Here is an alternative cheap good Windows 98 gaming PC (because everyone has done an AMD one so far).
A Socket 🌝 478 motherboard by SIS - any will do but SIS chipsets allow for PCI soundcards to work better in DOS.
Literally 🌝 any socket 478 Pentium 4 CPU is "good" enough for Windows 98 and fast enough (or faster) than the CPUs 🌝 people were using at the time (up to 1.4GHz Pentium 3) (but make sure it is compatible with your board 🌝 - buy the board first!). I would aim for 2GHz and up, and these are easier to find than the 🌝 older slower ones.
Literally any DDR1 RAM. The speed doesn't matter because any DDR1 RAM is faster than what was "good" 🌝 for Windows 98 (133MHz SDR RAM). Only use <512MB because that's what Windows 98 supports natively. Windows 98 games generally 🌝 use a max of 256MB and I would be quite happy if my Windows 98 PC had 128 to be 🌝 honest. You can patch Windows 98 to use more ram but the patch brings about issues of its own and 🌝 considering that Windows 98 and its games don't need the RAM, I wouldn't bother with it at all.
Sound cards are 🌝 tricky - yes you can spend lots of Yamaha PCI sound cards but a loved/hated Soundblaster Live (or Audigy1) will 🌝 give you basic sound in DOS and good sound in Windows games. They're dirt cheap and readily available, but you 🌝 might be waiting for a while for a Yamaha to crop up.
