Except Intel chipsets, all hardware for Win95 mentioned on this page are also for WinNT4.
Note that Win9x only sees one core. However, multi-core processors are still useful if you want to run NT on the same hardware.
The Intel CPU is more powerful.
Alternate build 1: Intel chipset build for Win98/ME only
Alternate build 2: Pentium 4 Willamette build for Win95
Alternate build 3: Pentium III Tualatin build for Win95
For an Intel build, Core 2 is the last generation of CPUs supported. Most of these use the LGA 775 socket; the Core 2 Extreme QX9775 instead uses the LGA 771 socket, but none of the mobos for it supports Win98.
Among LGA 775 motherboards that also support Win98, ASRock 775i65G R3.0 is the only one from ASRock that supports top-of-the-line CPUs like Core 2 Extreme QX6800. Check its CPU support list to see other CPUs you can use, in case the QX6800 is too expensive or unavailable. Here's a comparison of some that are worth considering. Some Pentium 4 CPUs have higher frequencies but lower performance, and they consume too much power. The Pentium E6800 has lower power consumption but a higher single thread benchmark score.
Intel 915PL chipset only has partial support for Win98. Quoting from the manual of ASRock 775i915PL-M: Because of Intel 915PL chipset limitation, Windows 98 / ME does not support USB 2.0 but only USB 1.1. Besides, after installing Windows 98 / ME, two display adapter controllers will appear in “Display Adapters” of “Device Manager”. Please remove one of the display adapter controllers, and then you can successfully install the VGA driver.
Later when researching about a Windows 95 build, I found that, the last version of the Intel chipset driver that supports Windows 95 is 3.2.0.1008, which supports up to the Intel 850 chipset, which supports Socket 423 Willamette Pentium 4 CPUs. However, VIA chipsets go further than that. The last version of the VIA chipset driver that supports Windows 95 is 4.56, which supports up to the PT894 chipset. However, the PT894 chipset is PCIe-only; it doesn't have AGP slots. PT880 and PT880 Pro do have AGP slots, so they should be better choices.
The latest version of the VIA chipset driver, 5.24, supports Win98 and WinMe.
The CPU support list for motherboards on Gigabyte's website, for some reason includes many CPUs that are not supported, indicated by an 'N/A' in the "supported since BIOS version" column. I didn't notice that and assumed that listed=supported. So I was misled and thought some Gigabyte motherboards supported those top-of-the-line CPUs; actually none does.
According to The Retro Web, Biostar P4M800Pro-D1 supports Kentsfield Core 2 Extreme CPUs (which includes QX6800 and QX6850), but I can't find this info anywhere else, including on Biostar's own site, which has an empty CPU support list.
These motherboards are partially incompatible with Win95 due to using an HD Audio chip (all use the chipset PT880 Ultra):
These motherboards are the only ones that use a Win95-compatible chipset and support (Q)X6800, at least if you don't count the Biostar motherboard with uncertain CPU support status. The lack of onboard audio support doesn't matter if you use a Sound Blaster.
While ASRock only provides Windows 2000, XP and Vista drivers for these 3 motherboards, VIA does provide Win95 drivers, and the LAN and SATA controllers are provided by VIA, so Win95 should be usable.
4CoreDual-SATA2 supports SATA2 while the other 2 boards only support SATA1. 775Dual-VSTA only supports up to dual core CPUs while the 4CoreDual boards support quad core CPUs.
The CPU support lists on ASRock's website says that FSB may be reduced by 5% when using quad core CPUs. So for a Win98-only build, a dual core CPU such as X6800 may be preferable.
A seller of these motherboards claim that even QX9770 can be used.
As mentnioned above, the last batch of CPUs to support the Win95 is the Socket 423 Willamette Pentium 4 CPUs, the best of which is 2.0 GHz. It's well-known that Tualatin, the last Pentium III architecture, beats Willamette with the same clock speed; however it's hard to find comparison between the best Tualatin (1.4 GHz aka 1400 MHz) and the best Willamette (2.0 GHz). The Benchmark Marathon from Tom's Hardware, linked by The (Almost) Definitive Pentium III Tualatin Article, is the only one I can find. According to the benchmarks, the 2.0 GHz Willamette does perform better than the 1.4 GHz Tualatin, although not by much.
Willamette does have some caveats though:
The chipsets of interest are K8T800, K8M800, and K8T800 Pro. They're the last VIA chipsets for AMD CPUs, with AGP slots, that are supported by the 4.56 chipset driver. The K8T800/Pro supports socket 754/939/940, while the K8M800 supports socket 754/939/AM2. Socket 754 will not be considered because it's too old.
Note that even AMD Athlon 64 FX-62 is worse than Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 and even the Pentium E6800; socket 939 and 754 ones are even worse.
ASRock provides a "AM2CPU Board" that allows using socket AM2 CPUs on select ASRock motherboards with socket 754 and 939. If this board is used, the K8Upgrade-VM800 motherboard can be used with AMD Athlon 64 FX-62 CPU on Win95.
Aside from that, the only motherboard with one of these chipsets and socket AM2, with confirmed support for both Win95 and a top-of-the-line CPU, is the MSI K9MM-V. Only CPUs with a TDP of up to 89W are in the support list, which restricts the CPU to Athlon X2 6000+, either Windsor or Brisbane, which has similar performance to Athlon 64 FX-62. However, according to The Retro Web, it's "possible to run 125W CPUs with VRM cooling".
Biostar K8M800 Micro AM2 only has CPUs with a TDP of up to 65W in the support list. Those CPUs are nowhere near top of the line, so it's not considered.
The best socket 939 CPU is Athlon 64 FX-60, with Athlon X2 4800+ as a close second.
The following motherboards have full Win95 driver support:
ASUS A8V-X lacks support for the audio card on Win9x, because it's HD Audio which requires Windows 2000. ASUS A8V and A8V Deluxe lacks support for the network card on Win95, because it's a Marvell Yukon network card which only has drivers for Win98 and up.
Nvidia gives conflicting information about whether the nForce drivers support Windows 95. On its current website, the nForce driver is listed as for 95, 98, and Me. However, an earlier page only mentions 98 and Me but not 95. Going back to 2002, Me and 98SE are even listed separately, with separate drivers, but there's still no mention of 95. 98 and Me support were later merged into the same driver and called a Win9x driver. I guess someone at Nvidia saw this "win9x" naming and added 95 into the metadata. If the nForce drivers actually support Win95, then the ASRock K8Upgrade-NF3 motherboard can be used with AMD Athlon 64 FX-62 CPU on Win95.
Socket 939 chipsets from SiS and ULi have partial Win95 support, but full Win98 support. For example, the LAN (ethernet) drivers from both chipset makers only work on Win98 and up. Some of these motherboards are:
The story with the 82.69 Nvidia driver seems to be that, there was actually an official beta driver with the version number of 82.69, but what is now widespread on the internet is a modded driver based on that official beta driver. While the modder stated that up to 9000 series is supported, the general concensus seems to be that 7000 series is the only newer series that would work.
Someone on VOGONS stated that Version 82.69 does nothing more than add 1680x1050 and 1440x900 to the supported resolutions.
Others in the same thread have said that 77.72 works better.
The original MSFN thread for the unmodded 82.69 driver suggests that it didn't have support for the 7000 series in the inf file. Page on Retro System Revival mentions a "shutdown bug" with a patch available.
The last graphics driver version that is explicitly stated to work for 95 on the Nvidia 9x archive page is 66.94. Later drivers are labeled "9x/Me". However, only 98 and Me are mentioned in the readme, both for 66.94 and for 81.98. The last version that mentions 95 in the readme is 56.64. According to a post on VOGONS, Version 44.03 seems mostly compatible with Windows 95 without any need for modification.
According to a post on MSFN, the 6000 series works: Using the 77.72 win9x Nvidia driver I was able to get an EVGA 6200 256mb PCI card and an Nvidia GeForce 6600 256mb AGP card to mostly work with Windows 95 OSR2. The 2-d drivers and 3D drivers work perfectly. The special Nvidia control panel, however, requires 98 and give a missing export error when it tries to start up. That is not really needed for basic operation though.
Although 6000 series cards work on Win95, they don't support fog table and 8-bit palettized textures, which are features originating from 3dfx. The last Nvidia cards to support these features are the FX series of cards. So using an FX series card (best: 5950 Ultra) might be preferable. Using a 3dfx Voodoo card together with a newer Nvidia card may also work.
Driver version 45.23 "is the point before things started going backwards for Win98 support." (source)
GeForce FX series is supported on up to Windows Vista, with driver version 96.85. Geforce 6 series and 7 series are supported on up to Windows 8.0, with driver version 309.08.
The last version of Catalyst that works on 98/Me, version 6.2, also contains beta support for up to the X850 series of cards (see release notes).
According to a VOGONS thread, Catalyst 3.1 completely works on Win95, while 3.4 to 3.6 partially works. 3.4 with replaced OpenGL driver from 3.1 or 3.2 is recommended. 3.4 supports the 9000 series, mentioning 9800 and 9800 Pro in its inf file, but not 9800 XT. Maybe modding the inf file to add support for 9800 XT is possible, idk. According to a review, XT doesn't offer much more performance than Pro, so Pro should suffice anyway.
Radeon cards don't support fog table and 8-bit palettized textures. Fog table support was added in Catalyst 7.11, but since Win95 is capped to 3.x and Win98 is capped to 6.2, this is useless for a Win9x build.
Creative's Sound Blaster series is the king, AFAIK. The last sub-series to have 98/Me drivers is Audigy (driver). The previous sub-series, SBLive!, is the last to have Win95 drivers. Audigy 2 doesn't work on Win95 with the VxD drivers.
Win9x is an era when latest doesn't mean greatest, as some old compatibility features are getting removed.
It's hard to determine which hardware is the best for Windows 95. Late 9x era / early XP era motherboards only advertise compatibility with 98 and Me, even if the driver actually supports 95. (For example, the AGP driver for the K8 Combo-Z motherboard has a "Win95" folder inside.) I haven't seen any that supports Me but not 98 though, which made me decide to merge 95/98/Me to one page.
Information about which devices run on 98 but not 95 is scarce. 95 is regarded as the compromise when a computer can't run 98. Also, some drivers are labeled "9x" but actually only works on 98 and Me.
I had to use another method to find the most powerful hardware with official support for Windows 95:
There's an inf mod available for AC97 audio drivers for Windows 95.
According to a forum thread, the ATI Radeon 9800 XT seems to perform better than Nvidia GeForce FX 5950 Ultra, at least in terms of DirectX 9 performance. However, in terms of compatibility with older features, especially on Win9x, GeForce FX 5950 Ultra is still better.
x64 versions of Windows since 8.1 requires that the CPU support CMPXCHG16B, PrefetchW and LAHF/SAHF instructions. While all CPUs mentioned on this page support CMPXCHG16B and LAHF/SAHF, only the Brisbane 6000+ supports PrefetchW. This means that, if you want to use Windows 8.1 and above on those CPUs, you'll have to use the 32-bit version.