My parents still use a socket 754 Athlon 64 3200+ Clawhammer system as their main internet computer.
They also have a Core 2 Duo box for image and video editing but they are too paranoid to connect it to the internet 😀

I still say that socket 754 is borderline retro since the platform is 10 years old. Next year I will call it retro for sure.

Im not sure late socket 478 and socket 754 systems ever will be too slow to surf the net with adblock as long as they have 2gb memory.
So if usefulness is the benchmark they probably never will become retro.

For me the question will be if I ever will be able to call socket 775 retro.
I think s775 boxes will be around forever as computers people actually use for daily tasks.

good question , I had an Athlon XP 1800+ machine as my main gaming & general use computer from about 2002-2007 when I replaced it with a Core2Duo machine. it did get a couple of GPU and RAM upgrades, but the limit for that machine were games like C&C3 which really taxed it, to the point where the FMV's audio and video were out of sync.

it really depends on whether you look at it from a general use perspective , or a gaming perspective , in terms of gaming its retro (my definition of retro is something which is very insufficient for the task at hand), from a general use standpoint, its not quite retro since its feasible to use such a machine for most every day tasks, though you would be stuck running an OS over a decade old.

that said the idea of retro is different for every person so I can see why it wouldn't be retro for some people, though it makes you wonder at what point will the i5 or i7 machines we use now will become "retro", and there may well be a generation of people more attached to those machines than the pre-2000 or pre-1990 machines most people around here are into

Skyscraper wrote:

... The Prescotts will have to wait for retro status at least another month.

🤣

I guess there will always be someone saying 'meh, that's not old enough to be classified as retro' unless what you're tinkering with is the Antikythera mechanism or something like that 🤣 .

Darkman wrote:

that said the idea of retro is different for every person so I can see why it wouldn't be retro for some people, though it makes you wonder at what point will the i5 or i7 machines we use now will become "retro", and there may well be a generation of people more attached to those machines than the pre-2000 or pre-1990 machines most people around here are into

Oh 10 years from now Core2duo will be retro for sure, the same as Athlon XP's are obviously considered retro by many.

The question is, how many systems are you prepared to keep in your house for that authentic retro feeling? Right now, for me that seems to be four. Give it another 10 years and it might end up being six 😁

Half-Saint wrote:

Darkman wrote:

that said the idea of retro is different for every person so I can see why it wouldn't be retro for some people, though it makes you wonder at what point will the i5 or i7 machines we use now will become "retro", and there may well be a generation of people more attached to those machines than the pre-2000 or pre-1990 machines most people around here are into

The question is, how many systems are you prepared to keep in your house for that authentic retro feeling? Right now, for me that seems to be four. Give it another 10 years and it might end up being six 😁

That is pretty much why I am telling myself that late socket A platsforms suck.
There is not enough room in my apartment for an Intel and an AMD system for every generation.
And the Intel 845PE is a much nicer platform to work with even if the performance is somewhat simular to the late Athlon XP platforms from the same time period.
Does anyone know if there are windows 98 drivers for the 845PE?

Half-Saint wrote:

Darkman wrote:

that said the idea of retro is different for every person so I can see why it wouldn't be retro for some people, though it makes you wonder at what point will the i5 or i7 machines we use now will become "retro", and there may well be a generation of people more attached to those machines than the pre-2000 or pre-1990 machines most people around here are into

Oh 10 years from now Core2duo will be retro for sure, the same as Athlon XP's are obviously considered retro by many.

The question is, how many systems are you prepared to keep in your house for that authentic retro feeling? Right now, for me that seems to be four. Give it another 10 years and it might end up being six 😁

well tbh, Im not sure how useful a Core2Duo would be in 10 years time, unless you are really going for something specific , I would just get an i5 , a Core2Duo kinda seems like a CPU stuck inbetween generations, its too far ahead for the older games, but something like an i5 would do more of the same things really.

unless you would want a year specific machine of course, then its different.

Skyscraper wrote:

Does anyone know if there are windows 98 drivers for the 845PE?

Yes there are 😀.

DonutKing wrote:

and most kids these days that tinker with computers will be able to at least recognize most of the parts and repair such a machine. Give them a VLB 486 though and they'd have no idea.

🤣

the whole "XP" brand could become retro for some since it's around that time when Windows got REALLY consumerist with the color scheme, dropping the 9x/NT separation, the XP letters stamped on everything, the advent of black OEM computers, the color blue, the push of music services and dvd playback, the crappy glossy CRT monitors blazing the XP desktop at 60hz that OEM pcs came with, "Dude you're getting a Dell", the light blue-ish vector icons (designed by a Mac user 🤣), etc.

Sure Win95 did the same thing for its marketing, but never to XP's aggressive scale. Games coincidentially got 'dorkier' at the same time as well. C&C Renegade and UT2003 notably feeling like a toyline universe...

[/quote]

That is pretty much why I am telling myself that late socket A platsforms suck.
There is not enough room in my apartment for an Intel and an AMD system for every generation.
And the Intel 845PE is a much nicer platform to work with even if the performance is somewhat simular to the late Athlon XP platforms from the same time period.
Does anyone know if there are windows 98 drivers for the 845PE?[/quote]

Got a Asus P4B266 on hand and several northwood mobiles that I could try just for giggles, only downside is multiplier will be limited to only 12 but it is a P4 that won't need much at all to run. Got a large passive block that I could use but need to hunt down another backplate.

The reasons why I don't like socket A all that much is mostly because of the boards, I really don't like the idea of feeding a 60-80w chip on a 5v rail let alone on a board that can't but barely handle a stock clocked Barton. Boards with only two phases is a big turn off but those Tyan and Supermicro boards with the cpu(s) being feed from the 12v is like ringing the dinner bell to those who want to use modern power supplies.

I think they're usable, but I don't know anyone using one. I left a 1700+ with my mother, and "something" (I guess video card/power supply failure) happened with it while I was gone. Best computer ever!

I know someone who was using a Celeron 1200. Not even practical for light internet tasks with all the JS around, but she just likes it. I gave her a PIII 1400-S and it was listed as Celeron, 1400Mhz 😢

A64s are fully functional systems, however, despite being ten years old.

Anything with a single core is getting obsolete in a hurry when running Windows 7 or newer. I would classify Athlon XPs as just obsolete at this point, retro is 10+ years after most people would consider then completely obsolete as a main system doing normal tasks (an Windows XP being unsupported will drive that up some since that is what most people used for that CPU).

Hm, I still keep one (Nforce 2 Ultra 400) Epox 8RDA3+ with 1800+ Athlon XP @ 10x220 FSB and 2 Gig's of RAM.

It's a killer machine for MS Office tasks, plays movies, browsing is fast enough, but when you open one of the new fancy flash games from your browser (or anything new with flash in it), you get the idea how old this hardware is.

But it's not "retro" for me. Though it's my favorite chipset ever, I don't feel it retro, not because of the age, but because it was so common, that you can still find it everywhere. And in 5 years, parts will be as easy to obtain. There are zillions of Athlons.

I don't know about you, but for me it's not only about the age of the hardware. It's ... to a certain degree it's about how hard it is to get it. And it's all about the feeling.

I was tracking a k6-3+ CPUs for 3 months until I got one. And it was fairly expensive (especially with the delivery). I sold 3 C2D CPUS for the price I got the K6-3+ and the copper cooler for it.

So ... "retro", "vintage", etc ... is all about the feeling you get. It's not a production date. I couldn't get the "retro" feeling from my older K6-2 500. I needed the newer K6-3+.

Same ... weird example with my 440BX Asus P3B-F - I won't have complete "retro" feeling, until I find a suitable adapter and put a Tualatin in it. Though this Tualatin will be newer than the P-III 600Mhz I have in it now.

Also I would like to run it with 1 GB of SD-RAM (though I bought Windows 98SE for it, and having more that 512MB is crazy) - so I keep searching for the equal two low density double sided SD-RAM modules, as the ones I already have in it.

Spending my time in reading forums, paying a visit to some PC hardware junkyards ... that's what gives me the "retro" feeling.

So ... yeah, Athlon XP is retro, if you can feel it retro.

Just my ... 2 cents 😀

Space Cowboy wrote:

Same ... weird example with my 440BX Asus P3B-F - I won't have complete "retro" feeling, until I find a suitable adapter and put a Tualatin in it.

Want me to check which Slocket (slot 1 to FC-PGA) adapter I'm using? I believe it's the MSI one. I'm using the pinmodded CPU from Ebay. Much cheaper and easier than getting the Powerleap adapter.

vetz wrote:

Space Cowboy wrote:

Same ... weird example with my 440BX Asus P3B-F - I won't have complete "retro" feeling, until I find a suitable adapter and put a Tualatin in it.

Want me to check which Slocket (slot 1 to FC-PGA) adapter I'm using? I believe it's the MSI one. I'm using the pinmodded CPU from Ebay. Much cheaper and easier than getting the Powerleap adapter.

Well ... info is always welcomed. I'll send you Private Message with questions, 'cause this discussion is about Athlon and retro 😀

The Athlon XP is almost retro in my book, but not quite there yet. At least it's got the right age. Anything younger than 10 years doesn't feel retro at all.

Despite the lack of SSE2, it still delivers some good performance. I've build a high end Socket A rig with an Athlon XP 3200+ (equivalent, overclocked mobile cpu), 2GB Corsair RAM and a Radeon X850XT-PE. Considering I can play games like Unreal Tournament III with pretty decent detail on that system, I find it difficult to call the XP "retro", despite its age.

But it'll get there. It's already struggling with modern video streaming and it'll only get worse.

The So754 Athlon 64 is next. It's got SSE2 and the boards are available with PCI-E slots, so that'll some more time.
The first dual core CPUs have a lot of life left I think. At least for desktop applications and GPU intensive games they're still excellent.

I'd like to see a high end So754 system with a current GPU, lots of ram (too bad there's no DDR2 support) and a fast SSD running Windows 7. But I'm getting offtopic here, so I'll go to the drawing board with that idea 😉

Mystery wrote:

Anything younger than 10 years doesn't feel retro at all.

I'd like to see a high end So754 system with a current GPU, lots of ram (too bad there's no DDR2 support) and a fast SSD running Windows 7. But I'm getting offtopic here, so I'll go to the drawing board with that idea 😉

I totally agree on that 10 year rule but sooner or later it wont apply anymore... In just a few years Core 2 Duo/Quad will be 10 years old, add another two years and the first i7 will be 10 year old.
Computers do not get obsolete as fast as they use to so people continue to use them. I will not have any problems with calling socket 939 retro in a year or two because so few use them nowadays. Even 915P/G + Pentium 4 s775 is still very common in comparison. The AMD platforms retro feeling is perhaps saved by the capacitor plague which have made them somewhat rare 😁

Off topic or not.
I think this board would be perfect for such a test.
But the bios is dead and the bios chip is soldered so I cant hot-flash it in another motherboard.
There is an SLI s754 motherboard made by Epox called Epox EP-8NPA-SLI that would be even better but I think it is very rare.
But a Gigabyte non SLI board should not be hard to track down. I have the mATX version aswell K8N51GMF* and it works! It is limited to 300fsb and 2.8v memory voltage but its still a good board.
If you get hold of a PCI-E s754 board and want to compare benchmark scores just shout.
*There is a socket 939 version with the same name

Dead Gigabyte Nforce4 GA-K8NE socket 754

I have a bunch of the AGP Gigabyte Socket 754 boards, they just needed recapped and work fine. I think they also use that cheap high density DDR RAM so maxing them out at 3GB is cheapish.

Sooner or later the lack of RAM ceiling is what will make people quit using those boards (and free machines that are 5x faster).

I got two s754 mobiles but no boards to play with, same thing as the regular models except for no ihs and lower tdp. A dinky sempron and a athlon that interests me that I salvaged from a dead laptop. http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K8/AMD-Mobile%2 … 3200BIX5AR.html

Coming back to topic:

Someone has experience what the gain from upgrading a KT600 to the KT880 chipset was (except Dual Channel support) ?