Pentium MMX 166 is one of the Best Retro Processors
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- čas přidán 6. 07. 2023
- The Intel Pentium MMX 166 is fantastic for building a DOS Retro Gaming PC. It has special registers that Gerwin's SETMUL utility can use to slow it down in fine steps. This means you can play demanding 3D games as well as many of the speed sensitive games such as Wing Commander, Test Drive III and others.
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My very first CPU, so many good memories. What's interesting, paired with 64MB of Ram and Voodoo 2 did good enough till late 2001.
Near same for me. I upgraded to a 233mmx and Matrox/Voodoo2 cards, AWE32, 64mb ram, SCSIii HDDs, and it lasted me a LONG time.
Was my first as well! I OCd it .. and it got damaged
@@HoldandModify Out of curiosity: Could you tell performance gain from switching from 166MMX to 233MMX?
@@TurboMMaster in my 3D rendering yes. Also some games got a small bump
i had a pentium 200 mmx BUT with 4mb of ram, i suffered a lot because few games worked properly thanks of my parents not wanting to put more money in ram 😒😒😒
My first computer had a Pentium 75. I wanted a Pentium with MMX so bad. But by the time I saved up enough, the Pentium II was out. Things moved so crazy fast back then. I remember getting a Pentium II 266 and then later that year my friend got a Pentium II 350 on the 100MHz bus and I was jealous, haha. Then the Pentium III 500 was the new hotness about a year later along with AMD coming out of nowhere with Athlon. It was so exciting back then watching technology take such huge leaps. Such a great time to be getting into computers and so many fond memories of that era's hardware. I will forever be sad 3Dfx didn't make it.
My sentiments exactly! I lusted so much for an mmx pentium. I had a cyrix 166 and I always felt like a peasant in the company of my pentium owning friends as a kid. I got the very first 3dfx card (orchid righteous 3D) and was amazed at open gl games like quake! Great time for PC’s and it’s what led me onto a long career in the industry.
Played Lucasarts adventure games, the first Command & Conquer, Need for speed 2/3 and even UT99 once overclocked to 262 with a Voodoo banshee. Tons of memories on this system
Same combo here! :)
Wow, that's an impressive overclock! I think I just about managed the 200mhz on mine back in the day. Had the Voodoo 1 and then Banshee in mine too. I got the Voodoo just to play Final Fantasy 7 lol
honestly i was stuck with a pentium 120mhz for so many years and the number of “minimum specifications” that started at 166mhz was such that i absolutely lusted after this cpu!
Same but with 100.
Same here. I had the 120Mhz with 32 megs of RAM and an S3 Trio with 2Mb of video memory. Barely ran anything :)
February 1997. Paired with the S3 Trio 64 V+. The following year I added a PowerVR Apocalypse 3dx (4MB VRAM) which made it last a bit longer, until 1999, when I got a Pentium III 500 and a Savage 4 with 32MB VRAM. I always went for the low to mid range stuff but it was more than enough for that time. Windows 95 CD - Edie Brickell - Good Times.
imagine pairing it with an rtx 4060🤣
I had one of these but it was the 200 mhz version. It ran Windows 2000 much better than I anticipated. I always loved the look of them.
While I didnt have a computer at home until well into the Pentium 3 and AMD Athlon era, the Pentium mmx was kind of the first era of hardware where everything is the age actually ran smooth and looked really good, even on much faster CRT's than the monitors of the current age. I want to say this era of performance was the first glimpse at emulating consoles I cared about.
This was the first CPU I bought entirely on my own as a teenager. I paired it with 32MB of memory (now 32GB is common, just wow) and a Voodoo 6MB card. It was also my first Windows 95 machine. It was fantastic.
I skipped the MMX, had a Pentium 133 and straight to Pentium II.
@@philscomputerlab I had a Compaq laptop with a P133 MMX. Though it was somewhat useless since it just had an S3 Verge for video. Couldn't play SimCity3000 even though it it technically met the requirements.
32 гб вау, а кроме цифры красивой, толку чуть, а интереса ноль.
even in the video, he said that the ram had 32 gigabytes of memory. :D
where did you want to go that day?🤭🤓
P200 MMX was when my circle of friends and I built our own machines. I remember that era well. I was able to run Quake II, Unreal 1 and Dark Forces 2 on that machine.
I'm surprised about Unreal! Dark Forces is perfect for this machine though.
@@philscomputerlabBuddy of mine when I saw Unreal 1 for the first time he had the AMD K6-233MHZ CPU and a voodoo card and it ran great. Not surprised he could run it on a Pentium 200 Mhz MMX. If his card had an accelerator card like the Voodoo it likely did most of the work. Also you can still purchase those startech heat sinks I just recently about 3 months ago bought three of them.
@@philscomputerlabi like the challenge of making games run on the slowest possible hardware while still being playable. You should try it as well 😉 unreal is more gpu limited than than cpu limited on a k6-2. My next build will be 233MMX voodoo 2. I found the old asus mainboard my parents bought with a p166 in 1996. It can fsb 83mhz but I need to desolder the Dallas
unreal ran really bad on a pentium mmx 233. i finished the game in mine but it was honestly painful. pretty sure fps dropped into the teens all the time. it felt horrible. there was a boss fight that i struggled because performance was just unbearable.
My Cousin had one in 1996, we played a ton of Games on it: Command & Conguer 1&2, Duke 3D, Outlaws, Jedi Knight, Quake 2, Kingpin, Unreal, Fighting Force, Subculture, Tomb Raider 1&2, Fallout 1&2, Jagged Alliance 2 and much more, all on 64 MB and an Matrox Mystique; great Times :)
P166MMX was a great chip in its day too, they sold a lot of those!
Combined with a 3DFX card it made a PC that was competitive in gaming for a couple of years which was pretty long back then :)
My FIRST Windows PC ever! Came from a Commodore Amiga. Built a 166mhz system. Then not too long later upgraded to 166mhz MMX Then finally 233mhz MMX! 233 was REALLY NICE.
Like! My first ever PC back in early 1998 had a P166 MMX. With it I played for the first time Quake 2, Unreal and other great games of that period (in 320x240 of course). I always dreamed of upgrading it with a Voodoo Banshee but unfortunately when I had the money to do so I also changed the CPU to a faster k6-2 400 and never got to see my P166 MMX running with hardware acceleration.
Ahhhhh Pentium 1 MMX love 🤩🤩
suck up💀
Back in the day I went from a 486 DX2 66 to the Pentium MMX 166. The difference was HUGE! All of a sudden I could play this new crop of 3d games that were way too slow for my old 486. And some of the games I already had (like Fifa 96, Screamer, Hi-Octane, Mechwarrior 2, and others) were running much better. Around the same time, some PS1 games were made available on PC and I remember being super hyped about stuff like Tomb Raider, Wipeout, and Destruction Derby. Those are all great titles, but my big game for this system was the first Fallout. Such great memories of that old computer and lots of love for the Fallout franchise too!
I remember FIFA96 had two different commentary sound sets, a normal quality one and a totally different set of commentaries as well as being higher quality. I could never figure out what or how it would activate the higher quality and different commentary. I would fiddle with sound blaster settings but seemed to just have a mind of its own picking which to use.
K6 166@225mhz was way better
I changed from 486DX4 100 to P166MMX. But the real huge difference came when i pair it with a Voodoo Rush then a Voodoo2. After that i upgraded to AMD K6-2 350 and used at 400. With 3Dnow! (and MMX also) the V2 its rocks. To compare a Pentium II 400 i remember i had more fps in some games with half price. My neighbor went nuts :)
@@negrusz same here I changed from 486 DX4 100 to P166 MMX , funny thing is i tried to get a olivetti 486 dx4 100 from radio rentals, but they sent one with less ram and a 486 SX 25 in it ! i was quite annoyed ,mostly as i had a 386DX-33 already . i told them i was not paying for it and to pick it up and i wanted my deposit back , while waiting surprisingly radio rentals went bankrupt , so i kept it and got the 486 dx 100 for it in the end
There is no 485 CPus
All agreed, one of the reasons my primary dos machine has exactly a p166 mmx. It's been so utterly flexible with setmul. Still having enough horsepower to run late dos games. A Voodoo card rounds it all out for a great Win95 gaming time too. Great video!
I started with a Pentium 200MMX back in the day when these where almost new. It was a beast back then 😂. Thank you for these Videos, I really enjoy watching them!
Glad you enjoyed!
What a coincidence, I was afraid I had broken my MMX 166 when the voltage regulator exploded, but after some soldering it is perfectly fine. You might want to give Lands of Lore 2 or 3 a try, those games play well enough on this CPU with a Voodoo 3 PCI. Thanks for the video ! 👍
Pentium 133 mmx was our first real family PC. We upgraded it from 16mb to 48mb of RAM and Windows 98. It never had "3d accelerated graphics" but it was the first PC I played Quake on and I am still playing Quake games to this day. I remember buying Quake 2 and only being able to run it at 513x384 software mode but it still instantly became my favourite game. I spent a ton of time with the original Roller Coaster Tycoon, as well. And lots of demo discs from PC Gamer and whatnot.
Whiplash...how did I forget that game...I played it almost as much as quake. That one racing game with loops and stuff.
Так же у друга начинали q1 и q2 на p90 и p133 соответственно, q1 ~320x200 может чуть выше, и q2 в маленьком окошке. До сих пор эти две игры вижу только в виде opengl/glide, и воспринимаю как излишество, только quake3 должен быть ускорен аппаратно. Имхо.
i had some Toshiba with a MMX 133, sadly the varta nimh inside of it leaked and killed it
Never had the chance to live this PC era (started with a socket 754 athlon xp with win98), and I recently restored a baby AT with a 166 mmx, 32mb edo ram, cirrus logic video, avance logic als100 sound, and win95. Without you I could have not been capable of this operation, thank you so much for all your support!
I totally agree. The 166MHz Intel Pentium MMX is balanced in many respects. It has great processing power for late DOS era games and most early 3D Games using DirectDraw (software rendering) or the 3dfx Glide API/OpenGL. It is an inexpensive CPU and not that much sought after, compared with a 200MHz offer while it has the same powerful 66MHz bus and cache size. I think that the generous L2 Cache and the 66MHz bus are the major causes for its performance compared with the older Pentium architecture. Later in the production cycle, the higher clocked Pentium MMX processors did not have much improved performance as the architecture shown its limitations.
Before the 166Mhz Pentium MMX you would have CPUs that had bus sizes all over the place, ending up with a poor performer such as a Pentium 120Mhz (2x60Mhz bus) and a sudden boost on the Pentium 133MHz (2x66MHz bus) out of nowhere. Of course, the CPU was not to blame, it was due to Socket 7 motherboards that only late in the product manufacturing cycle ended up with a lot more CPU frequency multipliers and bus speed. Of course Cyrix was also part of the reason for this surge in interest in the aging Socket 7 platform, as were the popular AMD K6 and K6/2 processors.
In the end, the 166MHz Pentium MMX was and still is a great performer while being not that demanding on cooling and highly stable. You may wonder why I did not mention the MMX extension as a major benefit. First of all, there were few games/apps that initially used it, and when there were more, a Pentium MMX processor, even at 200MHz, was not enough for them. The MMX extensions were actually called Matrix Mathematics Extensions not Multi-Media Extensions, but since they were used in multimedia apps, games being highly popular, it was an example of successful marketing of Intel.
Slow and steady wins the race!
@7:25 - I believe that's a 32 MEGAbyte, not 32 GIGAbyte SDRAM module.
Really nice looking game, Epic. Never heard of it before.
Perfect timing for me to watch in my lunch break, thanks Phil!
I like old processor benchmarks
The mobile Pentium 133 MMX is very difficult to obtain, but I am glad you included it in the spreadsheet
I jumped over the Pentium era completely. I started with a used 386 with a 486 overdrive chip, moved up to a later 486 board with a Cyrix "586" or something, then leaped over into an AMD K6-2. I then developed an appreciation for the stability and compatibility of the Pentium II with the 440BX chipset, and that's my preferential target for a retro PC when I finally get the space, time to dig through half-functioning parts, and finances to finish it.
My first CPU from back in the day. What an incredible boost when I upgraded to PII 400 :)
My first real PC back in the day was a P1/166. I approve. A very hearty chip for what it is.
My first PC had a Pentium Pro 200 MMX in 1997
you monster!!!🫵
Due to your multiple recommendations of this processor I, of course, have it (233mhz version). The 233Mhz one is the model to get I think, as the multiplier is unlocked. So you can set it to be any of the lower models
Pentium MMX 166 was my first PC class computer, so i have great nostalgia :)
Wow yes my first new PC had this with 16MB RAM - upgraded to 233MMX and 32MB RAM very soon after. Awesome days.
i remember getting 10-15 pcs for free with p1 166's from my school around the year 2002 as they were upgrading to new ones with p4s, took all of them home and built myself a 3 hard drive'd pc with as much ram as could cram in it (probs 512mb or 256? dont remember lol). Built probs 6-7 as good as i could get em' with the parts i had and sold them off for round 20$CAD a piece, ah the good ol days
Great video Phil, I am in the middle of working on a 166mmx digital research desktop I found with monitor at a thrift shop for $25 CDN a few months ago. While I have 486 project on the go as well as a 200mmx dell tower I am trying to make similar to my old pc I had back in the day, the Pentium 166mhz MMX was something I wanted to try and run DOS on. Helpful video !
Check for battery and replace it! Even coin batteries can leak...
@@philscomputerlab swapped it out last night, installed dos on a compact flash card so far :)
Ah this is music to my ears, I have access to a Pentium MMX 166, so knowing now there's a utility that can help hit the sweet spot for certain DOS games is exactly what I needed to hear to get it out of storage!
Awesome 😊
Our first family computer was the MMX 200 with windows 95! I was just blown away. It came with a cd rom and a generic sound card. Also came with an encyclopedia and a demo of a few games, including Pandemonium. It was great at running anything that was a few years older and non demanding current gen games. Tho by that time there was already pentium 2 at 266mhz.
i really appreciate this channel thank you for making this stuff for us.
My first system was a 233mmx, 32megs of ram and a Awe64 bundle with Wihpslah, capitan claw, moto racer, actua soccer, time commando and twinsen odyssey! Amazing Days! This pc come with pc chips vx-pro II (via chipset) so i was able to put an k6-2 in 83mhz bus and dimm memory, so many good memories😊
Still have my First PC Gateway P5 133 so many good times...Thanks for the Info and the Video
This takes me back, I can still remember the moment that the guy who ran our local netcafe got his 166 MMX, and we were all very jealous! I ended up with a cyrix PR200, and my mum had a p133.
I had a Pentium MMX 166 running at 200 MHz. It was a great machine but only for quite a short time due to the mentioned incredibly fast development around the year 2000.
The MMX 166 had replaced my IBM 6x86 P166+ but was much faster in many games due to the faster floating point unit. And it generally ran with much less issues and crashes, but that might have been due to the improving operating systems as well.
After the MMX I tried an AMD K6-300, but I never was as happy with that system, I think the main issue has been the VIA chipset. That's why it always hurts my stomach when you're dealing with VIA chipsets in your videos - bad memories of crashes to desktop and blue screens come back into my mind ;-)
Then I went back to intel (Celeron 300A @450MHz, ran games like a dream, but again not for that long...), but that's another story ;-)
My friend had 166 MMX on his old PC someone from his family gifted him. We were programming simple things on it under Windows. We even played Half-Life 1 in software on it!
My first PC ~1997 is a Sony VAIO with this CPU. I am very happy with it and spent countless hours playing the 1st Diablo game. Those were the days.
I had that cpu in a socket 7 system back in 1998 before updating to a super fast amd k6 2 300, it was ok paired with a voodoo 1 but with the k6 2 everything was butter smooth
i still have my celeron300 unlocked by using some tape in one pin and overclocked @450 .. first king of overclocking i think
I went all the way for the 233MHz in my recent MMX build. They're cheap enough (at least in the US) and since you can lower the multiplier anyway, figured it'd be nice to have some headroom for more Windows games.
Good thinking
I literally just got an entire Fujitsu PC with that exact CPU from an old lady. Unfortunately, i am not skilled enough to recap the motherboard/PSU and my knowledge doesn’t go earlier than maybe 2004, so i gave it to a friend of mine who can renovate it and have it for his collection of retro PC
Please share him the video, hope it helps him make an awesome DOS PC 🙂
Interesting to see this video. I have a stack of them for just this reason. Perfect DOS machines!
I always regret not waiting 1 more year and got Pentium 100. MMX was the first CPU that could play mpg2 video without skipping. It was a very big deal back in the day.
Another awesome video. Looking forward to see more retro parts.
You and me both!
Another legendary video from legendary Phil. Looks like I've been wise to put away a handful or two of 166mmx machines these last few years
Thanks Phil
I love what you serve 2d/3d transition period is always a cherry on cake
I currently own a Pentium MMX 233mhz with 64MB SDR. It is a very capable processor to run windows games like Interstate 76, monster truck madness 1 & 2 and quakeGL with my voodoo 2 12MB. It also runs mechwarrior 2 glide without problems as other early win9x games like tomb raider 2 & 3. My primary card is a SST-2064/5 S3 Trio 64V+ 2MB (upgraded from 1mb).
For these above games the 166mhz probably falls a bit short on quakeGL indeed. But back in the day everything from 30fps and higher was considered excellent. Duke3d at 25fps was a great experience. The 60fps minimum idea was really a thing that came to life with the internet era from 2005 on. Msdos time was mostly about people being happy about the game starting at all.
All with all a nice video you have made there, but only one thing I disagree on is the 60fps requirement. I certainly will try out the speed limiter for msdos.
I love old 3-D! When it's good it's good (Stunt Car Racer) and when it's bad it's bad! (Wings, even though I love it).
My Pentium build is probably my favorite one currently. It works well with DOS games, it runs Windows games and with a Voodoo 1 I can play all my favorite early 3D games. A Trio64V 2 MB or better a 4 MB ViRGE and you also have great video (the regular Trio64 unfortunately missess the video features) and hi color graphics in high resolution (high as in matching my 17” monitor). And ISA slots for sound on top of that.
I have an HP Vectra XA/5 133, and whilst I was inside the unit removing the BIOS password I set it to run at 166MHz and it runs absolutely perfectly. It’s even got 80MB RAM now which is plenty! Runs windows 95/98 nicely and does DOS really well. It even came with a Sound Blaster 16 PnP ^^
I remember playing tomb raider on my friends PC with a 100mhz cpu, and that ran nicely in dos 🙂
Finally had a chance to try this. I set a Pentium MMX 233 as 133MHz (2x66Mhz), got 12.1 on the slowest set (all caches off on BIOS as well). That's between a 386-25 and a 386-33. Wing Commander 1 runs nicely on this speed. I knew Setmul, you just made your point on the convenience and easiness of use with the 136in1 package. Really nice trick to have around for those really old games. My PC history started with a 486DX33 and I did play Wing Commander on it, never knew it was faster than intended. As things were moving fast during those years ( I would sell my current machine and build a new one once-twice a year), I never really went back and replayed such games. As I heard once back at school, there is things correctly or poorly designed. We have software from that time that is not speed sensitive - and some that are. Today we can tell who did right vs wrong. Thanks Phil / cheers from Brazil
Awesome 👍😎
I remember on my super socket 7 board PC, that I still do own, there was a program that opened up all of your BIOS settings that the manufacturer of the board kept turned off and hidden from view. It did make a pretty big performance boost to your PC depending on which settings you used. I remembering seeing it open up my BIOS settings for the first time that I never knew were even there and I couldn't believe how many were actually hidden by the manufacturer! It was super fun to play around with. I know that I have it saved somewhere but for the life of me I just cannot remember where. I actually can't find it on the machine itself anymore! I remember that it was mostly free to use, but if you donated some cash to the creator he would open up even more features for you! I did use that machine quite a lot back in the day. Now I am feeling nostalgic for it and maybe I will try to get it set up again soon! It does have a AMD K6-2 500mHz CPU and an AGP slot with what I think has an ATI 9200SE in it. Not the best GPU at the time, but it was all that I could afford and does run games decently. I did manage to "squeeze out" just barely playing Morrowind at the time. Good times back then! 👍👍
I use a 9200 Radeon a lot! It works great with many 98 games, especially at lower resolutions.
@@philscomputerlab Yup! Now if I remember correctly, I think I used Win 98 in that PC too! Got to check it out again soon.....when I find it.....🤔😂
EPIC seems like of one of those "Amiga tech demo made into a game" games that were big in the first half of the 90s but always fell short on gameplay.
Never lucky enough to have the almighty Pentium 166 MMX back in the day, but we did have a Cyrix PR133+ 😅
I remember my Compaq Armada 1585DMT lappy with its P150 MMX!
I love the Pentium 166 MMX. Wrote my diploma thesis about it. The long latency of the EMMS (Empty MMX State) instruction pretty much killed the benefits of the new instructions but the larger L1 caches gave a small speed uplift over the non-MMX variants.
Great video as always. I had one of those sitting in my attic for years. Sadly i have a board with no ps2 outs. Managed to get a ps2 to at adapter but need to find a ps2 to 4 pin for the mouse. would be easier to just get a newer mobo i guess lol. Had a feeling these old parts will one day come in handy around 15 years ago. Also had a voodoo 3 3500 just laying there haha. Looking forward for the next video.
100 percent agree 👍
The 166mhz CPU pared with 16mbs of ram for Tiberian Sun worked great! So many happy memories...All the new technology crap just not feeling it, like it was back in the dos days.
It is a perfect DOS machine, and even pretty good for early 3d games.
I had a prebuilt P 133mhz from Quantex. I bought an MMX 200 and swapped the chips. That board would run it only at 166. I ended up wasting more money and bought an Asus p55t2p4 board I think it was which ran the chip at its rated 200mhz. That was the first time I had ever swapped out a main board. That was in 1997 about the time that Tomb Raider 2 came out, and I enjoyed the game with a Matrox Mystique video card.
🎵It's all about the Pentium!!...🎵
😂
Awesome cpu. One of my first high end cpu at the time. Had it paired with ati gpu . Noiceeeee
I've a pair of P233MMX boards, both ASUS TX97s (one with just SDRAM, the other with both 72-pin and SDRAM). I bought them off a guy who collected a bunch of scrap machines from some local schools for $20 and a case of beer two years ago (along with some other nice stuff, like a couple 462s and Slot 1s). They're nice boards, and pretty solid, both in excellent condition for their age. Only have one of them set up at the moment, also using a Gotek, but with a CF card instead of SSD. They have on-board Creative Vibra sound, which seems to provide decent SB16 compatibility, but I picked up an ESS1869F to go in it instead.
I ran a P233MMX with an AWE64 Gold from 1997 to 2001, first with a crap ATI card, then with a PCI Voodoo3 2000, so the P233MMX has a special place for me.
Anyway, thanks for the video Phil. Love your content as always.
Thanks!
Man, I have 4 of these! And two of that very same motherboard!
Very nice, how did you manage to collect 4 boards??
@@philscomputerlab I work in a bank, and there was a lot of "trash" they were getting rid of. I asked if I could take some, so I filled the trunk of my car with some CRT monitors, some old pcs, and old peripherals. All pre 2000s
@@philscomputerlab and it was actually only two boards. Some others were damaged beyond repair, but I still saved the memory sticks and processors.
love it!
Happy Friday Phil!
Thank you 🙂
Also my first CPU. It could be wonderfully overclocked: my original motherboard could push the base frequency to 83 Mhz, making it run at 209 MHz (83 MHz * 2, 5). Later I mounted it in a Super Socket 7 motherboard, and it was able to run at 250Mhz (100 MHz * 2, 5) without any problem . When I upgraded to a K6-2 400 I was disappointed: it was a bit faster, but less than I had hoped for. Looking back on it later, I should have waited and buy a K6-3 450...
I got this badboy clocked at 188 Mhz back in the days paired with a Voodoo Rush.
I still have fond memories of my intel pentium 166Mhz with MMX.
Interesting video and interesting mobo, I have to look for it.
I had a 200mHz MMX back in the day running OS/2 Warp 3.
The first computer I ever bought for myself had this exact processor. I eventually did put a Voodoo graphics card in it.
I had a Pentium Pro. Just played Stars! mostly and connected to the interweb. It wasn't much back then. A Google search may give you a few hits. Got a Pentium 3 computer later on. Another 2,000 dollars.
This is a childhood CPU for me because it was the CPU in my grandparents' PC from 1997 to 2002. In a horizontal desktop with 16MB of RAM, 2GB hard drive, 3.5" floppy drive, 16x BTC CD-ROM drive, S3 Trio64 with 2MB of VRAM, an "Avance Sound Chip" sound card, a 56K modem and Windows 95.
While my Mum and I's PC from 1998 to 2002 was a mini tower with a 333MHz Pentium II, 64MB of RAM, 4GB hard drive, 3.5" floppy drive, 36x Creative CD-ROM drive, ATI 3DRage w/ 8MB of VRAM, an "Avance Sound Chip" sound card, a 56K modem and Windows 98.
Both PCs were whitebox systems by Swift Computers in the West Midlands region of England.
My parents first PC, was a Dell MX 166 with 1.92GB HDD, Win 95, like 32MB PC100 RAM. I think a Riva TBT 4MB PCI GPU. Won't forget the memories.
YEAAHHH! Now we're talking!
I would recommend installing Windows 95 as a familiar interface for younger enthusiasts. It runs it well and you can still play many dos games through windows or boot in pure dos if needed.
I was struggling coming up with Windows games for this one. I remember Broken Sword 2 and Blade Runner being suitable?
Pentium MMX 166 was my first PC I actually owned, had windows 98 SE on it, and I played so many classic games on it.
I agree, 166MMX is great CPU for early 95 and late DOS era. I have Tulip desktop which I specifically built for this era. I have Orpheus 2 for sound, Voodoo 1 for that 3D accelerated goodness and ATi Mach64 Pro Turbo (onboard AT24 had compatibility issues, so decided to go with this card). I upgraded the RAM to 64MB, it has a TX chipset which means that it is practically the maximum, but of course completely overkill already. It has built in USB and AMD PCNet adapter, so the three expansion slots available were enough for my needs. Case has a nice small footprint, it is clean and in beautiful condition.
For OS, I went with 98lite Micro with 98SE as a base OS. I think it is simply the best option for Pentiums ans slow PIIs, as it gives all the benefits of 98SE pretty much with 95 performance. I built a start-up menu with different DOS options and booting to Win, installed 4DOS and other of typical stuff I use with my other DOS systems too.
Well done, I like that machine a lot!
These are great CPUs for gaming on. I was sold on it after seeing your older video, and was lucky to find one rather cheaply (a few years ago).
For even older games I use a AMD 386 Sx40. That's still too fast for my favorite XT and 286 era games but I can use AT-slow to reduce the PC speed to the correct speed to play things like Death Track, Spacewars and Sopwith. And it's period correct since it was available back when these games were being re-released on CD for 386 and 486 computers.
I had a rig based on a 166 MMX and a QDI mobo but I forgot all about it because it was overshadowed by my next machine (Dual 366 Celerons on an Abit PB6 (Windows NT/3d Studio use) overclocked to 550 MHz with checkmate aluminum heat-sinkers/fans . What a machine was that.!!!!!
Back in the day I had a Pentium 200 without MMX and ran Windows 98SE on it. It started with 32MB of RAM which I maxed out at 96 over time. Was a good gaming/work PC for several years.
This is why I love my Omnibook 800ct which has this P4 166 and in a small form factor I can keep it next to my modern pc without a bulky CRT
what surprised me is how similar the gigabyte board looks to my asus p2b (where i had a p200 mmx running on) i
i first thought, yup i had that board too :)
Combine that setup with a voodoo 1 card to really maximise what you can enjoy with quake etc. Helps to stretch the last bits of performance from the 166 mmx.
Сегодня просто так пробежал уровня 4 на voodoo3.
My first computer was a Pentium MMX 200 with 32MB of RAM. I did lots of stuff; I've played many emulators and was capable of playing many games - and use Windows 98. I have good memories. I think that most of the motherboards from this time are busted in some way or are hard to find, so I found a sweet spot on the Pentium III. I was able to finally get a Tualatin CPU recently and I am very happy. I never was into very old DOS games and to me, games like space quest or wing commander don't matter. I do agree that the Pentium MMX can be an excellent entry platform for someone that is into early DOS games. Thanks for the video Phil!
Hello Phil, I can't believe the time I "lost" searching for the perfect parts to recreate the 386DX I had and a 486 DX 2 66 with VLB that I always wanted but slipped between my fingers and a Pentium MMX (that I already had) was everything I needed.
BTW Phil are your test benches available somewhere with an affiliate link, when the GPU mining craze I tried to get one but the prizes went full into insane mode.
Thanks for all your videos I'm really enjoying your new style, combining hardware setup with a mini game review by the yone of your voice you seems to be enjoying it too.
Awesome 😎 High Speed PC is the company. It cost me a lot for the shipping but they have stood the test of time. I tried a few other ones with acrylic and metal rods, they are just too fiddly and cumbersome. This one is super easy and perfect for what I do.
A lot of good points in this video! Love this kind of reviews. I still think this alternative offers way more fine tuning options for DOS than I would ever need in practice. A super socket 7 with a K6 plus version is often more than good enough and can do a bit more Windows9x stuff if you want it too. And I think you can put a Pentium MMX in the same motherboard in case you want try them. But I understand those boards are not that easy to find compared to a normal socket 7 mobo...
I still remember how happy I was, when I finally found a Pentium 200, without MMX. Most of the production went to OEM's, from what I read in various places, so if you wanted one, you had to wait for someone to upgrade. You just could not get them, any other way. At one point, the Chinese recyclers were listing tons of them. They must have received a big shipment of used pc's around that time. The supply has tapered off a lot since then.
A couple of weeks ago I got my hands on a Pentium 233 MMX. I plan to use it in an Acorp 5TX29 board, with a Tseng ET6000 videocard. Can't wait to put it together.
Very nice!
I had this e xact boiard with my K6-III+ many years ago. The Vcore can be reduced all the way to 1.3V using those DIP switches - I had a K6-III+ at 3x133 and it ran stable without even a heatsink ;)