Hi peeps, I'm looking for a list of the best/fastest boards which have AGP slots and support for windows 98.
The two best I have found are similar, the "K8T master2-far" and the "DK8N"  These are both small server boards which support Two processors.  Both can support a max of two opteron 250's.  An equivalency of two fx-57's.  
 
Does anyone know of any better?

*blinks*
 
I don't get it. Can someone explain the punch line to me? thanks!
 

Well... I need  a PC which can support windows98, windows2000, windows xp and linux.  And it needs to be the fastest possible windows 98 supporting PC out there, and it MUST be able to support windows 98se (cannit stress that enough).  This will be a four or 5 boot system depending on which OS i need for sure.  But 98,2000 and XP are a must.  Does that clarify anything?

I have to ask, why are you interested in AGP and Windows 98? Somehow I feel like the joke's on me

Well, simple and difficult enough... Have you ever seen a computer that can play all the old games abd most new games?  My roomate has a k8t master2 FAR (dual opterons) that can play pretty much any game out there.  But I want to build one more powerful than his so it can be more compatible with todays games.  In order to play old games, you need a board that supports AGP and Windows 98 drivers.  And looking into the most powerful of those, they are usually servers.
 
So... I was asking around in case I was missing something.  Like perhaps a newer AM2 board or Newer intel Board with windows 98 support.  It seems like no one has ever seen a PC run windows 98 which is required for many old games.      

I'd rather have two systems and a KVM switch (to share KB, mouse, monitor and speakers).  One PCI-e Win XP gaming machine, and one older WIn 98 machine.  AGP limits your video card options and costs more too.  
 
I did this dual machine gaming setup for a while, but long since decided the Win 98se machine wasn't worth the deskspace anymore.  I just stopped using it; no time to play old favorites anymore.   One such game was Sports Car GT.  Loved it and it seemed Broken in XP with SP2.  Oh those were the days LAN racing with that game.

Better off checking out Craiglist's or garage sales for a 98 system. I've picked up 1Ghz Pentium 3's for $50 that the owner just didn't want anymore.

Hmm your situation is a rather strange one, I would agree with pauldh that the easiest and possibly most cost effective solution would be build 2 systems (one with new parts i.e. dual/quad core cpu, GF8 or HD 3K, and 2-4GB of DDR2 ram) and another with an old motherboard, old CPU, and a GF FX/6 series or Radeon 9K series (cards that still support Win 98 and can actually be found on the market).

However I'm going to pitch an idea here for you that MIGHT work very well if you'd like bringing you the best of both worlds.

Basically my idea would be running from the same box a computer with new hardware, but with dual graphics cards (not SLI) one old card for your Win98 boot (AGP slot) and one new one (PCIe) for your XP boot. Since your Win98 games won't require much horsepower you won't need to go out of the way on that card, here's what I propose.

Motherboard with an AGP 8x slot and a PCI-e 16x

ASRock 4CoreDual-SATA2 LGA 775 VIA PT880 Pro/PT880 Ultra ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813157115

Only card I could find on newegg that was under $50 and wasn't one of the 9250 or 6200 craps. Seems like the better deal for an AGP card under $50 if you ask me.

ZOGIS ZO68LE-DAGP GeForce 6800LE 256MB 128-bit GDDR2 AGP 4X/8X Video Card - Retail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814136022

 Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 Allendale 2.2GHz 2M shared L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - Retail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819115031

XFX PVT88SFDF4 GeForce 8800GS 384MB 192-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814150275

Kingston 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820134384

CORSAIR CMPSU-450VX ATX12V V2.2 450W Power Supply 90 - 264 V UL, CUL, CE, CB, FCC Class B, TUV, CCC, C-tick - Retail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817139003

Total cost: $495 before rebates.

I'm pretty dual core CPUs and modern motherboards should work just fine under Win98, I've done virtual PC emulations under Win98 SE and it worked just fine with my E6400, so I don't see any problems with my idea other than having to switch the monitor between cards depending on what you want to play (unless you get a KVM switch like paul says to switch between cards). Let me say that this is by FAR the weirdest build I've ever thought of for anyone, but it definitely suits your needs.

Have you looked into virtualization? Has anyone had any experience gaming on a virtual OS? I haven't but it is an intriguing possibility.
I would try ASRock motherboards as they make all of the transitional upgrade boards. I know they have AGP boards that support Phenom so it might be worth a shot. Also Intel has 98 drivers up to 965 chipsets.

Ok, cool, love these replies and suggestions.  But these are all things I've done... virtual machine, bulding old systems...Here's the prob... In order to play many of these old games properly, I built a mobo with a pentium III 950 mhz and a 5500 3dfx card.  That took care of a portion of the old games, but then again, the graphic card is unable to support any games above let's say the year 2000.  So I decided, hey, maybe my current 7800gt could take care of the rest, but no, was wrong, the games older than 4-5 yrs old would simply crash or not even run.  So then, I decided, well hey, i'll get a pentium IV with a radeon 9800.  Well, that worked.  So one day i decided to play old games like doom, duke nukem, need for speed, red baron, descent II.  But most of those really old games simply wouldn't play on either system because the cards didn't offer the proper direct x support.  Some games I got working here and there, but the original NFS wouldn't play on the 5500 3dfx, and the ones i got to work on virtual machine or dosbox would often crash or have crappy frame rates and graphics.  I still have three pc's here.  
 
But 6 months ago to my surprise, my firend's roommate showed me this wicked pc in an antec nine hundred gaming case... with 5 operating systems, capable of playing ANY game out there... All the old games worked perfectly on his LCD at high resolution, people were nuts about his machine. These old games looked like you never saw them before with their full directx supports and the AA/vsync both maxed out on his 6800 ultra.  
 
Whatever system I use, I have my OC's geforce 6800 ultra already which pretty much holds the key to all old games.  A lot of these old games need an old windows 9x system or simply won't work or graphic will just suck.  
 
See...like... EMP, good suggestion but this PC you built would play some decent games, but wouldn't play the ones that would need window 98. That's a part i cannot get around.
 
As for Jackalope... I'll look at reviews of those boards.  Especially the ASRock AGP phenom boards.  Can you also link some 965 boards that had win98 support?  can't find them.
 
But hey thanks a lot guys! Give me a reply if you can.
 
 
       
 

Actually the Asrock board JAckalope is speaking of is the 4CoreDual-SATA2 for AMD and i must say... not bad... on this one the Ram support is much much higher than that of the intel and... it has a full PCI express slot.  
 
The only prob is that this is a board made for people who don't want to give up their old AGP cards for cost reasons, don't think it would be made great for playing old games...but then again... maybe.  Gotta find someone who owns this board.  

Most Intel system boards I believe do as Intel lists the drivers on their web site. I have a 9800pro and X800xt AGP and the 9800pro I have been able to get to play every old game I have thrown at it. Now some driver updates have made others not work or bug out on me. So I would use the release drivers for the card to start. The X800Xt is a different story. I am not sure if it is the 256mb of vram or what but many old games bug out or are just a pain to get up and running. I have allot of systems and will at least hold onto my museum for a little longer as no modern solution seams to meet all my needs. I can personally attest to ASRock boards utility. I have had one crunching in my SETI farm for seven years without a hitch. Best cheapo brand around.

Have a read 4CoreDual-SATA2 is listed.
http://www.msfn.org/board/Modern-m [...] e=threaded

  ALiveDual-eSATA2 has both a agp 8x and pci express16 slot and is Phenom ready. The chipset drivers for 98 and me should be on Nvidia's web site as they aquired ULI.
http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview. [...] ATA2&s=AM2

Unbelievable...  And here I was about to spend 450$ on 4 gigs ECC registered memory, 40$ for pci USB2.0 drive, 150 + shipping for a dual 250 opteron setup and god knows how much more for a motherboard,  Holy crap.    
 
If windows 98 DOES work on one of these, I'll be killing four birds with one stone.  I'll end up spending less, instead of bulding a seperate PC and need two towers, I'll be getting better performance AND upgrade my main computer.  Wicked, now i'll read up and see how all this usually turns out.  

 
ROFLMAO!
 
For proper dos/win9x games to work you need like a soundblaster 16 with the proper address settings (220/5/1/5) etc (midi's, irq's, dma's) or better still GOOGLE A PROGRAM CALLED DOS BOX
 
forget the old os's, not worth the hassle, get an old P2 system off ebay with a 440BX chipset, SB16 ISA card and 3Dfx video card - that will run everything old.

SUPERCHARGE :
 
You do not get to be really complicated just to be able to use Windows 98 on a modern computer......
 
You just need two things, DOSBox and Microsoft Virtual PC. DosBox emulates DOS while Virtual PC will allow you to virtualize hardware making it possible to load Windows 98 on a mobo that doesn't support Win98.

 
I did dual boot Windows ME (yes, I know, but I couldn't find my W95 CD to use to validate Windows 98), and XP. Now, I have Vista and I can still actually play the Might and Magic games (as well as HOMM) with no issues. I use Dosbox to play Daggerfall and Arena when I want an old TES fix. Eventually, I predict fans will code a Win9x emulator once Windows drops all 32 bit support in a future version.
 
 

Just out of curiosity: Which old games are you interested in playing?

As Jackopole said, newer drivers often break older games.  Look at MOHAA and expansions, and both ATI and NVdia broke them for a while.  The guy with the 5 OS's also took the time to find the drivers needed to play all the games he wanted to and probably made some compromises grabbing best stable drivers not neccesarily best optimized.  That should do it for older Windows games.  Others already mentioned how they play the even older games.