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Why are slot1 PIIIs so expensive recently?

H

hunterjwizzard

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A couple of years back(during the pandemic) I tried to buy a pair of SL4KL PIIIs(1ghz with a 100mhz FSB) from Meory4Less. They had them listed for I think $60 with 40% off, but when I bought them they sent me SL4BSs(133mhz FSB) instead. I sent them back because at the time I wanted my $96 more than a pair of slot1 PIIIs I lacked a motherboard for.

Well now I wanted to grab an SL4BS because I do have a use for it... and they are listed for a YGTBSM price of $460. Ebay prices are still coming in at $100-120 for a model with hsf. What in the heck is going on here?
 
Memory4Less is not eBay and prices go up for pretty much anything. Also, certain models of any CPU are more sought-after than others. You can easily get a Slot 1 P3 for cheap, but it will most likely not be the variant you are looking for.
 
Most places outside of ebay tend to get somebodies old stock and sell them cheap for a while until demand rises a bit or inventory is low then they jack up the prices till they are gone.

The dirt cheap P3's are the socket 370 1ghz 133 FSB made by the millions, but anything slot 1 FSB 100mhz above 600-700 tend to command a premium especially if you want a matching pair for a server motherboard.

You get better airflow in the case using the socket 370 anyway.
 
The reason that higher clocked Slot 1 CPUs command a price premium is because comparatively few of them were made vs their far more ubiquitous counterparts on Socket 370.

When the Coppermine came out, it made redundant Slot 1. The whole reason for the cartridge CPU is because Intel couldn't work out to have on-die L2 cache and maintain sufficient yields. They worked out those problems with Coppermine, which is why Coppermine Slot 1 CPUs don't have any external cache on them.

You can get 100 MHz FSB PIII Slot 1 variants up to around 700 MHz for a decent price, but forget about it after that. If you want the ultra rare 1100 MHz parts, be prepared to mortgage your house.
 
Chuck(G) said:
A 133MHz Slot 1 will work in a 100MHz board, just with somewhat slower clocking. E.g., an SL4BS will run just fine at 750MHz/100
Click to expand...
Yeah. Thats what I'm aiming for. I have a patched pair of 133MHz FSH 933MHz slots1s that run fine at 733MHz in my dual slot 1. But I robbed one out to build a single CPU win98 machine. Now I want to upgrade that system to 1GHz so I can have the 933MHz CPU for the dualie.

But alas. Even the comparatively common/cheap 133MHz fsb p3s seem to have shot up.
 
Has any enterprising character done an open-souce slocket for 370-to-Slot 1 CPUs? I've got a Powerlap one in a couple of systems; IIRC, it wasn't cheap.
 
My win98 motherboard has both slot 1 and socket 370, if I wanted to use a 370 I could.

That being said, a really good universal slocket couLD let me use more readily available fast chips in my older dual board.
 
Not all Slotkets are compatible with all Slot 1 motherboards. If the VRM on your Slot 1 motherboard doesn't support the voltages Coppermine requires, it either won't work, or you'll have to overvolt the CPU.
 
I guess it depends on how much money you want to sink into a dual P3 for a slight speed increase.
 
Unknown_K said:
I guess it depends on how much money you want to sink into a dual P3 for a slight speed increase.
Click to expand...

I think you miss-understand. Its ok, its a very complicated game of musical processors.

It began with the dual-slot1 machine we'll call "Dualie". I did not realize it only took 100mhz fsb chips when I bought the motherboard, so it began life with a pair of 933mhz PIIIs down-clocked to 733mhz. That's fine. Its not like this machine needs to be "fast" or anything. I ran Dualie that way for a while, until I decided to build a different machine. We'll call this machine "Retro". Now because I am obsessed with the slot1 pentium III, and Retro has a Slot1/370 motherbard, Retro stole one of Duallie's chips, and Dualie got mothballed.

Still following?

Now, I want to return Dualie's CPU so I can pull her out of the mothballs and back into service. So I want to upgrade the chip in Retro to the ever-so-slightly faster 1ghz/133mhz FSB Slot1 PIII so Dualie can have her old chip back.

The problem is... despite being relatively common and fairly inexpensive as of a few years ago, those 1ghz/133mhz FSB chips seem to have shot up tremendously in price and I can't figure out why. There's certainly not more motherboards and the average retro-'98 gamer seems to want a 1.4ghz tualtin significantly more. So why-oh-why-oh-why?

I'm not bitter. I swear.

Chuck(G) said:
No, that's the cheap one. https://www.amazon.com/Powerleap-PL...ter/dp/B004HAS0QK/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top
Click to expand...
Actually if those weren't currently unavailable a pair of them would "work", especially since I *think* 100mhz socket 370 chips are a bit easier to come by in higher speeds than
 
After mulling it over a few days I've determined the solution to my specific problem is to go backwards. I've got a few 550MHz 100MHz fsb piiis on hand(none matching of course). A dual 550MHz slot1 isn't exactly glamorous, but it fulfills my need for dual socket goodness. Going to grab another 550MHz that matches one from my collection, assemble the machine, and love it for what it is.
 
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