HOT-567 or the P/I-XP55T2P4? (Was: Opinions please

Ok guys, which motherboard do you think I should use:

The HOT-567 or the P/I-XP55T2P4, I have a 133Mhz Pentium or a 233Mhz Pentium w/ MMX. It looks like the ASUS board won't support the 233 clock speed though it may be undocumented and/or underclocking it to 200Mhz would probably still get me a performance boost due to the MMX instructions.

I intend to run Windows 98 on the system, and will most likely max out the RAM capacity on the boards (both are 256mb). I will use it as a go between machine to get data to it on the network and be able to write 360k floppies for the older machines and 720/1.44 disks for the newer ones.

I am leaning towards the HOT board but I wanted to see what the opinions out there are.

It would probably come down to "does that ASUS board actually have 256 or 512 cache" as the Shuttle has it. Both seem to be same number of slots, though the Shuttle has the odd mix/match RAM config which could be a blessing or a curse.

Actually, yeah. it would come down to what's sitting in my spare parts box for RAM. The Asus only takes SIMM's while the shuttle can take SIMM or DIMM... You may even be able to get the Shuttle board to 384 megs (despite the lower claimed limit) if you can find a trio of 16x64 DIMM... and it might even go to 512 (holy hannah for a machine of that age) if it allows for mix-and-match of SIMM and DIMM. You can often be surprised at what works from that time frame that isn't in the book because "nobody would ever have that much RAM". I've got two Celeron 600 boards (those funny ugly compaq presarios) that allegedly only go to 512 megs, but with the right PC100 sticks I've got both of them at a fill gig... I've got a am386/40 board here that says using 30 pin SIMM's you can only go to 16 megs, but the book for it actually 'ends' at a quartet of 4 meg (1x36) sticks or a pair of 8 meg (2x36)... going to a quartet of 2x36 and it comes up with 32 megs just fine. (which feels like a lot of RAM on a 386/40)

Willing to bet you go with that Shuttle/HOT board, and stick a trio of 16Mx64 (aka 128k) chips in it, it'll boot up with 384 megs just fine... while on the older ASUS board good luck finding 64 meg (16x36) SIMM's. (I don't think I ever even saw 72 pin SIMM's larger than 16 megs apiece before the changeover to DIMM's.)

The Shuttle being a much newer board also seems to have a wider selection of multiplier and voltage options... that 233MMX would likely work better in it.

Even if it is... eew... shuttle.

I can get 64mb 72-pin EDO simm for about $15 each, so I could max it out for about $60 but I all ready have a fair amount of PC-100 RAM, and I think you may be right I probably could run 3 128mb sticks and boot it with 384mb and that is plenty for Windows 98SE.

Yeah, I think the shuttle is the better board and would end up getting a pretty screaming Windows 98 machine going once I locate a decent PCI VGA card that has full Windows 98 support. This one or this one would probably work like a charm (assuming there are Win98 drivers, I need to look before I buy).

Any other opinions out there?

EDIT: There are still legacy drivers available from ATI for the RAGE series cards (here) I may just grab one.

I would have thought 16MB or 32MB tops would be ample for the stated use.

pearce_jj said:

I would have thought 16MB or 32MB tops would be ample for the stated use.

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I'd say the sweet spot for Windows 98 is somewhere around 128mb, so that is what I am aiming for. Right now I have 80mb on the ASUS board and it is running ok, but using the HOT motherboard means I can easily get the machine running at 256 or 384mb which would be better though not really all that neccesary.

I don't intend to buy the 64mb simms, but I may pickup 2 32mb SIMMS to get the ASUS board upto 128Mb.

Since the HOT-567 board uses the TX chipset and the P/I-XP55T2P4 the HX chipset, wouldn't that mean the ASUS board can cache more then 64mb of memory?
If this is the case, I'd rather go with the ASUS board as I have the 32mb SIMM's laying around already.
For the HOT-567 theres always the option to use a K6-3 to go around the limited cacheable area of the TX chipset, but the K6-3 may not be supported by that board.

Tetrium2 said:

Since the HOT-567 board uses the TX chipset and the P/I-XP55T2P4 the HX chipset, wouldn't that mean the ASUS board can cache more then 64mb of memory?
If this is the case, I'd rather go with the ASUS board as I have the 32mb SIMM's laying around already.
For the HOT-567 theres always the option to use a K6-3 to go around the limited cacheable area of the TX chipset, but the K6-3 may not be supported by that board.

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Yes, for that reason a HX would be a better choice.
As far as K6-3 - for as far as that is an option that is not just theoretical - K6-3's are almost impossible to find, at least to my experience.

lutiana said:

I'd say the sweet spot for Windows 98 is somewhere around 128mb, so that is what I am aiming for.

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I agree, 128 meg is a good amount for Win95/98. You get diminishing returns when you go beyond that, but I certainly noticed a difference when I started putting 128 meg in Win98 boxes. In the 1998-99 timeframe, that wasn't a trivial expense.

If the machine's main purpose in life is copying files, 128 is a bit of a luxury, but it means the system will boot up and launch Explorer windows without a lot of lag. The few times I used Win98 with 32 meg, even simple tasks like that weren't very pleasant because of the IE integration with the rest of the Windows experience.

I managed to get the 233MMX proc to work on the ASUS board. All I need to do now is pickup 2 32Mb 72Pinn SIMMS to get it up to 128Mb (from 80Mb), get a decent VGA PCI card and I think I have a pretty perfect tweener machine.

Anyone interested in the HOT motherboard and P133 cpu?

I intend to add an ATAPI zip 100 drive so I can use a parallel zip drive in some of my older machines. Couple that with the 360k floppy drive and I think there is little I can't make boot/data disks for. :D