Gahhhrrrlic wrote:

killer legacy motherboard

Look no further than PC Chips. 😜

More seriously, maybe look for this ASRock. IDE & FDD connectors, PS/2 connectors, RS232 serial header, two PCI slots, ... with an AM3 socket for Phenom II X6 support.

Gigabyte EP45-UD3R

Core 2 Quad generation
Has everything on your list.

SW-SSG wrote:

Gahhhrrrlic wrote:

killer legacy motherboard

Look no further than PC Chips. 😜

More seriously, maybe look for this ASRock. IDE & FDD connectors, PS/2 connectors, RS232 serial header, two PCI slots, ... with an AM3 socket for Phenom II X6 support.

Cool board! Is there a reason not to go with the Deluxe 5? It seems to have the same stuff only with faster cpu support?

Sorry I should have said at the beginning that I'm partial to AMD/ATI

fitzpatr wrote:

Gigabyte EP45-UD3R

Core 2 Quad generation
Has everything on your list.

That board right there is arguably the best LGA775 board ever made.

You can still go faster though if you don't mind using an expansion card for parallel.

These ASRock LGA 1366 boards have everything you want except for parallel.
https://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/X58%20Extreme/index.asp
https://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/X58%20Extreme3/index.asp
https://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/X58%20Extreme6/index.asp

Edit:... I took too long to make my post and now see that you like AMD.
The ASRock Deluxe 4 and Deluxe 5 would both be fine choices, but the Deluxe 5 is going to be better overall.

If you go with an FX chip, make sure to get a second gen one as the first gen ones were quite a bit slower IPC wise than the Phenom II chips.

Good advice, provided I can even find one to buy. Unfortunately I haven't found a single one for sale on Google.

I just came across a newer board which seems to have everything but parallel:

990FX Extreme4

http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/990FX%20Extreme4/

I'll have to double check that I didn't miss something but this seems better.

Yep, that is a better board.

Gahhhrrrlic wrote:

BUT also being legacy friendly

Funny you say that but apparently don't need ISA slots 😵 (that's what "legacy" normally refers to in this context)

derSammler wrote:

Gahhhrrrlic wrote:

BUT also being legacy friendly

Funny you say that but apparently don't need ISA slots 😵 (that's what "legacy" normally refers to in this context)

I agree. If by "legacy friendly" you mean DOS friendly, then you definitely want a board with at least one ISA slot for a sound card.

Well I have never heard of a MB that supports modern architecture (PCI-E, SATA, USB3.0, etc) and also ISA. I have multiple computers from multiple eras so that I can focus on such time-specific games and applications. Otherwise I'd be fighting a losing battle of trying to make my computer a jack of all trades but a master of none.

I generally don't care for the newest game titles. The last game I really liked was SOMA and before that, I dunno, UT4? This means I actually can get away with a MB that still supports serial ports and floppy drives because that's basically AM3+ and AM3+ is powerful enough for those games. I also want to be able to run everything on XP... and I have some PCI cards I'm rather fond of. But I still want to be able to do CAD and DVD movies and HDR games on it. When I feel like playing System Shock I have a P133 for that and when I want to play half-life, I have a P400 for that 😀

What kind of legacy are you thinking? ISA slots? Slot 1? Slot A? Socket 7?

That is, what era are you looking at?

keenmaster486 wrote:

What kind of legacy are you thinking? ISA slots? Slot 1? Slot A? Socket 7?

That is, what era are you looking at?

Just PCI, COM, FLP/IDE, PS2, winXP for legacy support but other than that, as powerful and new as possible.

Hmm, IDE could probably be taken care of with a separate card if it wasn't built-in to the MB.
Same thing with PS/2, and COM ports now that I think about it.

So that leaves you with wanting the newest motherboard you can find that has PCI slots. A fair bet.

You could run Windows 7 as the main OS, and Windows XP in a dual-boot setup for legacy stuff. It would probably work fine even if there were no specific drivers for XP for the motherboard.

The only problem I'd be worried about is choosing a graphics card. It's possible the fastest MB/CPU combo you could get that still has PCI would bottleneck the fastest available graphics card with drivers for XP, but I don't actually know that.

keenmaster486 wrote:

Hmm, IDE could probably be taken care of with a separate card if it wasn't built-in to the MB. Same thing with PS/2, and COM por […]
Show full quote

Hmm, IDE could probably be taken care of with a separate card if it wasn't built-in to the MB.
Same thing with PS/2, and COM ports now that I think about it.

So that leaves you with wanting the newest motherboard you can find that has PCI slots. A fair bet.

You could run Windows 7 as the main OS, and Windows XP in a dual-boot setup for legacy stuff. It would probably work fine even if there were no specific drivers for XP for the motherboard.

The only problem I'd be worried about is choosing a graphics card. It's possible the fastest MB/CPU combo you could get that still has PCI would bottleneck the fastest available graphics card with drivers for XP, but I don't actually know that.

AsRock Extreme 4. Two ps/2, offers floppy ide and headers for comm and parallel, sata 3, usb 3.0, supports anything from a single core am3 sempron to a fx-8350

keenmaster486 wrote:

Hmm, IDE could probably be taken care of with a separate card if it wasn't built-in to the MB. Same thing with PS/2, and COM por […]
Show full quote

Hmm, IDE could probably be taken care of with a separate card if it wasn't built-in to the MB.
Same thing with PS/2, and COM ports now that I think about it.

So that leaves you with wanting the newest motherboard you can find that has PCI slots. A fair bet.

You could run Windows 7 as the main OS, and Windows XP in a dual-boot setup for legacy stuff. It would probably work fine even if there were no specific drivers for XP for the motherboard.

The only problem I'd be worried about is choosing a graphics card. It's possible the fastest MB/CPU combo you could get that still has PCI would bottleneck the fastest available graphics card with drivers for XP, but I don't actually know that.

That also occurred to me so I already determined the best card I can get is the R9-270X. Unless they re-enabled support for a better card down the line.

ODwilly wrote:

keenmaster486 wrote:

Hmm, IDE could probably be taken care of with a separate card if it wasn't built-in to the MB. Same thing with PS/2, and COM por […]
Show full quote

Hmm, IDE could probably be taken care of with a separate card if it wasn't built-in to the MB.
Same thing with PS/2, and COM ports now that I think about it.

So that leaves you with wanting the newest motherboard you can find that has PCI slots. A fair bet.

You could run Windows 7 as the main OS, and Windows XP in a dual-boot setup for legacy stuff. It would probably work fine even if there were no specific drivers for XP for the motherboard.

The only problem I'd be worried about is choosing a graphics card. It's possible the fastest MB/CPU combo you could get that still has PCI would bottleneck the fastest available graphics card with drivers for XP, but I don't actually know that.

AsRock Extreme 4. Two ps/2, offers floppy ide and headers for comm and parallel, sata 3, usb 3.0, supports anything from a single core am3 sempron to a fx-8350

Been looking for 1 for almost a week. No dice. Nobody is selling these things, even on Ebay.

Most highend am3 and am2+ boards should fit your needs. Check Newegg for am3/+ boards, the cheaper lowend chipsets usually have lots of legacy features.

EDIT: There is a Gigabyte matx 760g chipset board brand new on Newegg for $70 that looks like a nice candidate. Could also look on ebay for a good combo deal, I bought 4gb of ddr3, a phenom ii 965 and a nice Asus board for $100 a couple years back that way.

Cool I'll have a look at it tomorrow and see if it'll fit the bill. The bottleneck will be whether or not I can play SOMA and later System Shock 3 in full quality.

Ever heard the term legacy i/o(not my i/o though) refering to fdd,rs232,ps/2 mouse and keyboard, and lpt.
The other term is legacy isa referring to non PnP isa cards.