Typical PCs Each Year
1999, the year we all went nuts over the Millennium Bug that could [or possibly not?] have caused major disruption to banks and computer systems around the globe. This was also the year Napster launched, Putin took over as Russian President from Yeltsin, and many of us witnessed a solar eclipse.
In the cinemas the new Star Wars trilogy began with The Phantom Menace, we got Toy Story 2 and Notting Hill, plus The Matrix. On the music scene we were introduced to Britney Spears with her debut single, "Baby One More Time", and Ricky Martin had us "Livin' La Vida Loca".
Of course we're now way past the hey day of DOS, but I decided to extend my exploration up to 2001 as many of the same companies were still dominant [and still are today] as the transition to Windows was complete.
CPUs
In early 1999, AMD were still competing against Intel using their line of Super Socket 7 K6-2 and K6-3 processors. Realising they needed more time before they would be able to launch their new Athlon architecture, they introduced the K6-2+ and K6-3+ CPUs. Because these ran on a new 0.18 micron manufacturing process, they ran cooler and more power-efficient than the K6-2 and K6-3 which used the larger 0.25 micron process. This meant the K6-3+ could run at up to 550 MHz (100 MHz faster than the standard K6-3). They also got a boost in L2 cache size (128 KB on the K6-2+ and 256 KB on the K6-3+), which meant better real-world performance. It was a stop-gap until June when the Athlon was ready to launch.
AMD's K6-2+ 450 MHz - the last line of CPUs to use the Super 7 platform
Meanwhile, Intel's powerhouse Pentium III arrived hot on the heels of AMD's K6-III launch in February, and was instantly adopted by OEMs for their premium range of off-the-shelf PCs with speeds around 450 - 550 MHz. Essentially a Pentium II with SSE instructions baked-in in its initial Katmai and Coppermine codenames, they continued to use the Pentium II Slot 1 format before the move to Socket 370. For mid-range and lower-end PCs, the Pentium II in its Slot 1 form was still the standard, and in its final iteration (codenamed Dixon) came with a 256 KB on-die cache. Clock for clock, the P2 was still a smidge faster than an equivalent AMD K6-2.
Graphics Cards
As the millenium came to a close, the war was still on, if only briefly, for 3D gaming hardware. S3 continued with their Savage 3D line with the release of the Savage 4, which featured multi-texturing, AGP 2x and 4x, and a DVI port. Unfortunately for poor old S3, bad driver problems occurred again, and performance lagged behind the competition, although the S4 was released primarily for the more budget end of the market, with a price point to match. A 'Pro' version increased the core clock from 125 MHz to 143 MHz, and a later 'Extreme' version further pushed the boundaries to 166 MHz. They also bought Diamond Multimedia, and through this the Savage 2000 was born. This card featured an amazing 12 million transistors on a 0.18 micron manufacturing process. The spec sheet included hardware transform & lighting, single-pass quad texture blending, 500 million pixels per second fill rate, a 128-bit memory bus, and overclockable memory. But yet again, poorly written drivers let the side down on otherwise brilliant hardware.
S3 Savage 4 Pro (1999)
3dfx were certainly lagging behind with their Voodoo3, whose maximum texture size remained at 256 x 256 pixels compared to 2048 x 2048 with other 3D chipsets (S3 Savage4, nVidia TNT2, ATi Rage 128 and Matrox G400). The Voodoo3 was also unable to handle 32-bit colour rendering, anisotropic filtering and bump mapping.
The 3D graphics card war was pretty much over in the final months of the 20th century. 3dfx was gone (bought by STB Systems), as were Matrox, S3 (bought by Diamond Multimedia), and SiS. This was partly brought about due to a new round of motherboard chipsets that provided their own graphics subsystem architectures, including Intel's new 820 chipset which featured the new AGP 4x interface.
The only players still in the running were nVidia and ATI. nVidia released their TNT2 and GeForce 256, and ATI still had their Rage 128 GL and Rage 128 Pro, a.k.a. Rage Fury.
3D Audio
1999 saw a big shift to sound cards that came with support for 3D positional audio. Microsoft's DirectSound3D had already been with us for a while, but the competition were hot in its heels. Aureal already had A3D 1.0 from 1997 and last year introduced its A3D 2.0 API with an engine that used geometry models to render how sounds are actually manifest in the real world. It also provided for occlusion effects which simulate how things sound when they move behind environmental barriers. Creative Labs had also introduced EAX the previous year with their first Sound Blaster Live! card that used the new EMU10K1 sound processor. Ultimately, Microsoft would win the battle for 3D audio as we would see DirectX (which included DirectSound3D) take over with continual enhancements that we enjoy even today. But in 1999, games developers were writing games to support one or more of these three APIs.
Storage
In 1999 the UDMA/66 (aka Ultra ATA/66) specification arrived with the ATA-4 standard, widening the data bus width and allowing for up to 66 Mbps transfer speeds. Hard disk capacities this year ranged from 13 to 22 GB, with speeds of either 5400 rpm or 7200 rpm.
Full PCs
A top-end PC would be sporting a Pentium III-550 or 600 running on an Intel 440BX Seattle chipset motherboard. Its front side bus would run at 133 MHz, and would sport 128 MB of 100 MHz SDRAM. As mentioned AGP 4x was now here, so something like a Matrox Millennium G400, ATI Rage Fury, nVidia RIVA TNT2 Ultra, or 3dfx Voodoo3 3500 would take up the new dedicated graphics bus slot, being displayed on a nice 19" multisync monitor able to display 1600 x 1200 resolution at 75 Hz refresh rate.
Storage would comprise a 20 GB hard disk alongside a DVD-ROM drive and a CD/RW (rewritable) drive also. A Sound Blaster Live! for audio, Altec Lansing speakers with subwoofer, and perhaps even a Microsoft Sidewinder joystick would be bundled.
Windows 98 was the operating system of choice, supplied with most PCs ready to go.
Component Parts
Home PC building was as popular as ever, with lots of adverts for motherboards, CPUs, memory, graphics cards, etc. The latest CPU, Pentium III 550, would set you back a whopping $800+, and prices of the now-mid-range Pentium II ranged from $130 to $280 depending on speed (333 MHz up to 450 MHz). AMD was still a very cost-effective choice for self-builders, with the K6-2 and K6-III chips going from $60 (350 MHz) up to $240 for a 450 MHz one.
Decent motherboards from ASUS and DFI would be based on the Intel 440BX Seattle chipset or VIA, both of which provided 100 MHz FSB, an AGP slot and SDRAM sockets. 72-pin SIMMs were still available but the latest supported either both 72-pin and 168-pin SDRAM DIMMs, or just the 168-pin ones.
Software and Games
Office 2000 arrived this year, effectively cementing in offline application use with the internet. Not only do the application integrate with the web, you could easily edit HTML web pages in Word. It came in four distinct bundles: Standard provided Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint. Small Business Edition had the same but added Publisher and Small Business Tools. Professional Edition added Access, and the Premium Edition got all of the above plus FrontPage and PhotoDraw.
On the gaming front, 1999 saw the launch of memorable first-person shooters such as Unreal Tournament and Quake III Arena, and System Shock 2, plus some great realtime strategy titles like Age of Empires II, Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun and Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. On the RPG side, we got the wonderful Baldur's Gate and Age of Wonders. Oh, and a little game called Grand Theft Auto 2.