i recently got a Socket478 main board and i've put a Pentium 4 1.7Ghz on it, with 512mb of DDR266.

Now, the AGP slot seem to be AGP 4X/2X, and it doesn't have any key inside.

I want to know if my upcoming V5500 AGP would work just fine in it? or i could damage it?

The board in question is a DFI PM12-TL, product number "PM1201-3", Rev.A.

That is really easy. There is no P4 chipset with support for agp2x / 3.3V.

Best way to go is a KT333 based board with an XP3000 on it, faster then a P4 1.7Ghz anyway. :)

ok so i'll check for an Athlon XP board, i may know someone who could give one to me.

Would it be worth upgrading this Slot-1 up to 1Ghz instead of 800Mhz?

the difference would be not so great in my opinion, maybe if it is from 800Mhz to 1Ghz and also 133Mhz fsb, then you might feel the difference, but other then that.......I would overclock that 800Mhz to 1Ghz if you motherboard supports 133Mhz fsb.

way cheaper then buying a 1Ghz P3 slot 1, those are really pricy since they are really hard to find and the fastest available for slot 1.

FSB is 100Mhz, not 133Mhz...but i heard FSB100 are better at overclocking than 133Mhz ones.

that is true, because if you have a 100Mhz cpu, and a 133Mhz fsb motherboard, you have 33% extra room before you begin to run out of spec for the motherboard.

and since all P3's coppermines can handle 133Mhz fsb, a 750Mhz P3 is just a 1Ghz P3 with a 100Mhz fsb, so really easy to overclock.

ultima wrote on 19.08.13 at 06:39:05:

That is really easy. There is no P4 chipset with support for agp2x / 3.3V.

SiS 645DX is a P4 chipset that support agp2x/3.3V without any problems. I had a while ago Asus P4S533 and it worked with a V3 3000 card and it worked very good, I played online Warcraft 3 on it.

I'm 99.9% sure that VIA also made such chipsets.

That doesn't mean that I recommend the use of those chipsets, in my opinion a system equipped with a 3dfx card should have a motherboard that was available at that time, maybe a little newer, but not by much.

For example V2 cards should be used in a BX440 motherboard, V5 cards used with I810/815 motherboards, etc.

I really don't understand peoples that use V2 cards (or even earlier cards) on the latest motherboards (sometime even in Windows 7/8...

What's the point? To see how good the latest game (patched to work on V2) works ob a V2. It will run like crap and it will also look like crap.

ultima wrote on 19.08.13 at 06:39:05:

That is really easy. There is no P4 chipset with support for agp2x / 3.3V.

Wrong.

SiS 645DX is a P4 chipset that supports AGP 2x @ 3.3Volt. It can be found on for example an Asus P4S533 motherboard.

Have a look here;

http://www.voodooalert.de/board/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=19429

ultima wrote on 19.08.13 at 06:39:05:

That is really easy. There is no P4 chipset with support for agp2x / 3.3V.

This is not true.
There are several board for Pentium4 in the 533MHz quad-pumped FSB range that are compatible. The best chipset on which you can bet is the SiS645 (SiS645DX is better). Although it offcially supports AGP 3.3V out of the box, the actual compatibility is at the discretion of the manufacturer (not all the board were designed to give 3.3V on the AGP slot).

Cannot find much on the DFI PM12-TL aside from the manual here: ftp://download.svoa.co.th/Drivers/SVOA_PC/Computer/DFI/PM12-TC/Manual/PM12-TL.PDF which about expansions slots states the following:


Quote:

Expansion Slots The mainboard is equipped with 1 universal AGP slot and 3 PCI slots. AGP is an interface designed to support high performance 3D graphics cards. It utilizes a dedicated pipeline to access system memory for texturing, z-buffering and alpha blending. The universal AGP slot supports AGP 2x with up to 533MB/sec. bandwidth and AGP 4x with up to 1066MB/sec. bandwidth for 3D graphics applications. AGP in this mainboard will deliver faster and better graphics to your PC.

This does not mean the board is necessarily incompatible but does not even mean it is compatible. More likely the board does AGP 2x @1.5V instead of 3.3V if you ask me.

This DFI has the ViA VT8751 northbridge: http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/chipsets/p4-series/p4m266/

Again, nothing states clearly if the NB provide the needed voltage or not. In the whitepapers I found this quote:


Quote:

The VT8751 also does not sacrifice support for older AGP2X models, providing OEMs and SIs with additional configuration options.

But if it does even mean that the NB supports 3.3V on the AGP bus, this not necessarily suggests that the board is compatible; it depends if DFI chose to implement this feature in the board design.

The best advise I can do is to try first a known 3.3V VGA, a Voodoo3 for example, and see if it works or not.

damnit, I keep forgetting that SiS also made a few P4 chipsets :) sorry bout that.


Quote:

The best advise I can do is to try first a known 3.3V VGA, a Voodoo3 for example, and see if it works or not.

I dunno if that is such good advice, isn't it true that a voodoo5 will run on 1.5V as well, but will die after a short period of time?

I my opinion, best cpu/chipset combo for a voodoo5 is the KT333 with an XP2500+ or higher.

ultima wrote on 19.08.13 at 13:02:59:

damnit, I keep forgetting that SiS also made a few P4 chipsets :) sorry bout that. Quote: The best advise I can do is to try first a known 3.3V VGA, a Voodoo3 for example, and see if it works or not. I dunno if that is such good advice, isn't it true that a voodoo5 will run on 1.5V as well, but will die after a short period of time? I my opinion, best cpu/chipset combo for a voodoo5 is the KT333 with an XP2500+ or higher.

Nope.
The truth is that nobody knows exactly what could happen if you try to use a Voodoo5 on a 1.5V AGP platform, since different users reported different experiences (but definitely, none of them was a working solution).

Personally I remember that if you use a Voodoo5 into 1.5V AGP slot you will get only the first VSA to work, like a Voodoo4. But this it's just my experience, others may have experienced other results or could be ended with dead cards. So caution is preferred.

I agree,  a KT333 is definitely better, since Voodoo5, speaking of performance, likes more high FSB (166MHz on AMD Vs 133Mhz on intel - 200MHz bus intel platform are all AGP 3.0 so they are out of question).

Quote:

Nope. The truth is that nobody knows exactly what could happen if you try to use a Voodoo5 on a 1.5V AGP platform, since different users reported different experiences (but definitely, none of them was a working solution). Personally I remember that if you use a Voodoo5 into 1.5V AGP slot you will get only the first VSA to work, like a Voodoo4. But this it's just my experience, others may have experienced other results or could be ended with dead cards. So caution is preferred. I agree,  a KT333 is definitely better, since Voodoo5, speaking of performance, likes more high FSB (166MHz on AMD Vs 133Mhz on intel - 200MHz bus intel platform are all AGP 3.0 so they are out of question).

so for a 5500PCI it would be best for me if I put it on an nForce2 board with 400Mhz fsb and put the XP-M3000+ on a 400Mhz fsb @ 2.6Ghz instead of ......never mind, I see I'm starting to ask a stupid question, ram would be faster, fsb would be faster, only pure Mhz would be the same, so never mind :)

i tried the DFI board here, it have 2x 256mb DDR PC2700 in it, but due to the board, they run at PC2100 maximum.

I also tried an older AGP card in it, which is keyed for AGP 1x/2x only, so 3.3v operation (ATI Rage 128 GL, L-shaped card with a tiny heatsink on the GPU) and it seem to work. I can select "2x" in the AGP option as well in the BIOS, but it's selected automatically i think.

Because right now instead of trying to upgrade my P3 boards to 1.1Ghz up to 1.4Ghz, i could use this P4 board which seem to be compatible with AGP 2x cards as well.

So do you think this Pentium 4 1.7Ghz board (DFI PM12-TL) would be the best for my Voodoo5 5500 AGP?

If possible, get an Amd xp3000+ with a mobo that has the kt333 chipset, that is wwwaaaaaaayyy faster then any p4 that supports a 5500agp

i do have a board with an Athlon XP 2500+ on it. Problem: it's too new: Asus A7N8X, AGP 8x with AGP Pro feature keyed for AGP 8x/4x only...maybe the 4500 would work on it since it have both keys (last card released), but not the 5500.

Funny thing though: the board only take 20pins ATX, no 4-pins ATX12V, yet it have many extra features

Someone is supposed to get me another Athlon XP board, maybe it'll have the KT333 chipset on it.

you could try and get an XP-M2500+ or faster, clock the hell out of it on a KT333 mobo and slap that 5500 on it.
Or a little more expensive....try and get a 5500PCI. :)

to think i could have had a V5500 PCI for like 60$ on Ebay not so long ago.

But checking benchmarks, there is still a performance difference between the AGP and PCI version.

not if you run the 5500PCI in a 64bit pci slot, I have that and I will show you benchmarks later on.

I can run a 5500AGP and a PCI on there, so the rest would be completely the same.

And since the 5500 is not using certain agp features, it is more like running a PCI slot on 66Mhz anyways.

ultima is right, Voodoo5 is basically a PCI66 video adaptor.

Theoretically AGP and PCI cards have the same performances if the PCI version run into a PCI 66MHz capable slot. In practice you may notice still a little gap between the two because of the AGP optimizations over the PCI bus due to chipset software (drivers), chipset hardware and/or other factors.

It's a very little gap BTW (unless of a bad PCI implementation in the chipset, of course).

well finally the board i got yesterday is AGP 8x, so the key is at the wrong place...but i told the guy what i wanted exactly, so maybe he would find something i'm really looking for this time.