Considering the "not old games" part of their catalog, the latest parts you can scrap up.

Looking at nice looking ad with a Athlon 5350 based built. At 25W TDP it should be equivalent to a 105W TDP Q6600 , that's a core 2 quad @2400MHz , a very decent cpu for Windows XP gaming too. Think about it.

In my opinion some with good quad core processor, min 1-2 TB hard disk for games, min 4 gb (8 for newer games) ram and some good videocard like GT760 or R9 280 for almost all games. Also I think to build GoG Machine, but I want to use only AMD CPU and videocard. I don`t like Intel very much for their LGA socket`s.

What sort of games are we really talking about? If they are somewhat modern but have very low requirements I would just go with an i3 or a unlocked Pentium for bang per watt. As for much older games there are more than enough examples here of a good win9x rig.

TELEPACMAN wrote:

Looking at nice looking ad with a Athlon 5350 based built. At 25W TDP it should be equivalent to a 105W TDP Q6600 , that's a core 2 quad @2400MHz , a very decent cpu for Windows XP gaming too. Think about it.

I didn't know the Athlon 5350 was that powerful. Are there any benchmarks confirming this?

It's seems close, and power efficiency will be much greater.
http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core2-Quad-Q660 … AMD-Athlon-5350

Close to Q6600? I don't think so...
http://www.futuremark.com/hardware/cpu/AMD+At … lon+5350/review
http://www.futuremark.com/hardware/cpu/Intel+ … or+Q6600/review
Sounds more like close to E6850:
http://www.futuremark.com/hardware/cpu/Intel+ … or+E6850/review

Stay away from the AM1, low TDP is the only good thing it can offer. It is really bad for gaming - bad performance, only 4 pci-e lanes for video card... just no.

Ivy Bridge Pentium is cheap and much better suited for XP gaming. If you want to take your chances with finding XP drivers, Haswell is also good.

You could find an AM3 system for cheap that would be perfect for XP. Something like an Athlon ii dual or quad core, maybe a phenom ii if ya really want overkill horsepower.

havli wrote:

Stay away from the AM1, low TDP is the only good thing it can offer. It is really bad for gaming - bad performance, only 4 pci-e lanes for video card... just no.

Ivy Bridge Pentium is cheap and much better suited for XP gaming. If you want to take your chances with finding XP drivers, Haswell is also good.

Yep, this... I have one and it's not that great for gaming, I could play old DOS games, munt and bassmidi work great, but anything recent is just no playable 🙁

RacoonRider wrote:

Close to Q6600? I don't think so... http://www.futuremark.com/hardware/cpu/AMD+At … lon+5350/review http://www.futuremark.com/h […]
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Close to Q6600? I don't think so...
http://www.futuremark.com/hardware/cpu/AMD+At … lon+5350/review
http://www.futuremark.com/hardware/cpu/Intel+ … or+Q6600/review
Sounds more like close to E6850:
http://www.futuremark.com/hardware/cpu/Intel+ … or+E6850/review

You are right, it's closer to the dual core 3GHz one, but even so not too shabby for earlier some windows xp.

About the PCI lanes, 4 lanes really look very little, what would be a good card for it?

For the Asus AM1M-A it states 1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (x4 mode) , what does this even mean?

Physical x16 connector, but only 4 lanes electrically active.

Well, what kind of limitation this represents for a gog machine with light windows xp gaming?

Benchmarks indicate that when paired with gtx770 this cpu can deliver, at 1080p with maximum detail in Battlefield 4 single player 20 FPS.

I intend to keep to the APU graphics as long as I can, just want to be on the safe. If I ever need to upgrade I need to know what to expect.

Never mind, it is not for sale anymore 🙁