Want to build retro gaming PC (Win 98) suggestions/ideas for hardware

[NdMk2o1o]

As the title suggest I am going to be building a retro gaming pc and would like some suggestions for what components to buy. I'll be looking to run Windows 98 so the hardware must be compatible for that era, my general consensus is something along the lines of a pentium 3/AMD K6 processor around the 500-700mhz area? maybe 256MB-512MB SD RAM, 20GB??? HDD, not really sure on GPU so could need some suggestions with this, sound card, I'm thinking a sound blaster pci card should be the ticket here. I'll hopefully get a nice beige case to put it all in, an early 00's windowed case would be amazing.

I'll be sourcing predominantly from ebay as I think this is my best bet to get all the neccessary parts, I gues it's just a case of making sure that whatever processor I get there are enough compatible motherboards available.

So just looking for some help from people who've built a retro machine on any caveats or suggestions that will likely help me make this go as smooth as possible.

P.S I'm hoping a 15" LCD with VGA shouldn't be an issue as I can then put this on my main computer desk beside my current 24" monitor

 

[FreedomEclipse]

GPU, Without a doubt it has to be a ATi 9800 Pro if not a 9700Pro. Depending how retro youre going, you can even opt for an Nvidia Rage 3D Pro -- I might have one of these somewhere....
Soundwise, hmmmm... Creative Sound Blaster Live! or Audigy

256GB ram sounds fine to me.

 

[NdMk2o1o]

GPU, Without a doubt it has to be a ATi 9800 Pro if not a 9700Pro. Depending how retro youre going, you can even opt for an Nvidia Rage 3D Pro -- I might have one of these somewhere....
Soundwise, hmmmm... Creative Sound Blaster Live! or Audigy

256GB ram sounds fine to me.

is the 9800 pro/9700 maybe not a bit too new for such a system? I was maybe thinking along the lines of a geforce 3/4 class of GPU but what would be a comparible ATI card from the time? and yea, I'm with you on the sound card a pci sound blaster should be ideal

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Well. Geforce 3 was released in 2001. In 2001 ATi had the Radeon 7000 series of cards and i dont remember ANY of them being hugely popular. Push for a Rage Fury or Rage 128 Pro/Ultra if Rage Pro is too weak. Next series up would be the 8000 and 9000 series - again neither of which were super popular if i remember correctly.

Geforce 4 was 2002'ish and the ATi 9000 series was in 2002 as well. If youre not going for iconic or memorable GPus then take your pick i guess.

 

[NdMk2o1o]

Any ideas/suggestions on CPU/motherboard type?

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Hard to say, It was around this time I was really getting into PC hardware and stuff but id say Abit NF7-S V2.0, nForce2. If you're looking for pre-nforce2 then someone else will have to jump in for recommendations. Its hard to find anything pre nforce2 on ebay.

Im not super knowledgeable about what sorta chipsets were around back then so I cant really make any suggestions other than the nforce. Though K6 was socket 7 so the nforce2 might be too advanced for your build.

 

[Bones]

You can browse through the archives of CPU World to see what existed back then by socket and dates of the CPUs used to have a decent to good idea of what to look for. That was back when you had more brands of board makers around than you could shake a stick at but Abit does stand out along with Soyo, both were considered hot items back in the day. Asus and Gigabyte were in there as well so one of those would be nice for it too.

Do the research and once you know what your board will be, it's CPU socket type will determine what CPU to look for to get the most from it of course, CPU World is helpful with that too. As for a GPU, GeForce 2 and older is what to look for since GeForce 3 and newer will be after that time, the really popular cards were obviously made by VooDoo but good luck finding a good one for cheap. If I"m not mistaken even a GeForce 2 card is kinda "Too New" but close.
The first system I ever owned was built back in 2000 and it came with a GeForce 2 card.

 

[NdMk2o1o]

How's this looking so far?

I'm thinking the RAM is wrong.... looks like ddr isntead of SDRAM

 

[natr0n]

Google the ram model # to be sure.

 

[Hood]

This thread brought back fond memories of my first desktop PC, an HP Pentium 3 850 MHz. I don't remember how much RAM, or if it even had a video card. I learned a lot on that thing, most of it the hard way (by totally losing all my data and making it unbootable, more than once). I eventually installed Windows 2000, and it was much more stable, and was how I learned the importance of finding the right drivers for my hardware. I also remember my disappointment when I discovered that I needed a 1GHz or better CPU to run a DVD-ROM drive. Thanks for the rewind back to a simpler time...

 

[Zyll Goliat]

If you want some unique&quality GPU from that era try to find Matrox Millenium or 3DFX Voodoo card.......my 2 cents

 

[StrayKAT]

I could actually give you my old computer's similar specs near that time

Athlon XP 2200+
A whopping 40GB WD HDD
ASUS A7N8X
Geforce Ti 4200

Of course, this is a bit newer, but it would run Win 98 fine. And you could run newer games if you wanted too.

 

[dorsetknob]

I'm thinking the RAM is wrong.... looks like ddr isntead of SDRAM

Its a Shame and don't want to upset you but
I just have had to move from a 4 bed house to a one bed flat
i ended up junking loads of stuff all working from this era because i did not have time to unload it or the space to keep it all
Some stuff i kept and i will look out what i kept
I know i have still got some P111 Cpu's some AMD Durons even a couple of Cyrex some SD Ram ( and Earlier )
Some AGP Graphics Cards ATI 7500 Hercules AIW Powercolor 9800se AIW
some 3DFX AGP2 inc a 3500AIW and a plain 3DFX 3000
Even got a PCI Diamond Stelth riva 128
I'm Still in the process of unpacking so not sure what i did keep

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Not Win 98 PC

Wine from '96 PC

 

[Deleted member 67555]

Last time I had win 98 I had a Pentium 333mhz, 128mb of ram, a 1gb HDD, Sound Blaster 16 and a 32mb ATI something....
It played WC IV and Privateer 2 like a champ.
I would stick to the Pentium 2 era...
I still have a Windows 95 with USB support CD....3.5" disks have long since gone bad...
I also still have a thick everything you need to know about 98se book... LoL

 

[phill]

Something like this

http://imgur.com/KVM3ema

Still works a treat

 

[mobiuus]

if its retro go for style----voodoo graphics
few weeks ago found on the attic still functional voodoo rush agp 6mb lol

 

[NdMk2o1o]

Its a Shame and don't want to upset you but
I just have had to move from a 4 bed house to a one bed flat
i ended up junking loads of stuff all working from this era because i did not have time to unload it or the space to keep it all
Some stuff i kept and i will look out what i kept
I know i have still got some P111 Cpu's some AMD Durons even a couple of Cyrex some SD Ram ( and Earlier )
Some AGP Graphics Cards ATI 7500 Hercules AIW Powercolor 9800se AIW
some 3DFX AGP2 inc a 3500AIW and a plain 3DFX 3000
Even got a PCI Diamond Stelth riva 128
I'm Still in the process of unpacking so not sure what i did keep

That's quite the downsize, hope alls well. If you have some things you'd be willing to part with shoot me a pm with what you have when your settled mate

if its retro go for style----voodoo graphics
few weeks ago found on the attic still functional voodoo rush agp 6mb lol

Not likely due to the prices of voodoo cards now £70+

how does "PIII 733, 256MB SD RAM, 20GB IDE HDD and geforce 2 mx200 64MB" sound? all seems to go quite well without being mismatched or any one part bottlenecking the others etc so far including motherboard these items are about £33 in my basket

EDIT: Basket now consists of:

Biostar M7VKD motherboard with Athlon 1200MHz CPU
20gb seagate ide hdd 3.5
Infineon 128MB SD-RAM (128mb also included in CPU bundle)
GeForce2 MX200 64MB AGP
HP 326773-001 FX48B1M 176135-QD0 IDE CD-ROM
CODEGEN 300W ATX 2.03 P4 300X

All I'm missing is a case and a CPU cooler if I'm not mistaken this lot's about £40

 

[NdMk2o1o]

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/112740679419

Got this motherboard and CPU bundle, is it worth buying a seperate soundcard even though there is onboard sound? something to do with soundblasters supporting DOS games properly or should the onboard suffice?

 

[NdMk2o1o]

Motherboard came and I must say it is in pristine condition for the age, not a spec of dust on it also came in the original box with driver CD, can't wait to fire it up also got my IDE HDD, PSU/RAM/CD-Rom and GPU en-route, need to find a lovely beige case and I should be good to go, I may have a look at a reclaimation place near me to see if thry have one and possibly a monitor

 

[StrayKAT]

Motherboard came and I must say it is in pristine condition for the age, not a spec of dust on it also came in the original box with driver CD, can't wait to fire it up also got my IDE HDD, PSU/RAM/CD-Rom and GPU en-route, need to find a lovely beige case and I should be good to go, I may have a look at a reclaimation place near me to see if thry have one and possibly a monitor
View attachment 96530

Bah. You can forgo the beige at least. Back then, UNIX workstations were the best looking PCs and came in many designs. Mimic that. I suppose modern PC case designs have finally caught up to that at least.

 

[NdMk2o1o]

Bah. You can forgo the beige at least. Back then, UNIX workstations were the best looking PCs and came in many designs. Mimic that. I suppose modern PC case designs have finally caught up to that at least.

I guess I mean something along the lines of the ones below, I used to rock similar ones in the mid 00's though it's just being able to find one I like enough. Though some of the older proper beige boxes are quite nice/retro looking.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Silver-m...805940?hash=item4414352f34:g:-ooAAOSwOt9ZfJJX

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/black-bl...805938?hash=item4414352f32:g:6rsAAOSwRJ9Xgm55

 

[StrayKAT]

I guess I mean something along the lines of the ones below, I used to rock similar ones in the mid 00's though it's just being able to find one I like enough. Though some of the older proper beige boxes are quite nice/retro looking.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Silver-m...805940?hash=item4414352f34:g:-ooAAOSwOt9ZfJJX

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/black-bl...805938?hash=item4414352f32:g:6rsAAOSwRJ9Xgm55

Heh. I'm kinda kidding. Those are really affordable though. Can't go wrong with that.

 

[Keullo-e]

I had Athlon 1GHz (@ 1.4GHz), Abit KT7A, 512MB, GF4 Ti4200 back in the day.

 

[xBruce88x]

You should really check out this site if you're wanting to get into a retro build. There are a lot of useful tips and tricks there.

https://www.philscomputerlab.com/