I spotted this ad on austin.craigslist:
Great Starting Point – Motherboard, CPU and RAM – $20
This starts with a rock solid Asus P2B AGP Motherboard as the foundation. The CPU is an Intel PII-450 and to round it all out is three sticks of 128MB memory for a total of 384MB memory.
This motherboard has the Intel 440BX chipset and on-board USB, parallel port, 2 serial ports, and PS2 mouse and keyboard ports.
The general consensus on the VOGONS forum seems to be that a motherboard based on the Intel 440BX chipset is the best overall choice for Retro Gaming PCs. On top of that, it’s an Asus board, and I’ve had a good experiences with them over the years. It has 1 AGP slot, 4 PCI slots, and 3 ISA slots. Those ISA slots are important because some “retro gamers” use multiple sound cards, sometimes requiring 3 slots, i.e. if you want to use a Roland SCC-1.
The Dell machine I’m running now, for this project, is based on the Intel 440LX chipset, and has 128 MB RAM and a PII-300. Granted, I probably won’t actually run 384 MB, extra sticks are always welcome. I’m curious if these RAM modules are 100 or 133 MHz. Regarding the CPU, 450 MHz may be too much for older games, but I’ll leave it in there to start off, with the option of putting the 300 MHz in its place if needed.
Hmm, what case to use? Maybe the Pionex case that Jim so graciously gave me.
I think $20 is a good deal. Let’s hope it goes through! I’m meeting the seller this evening at Chili’s for the exchange.
