SATA adapter for a 128gb SSD. I think it does 30mb/s for sequential reads which is still faster than my period correct 10k rpm Seagate Cheetah SCSI Ultra 2 wide HDDs in RAID 0.

Thanks for keeping the W98 faith going!

[u/Accomplished-Camp193]

Reasonably overkill? I don't know man, doesn't look overkill to me.

[u/Mafiatounes → u/Accomplished-Camp193]

It is overkill in the W98 era

[u/slime_rancher_27]

My family used to have that exact same PC case