1.4GHz Intel Pentium III Socket 370 Build - The Ultimate Pentium III

One of my first builds getting back into retro computer in 2019 was a Slot 1 Pentium III. I wanted to do a Socket 370 Pentium III build for a long time and I now finally have that done. It was a long wait as I ordered a Socket 370 motherboard from a seller on eBay from the Soviet Union. I have bought several items from him and he always sells top quality stuff, so I don't mind the extra wait. The problem this time was that the shipment got held up in Poland for an extra month and a half, so when it finally arrived, I was relieved. There were 3 major versions of the Pentium III over it's lifetime, Katmai, Coppermine(T) and Tualatin. The 1.4GHz Tualatin is the one a lot of retro enthusiast go far as it is the fastest and last Pentium III. There is one caveat on doing one these builds. The Tualatin needs an updated chipset to work properly. The one I have is an Intel i815e revision B. I made sure of this when I got the motherboard. 

I did something a bit different with this build. I wanted both Windows 98 SE and Windows 2000 as Operating Systems. I put aside 2x32GB Compact Flash cards for this. Windows 98 SE did pose one problem. I wanted to have Sound Blaster DOS compatibility. The built in AC97 audio on the motherboard did have this, but it only worked under Windows 98 SE and it was not very good. I instead went with a Sound Blaster PCI 128 audio card. This card is known to have good Sound Blaster  DOS compatibility and it works much better in Windows 98 SE too. Setting up Windows 2000 was pretty straight forward. I have a special Windows 2000 ISO that has all the updates rolled into it. No need to install the base OS and then the updates. This makes life much easier.

How does Windows 98 SE stack up to Windows 2000? Interestingly, Windows 98 SE is faster in 3D gaming and benchmarks than Windows 2000. This would be remedied when Windows XP came out. It benches better than Window 98 SE. So why did I not just go with Windows XP instead? The answer is Windows 2000 is an over better choice for a Pentium III build as it requires less resources and speed difference in 3D is only about 10% at the most. On top of that I already have 2 XP builds with an Athlon XP 3200+ and Pentium 4 3.4GHz systems. Lastly, my Slot 1 Pentium III is also running Windows 2000, so I already knew what to expect.

This build really turned out great and I could not be happier with it. Here are the specs and a few pictures:

Abit SL30T Socket 370 mATX motherboard

Intel PIII 1.4GHz CPU

512MB (2x256MB) CL2 PC133 SDRAM

Geforce 4 Ti 4200 128MB AGP video card

Sound Blaster PCI 128 sound card

3Com 3C905C-TX 10/100 network card

1.44MB 3.5” floppy drive

32X IDE CDROM drive

mATX case with 300W PSU









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