Hmm, you are right... I was kind of expecting S1150 boards to have XP drivers. Looks like S1155/2011 and AM3+ are the end of the line for XP 😒

Still, Intel does seem to offer that INF update for Z87 on XP, so at least some rudimentary functions should be usable. And if the network/audio chips are the same as on older boards there should be XP drivers for them; also sometimes those vendors still offer drivers which may be not listed on the mainboard manufacturers' site since they don't want to deal with XP support anymore. So I guess if the user demands XP dual boot it is still possible with some tweaking on those new boards.

thegardentool wrote:

I'd say drivers could be one reason. I haven't jumped on the Haswell bandwagon myself, but from a quick look at some Asus boards, they don't have XP drivers available for them. Now it does look like the Z68/Z77 boards do, I haven't had the desire to try XP on my modern machine to see how well those drivers work. I know my sound card doesn't have XP drivers.

Somewhat off-topic, but...
Not having bought a 'modern' sound card for ages, anyone have some input on what decent/good PCI-e cards still available in webshops, that also have (non-sucking) XP-drivers ?

I have PCI-cards aplenty, but the newer mobos seem to omit that slot completely... 😢

thegardentool wrote:

sliderider wrote:

For CPU all you need to remember is Q6600 SLACR. It can be overclocked to ridiculous levels on air alone. Grab one before they become collectible and prices soar.

I do not think the Q6600 prices will soar simply because of the availability of the Q9xxx CPUs, and even the more budget-friendly Yorkfields of the Q8xxx series. They were also able to overclock well. If the Q6xxx had been the only quad cores on the platform, then yes they probably could go back up in value.

Sometimes things become collectible not because there isn't anything else on the market that can fulfill the same function, but because they were legendary in their time and the Q6600 SLACR stepping certainly qualifies in that regard. It's like Radeon 9500 non-pro cards that can unlock the 4 additional pipes, or the X800 GTO2 that used the X850 XT core that could be unlocked or the GeForce 6200 AGP that could unlock to a 6600GT. Yeah, you could just buy a Radeon 9700, X850 XT PE or a 6600GT but those cards don't have the same mythos surrounding them that makes people want to seek them out and drives prices.

I appreciate all the feedback here. One person asked what games I waned to play. Honestly I am not interested in games.... I am more interested in running my camera software... canon digital photo studio. That requires XP and the NET framework. I am sorely tempted to go with another Athlon XP. That would keep my parts interchangeable.... but I wonder if I would be happy with the performance. I was thinking about an LGA775... but then I got to reading up on just how many pentium D chips there really are... and I realized even more how behind the times I am. I think that made me more lost than before....

If you are serious about getting a new computer (which I'm not sure about since it sounds like you do just fine with yours) and want to save a few bucks get a good AM3(+) board like the GA-870A/970A-UD3 and a Phenom II X4 or X6. Both CPUs go for a lot less than the Q9550 and should serve you well for years to come. If you don't mind a bit of tweaking (undervolting) the power draw won't be too bad either.

Actually... I DO just fine with what I have... except for my camera software. Up until now I had been sliding by running that at work. But they are cramming windows 7 down everyone's throat come hell or high water.... whether or not I will be able to continue to run it is debatable. I may have the minority opinion here but I am not a fan of Windows 7.

How old is that camera? No other / free camera software you can use?

I've used an ASUS E45M1-M PRO for a while as my XP machine. It worked okay, it wasn't speed demon, but fast enough for web browsing and old games. I've added a Quadro FX 1300 (basically a GeForce FX series card) for better compatibility. But i've soon found myself not using at all - except for 16-bit apps everything works on Windows 8 64-bit.

ncmark wrote:

I am more interested in running my camera software... canon digital photo studio. That requires XP and the NET framework.

If you get Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate, you can use "Windows XP mode", it's Microsoft Virtual PC + a free copy of Windows XP:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/p … windows-xp-mode

I had to use Windows XP mode to transfer photos from my old Canon Ixus v2 (I don't have a memory card reader).
It's funny how that camera needs a driver on Windows but never has on OS X.

I'm in the process of building an XP specific gaming rig. I was able to pick up a PC for $10 at a local thrift that surprisingly had a 2.5ghz core 2 quad and slots for DDR 3 RAM (up to 2 GB's, 4GB of DDR2)

I know there are several XP era games that take advantage of duel core but my question is are there any XP era games that will NOT play due to multi cores? I ask this because I know Simcity 4 deluxe edition will generally crash after 10+ minutes of play on a Win 7 PC. After research you can usually fix the issue by disabling any extra cores. Would I have to do the same thing in XP or is that a Win 7/Vista issue I wonder.
also whats better for games 4gb of DDR2 mem or 2 GB of DDR3?

soviet conscript wrote:

also whats better for games 4gb of DDR2 mem or 2 GB of DDR3?

4 GB DDR2 will be better but you will only be able to use 3 - 3.5 GB

soviet conscript wrote:

I know there are several XP era games that take advantage of duel core but my question is are there any XP era games that will NOT play due to multi cores?

I know of only one, the ever-problematic Need for Speed: High Stakes (not technically an XP era game). I was able to fix it with the Imagecfg tool. I expect this fix would work with any other game that objects to multiple processors. Also, dual-core AMD systems are rumored to have timing problems which are fixed by the the AMD Dual-Core Optimizer. Not sure if a dual-core Intel system would have those kinds of problems.

To the OP: if you're not planning on playing any games, you don't need to be picky. Any post-2006 Intel system should fit your needs. If you decide to play games and are worried about graphics card compatibility, though, allow me to recommend the ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 motherboard. This board has formed the basis for my primary gaming rig since 2005, and has not let me down yet. It has both an AGP and a PCI-e interface, which together would allow you to use practically any video card. Very handy 😀

maximus wrote:

soviet conscript wrote:

I know there are several XP era games that take advantage of duel core but my question is are there any XP era games that will NOT play due to multi cores?

I know of only one, the ever-problematic Need for Speed: High Stakes (not technically an XP era game). I was able to fix it with the Imagecfg tool. I expect this fix would work with any other game that objects to multiple processors. Also, dual-core AMD systems are rumored to have timing problems which are fixed by the the AMD Dual-Core Optimizer. Not sure if a dual-core Intel system would have those kinds of problems.

To the OP: if you're not planning on playing any games, you don't need to be picky. Any post-2006 Intel system should fit your needs. If you decide to play games and are worried about graphics card compatibility, though, allow me to recommend the ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 motherboard. This board has formed the basis for my primary gaming rig since 2005, and has not let me down yet. It has both an AGP and a PCI-e interface, which together would allow you to use practically any video card. Very handy 😀

Empire Earth and Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II also have issues with AMD dual-core CPUs without Dual Core Optimizer installed. I could not get Dark Forces II to even install on my Core 2 Quad system when it had XP (it insisted I did not meet the system requirements during its pre-install check); did not attempt Empire Earth after that. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas should be considered a lost cause with multi-core systems, even if they are running Windows XP (and I would assume Grand Theft Auto: Vice City will have similar issues).

I would agree with the above poster about the ASRock board being a good choice as well. If you want an Intel-based solution, look for a board with a VIA PT800 series chipset, as it is fairly versatile depending on what the hardware OEM chooses to do. I would, however, caution that you avoid those ECS "support everything with cards" boards that were mildly popular a few years ago, as the daughter cards can be rough to find, and ECS hardware (especially older ECS hardware) has a nasty reputation for being unreliable.

Regarding the 4GB or 2GB - 2GB of DDR3 would probably yield somewhat better performance, at least that's what I would wager. My reasoning is that most older games don't demand 1-2GB of memory for themselves, and the extra speed of DDR3 will be more of an improvement than unused extra memory capacity. Regarding the 4GB limit in XP:
msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/window ... windows_xp

Also keep in mind that 32-bit Windows processes within a 32-bit client operating system are limited to addressing 2GB of memory unless the /3GB switch is set (more here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/tom/archive/2008/04/1 … Redirected=true). Even some fairly modern games (like Skyrim) do not approach that 2GB limit, let alone 4GB. I wouldn't be that concerned with only having 2GB available to Windows XP (keep in mind that back in 2003-2004 when this stuff was state of the art, 512MB was still fairly expensive; 2GB was nearly unheard of) and would probably be inclined to lean towards faster memory than more memory if those were my options.

obobskivich wrote:

Regarding the 4GB or 2GB - 2GB of DDR3 would probably yield somewhat better performance, at least that's what I would wager. My reasoning is that most older games don't demand 1-2GB of memory for themselves, and the extra speed of DDR3 will be more of an improvement than unused extra memory capacity. Regarding the 4GB limit in XP:
msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/window ... windows_xp

There is no gain at all using DDR3 vs DDR2 on a Core 2 Duo platform.

But you do need fast enough memory.
For 333 mhz FSB you need 667 mhz memory 400 FSB needs 800 mhz memory and so on.

An E8400 3 GHz Core 2 Duo (FSB 333) with the memory @ 667 MHZ with 3 3 3 8 timings will be just as fast as using 1066 mhz memory with 5 5 5 15 timings.
The only reason for using DDR3 or really fast DDR2 is if you need to run high FSB.
Lets say you want to run your E8400 @ 9*500 = 4500 mhz then memory that handles 1000 mhz comes in handy.
If you use memory slower than 2x the FSB you do loose performance, but not much.

I did look in to this when I was choosing between a DDR2 and DDR3 Intel X48 board back in he spring of 2008.
Today a DDR3 X48 board would probably be better but only because 2GB DDR3 modules are much cheaper than 2GB DDR2 modules.

Skyscraper wrote:

There is no gain at all using DDR3 vs DDR2 on a Core 2 Duo platform. […]
Show full quote

There is no gain at all using DDR3 vs DDR2 on a Core 2 Duo platform.

But you do need fast enough memory.
For 333 mhz FSB you need 667 mhz memory 400 FSB needs 800 mhz memory and so on.

An E8400 3 GHz Core 2 Duo (FSB 333) with the memory @ 667 MHZ with 3 3 3 8 timings will be just as fast as using 1066 mhz memory with 5 5 5 15 timings.
The only reason for using DDR3 or really fast DDR2 is if you need to run high FSB.
Lets say you want to run your E8400 @ 9*500 = 4500 mhz then memory that handles 1000 mhz comes in handy.
If you use memory slower than 2x the FSB you do loose performance, but not much.

I did look in to this when I was choosing between a DDR2 and DDR3 Intel X48 board back in he spring of 2008.
Today a DDR3 X48 board would probably be better but only because 2GB DDR3 modules are much cheaper than 2GB DDR2 modules.

My response was more along the lines that I'd rather worry about faster memory than more memory with Windows XP and older games, all things considered. Re-reading the post it appears the motherboard in question can do either configuration (and it would be helpful to know what it presently has installed, if anything); I'd probably still suggest DDR3. At worst it performs similarly to DDR2, at best it shows a minor improvement, and as you pointed out - it should cost less. The lower capacity won't likely be felt with Windows XP-era games or applications due to the limits imposed by the operating system.

obobskivich wrote:

My response was more along the lines that I'd rather worry about faster memory than more memory with Windows XP and older games, all things considered. Re-reading the post it appears the motherboard in question can do either configuration (and it would be helpful to know what it presently has installed, if anything); I'd probably still suggest DDR3. At worst it performs similarly to DDR2, at best it shows a minor improvement, and as you pointed out - it should cost less. The lower capacity won't likely be felt with Windows XP-era games or applications due to the limits imposed by the operating system.

I prefer more memory over memory speed if I am not benching 😀
When it comes to DX9 games and memory usage 2GB is plenty for most games but not all. A perhaps bad example is World of Warcraft* but I am sure there are others.
But if the Windows XP system is a secondary system then games that use alot of memory could just as well be played on a new up to date computer.
The Windows XP 32bit 4GB memory limit was the reason I upgraded to Windows 7 64bit.

*I had to use the LARGEADDRESSAWARE fix that made it possible for a single program to use more than 2GB system memory under Windows XP 32bit or it would crash after a few hours of gaming.

Skyscraper wrote:

I prefer more memory over memory speed if I am not benching 😀

Fair enough. 😀 Honestly this thread is making me wish my X38 and X48 systems were more similar, so I could compare this in more detail. It's kind of bugging me - "I have the technology; I can test this" but...not quite. 😵

When it comes to DX9 games and memory usage 2GB is plenty for most games but not all. A perhaps bad example is World of Warcraft […]
Show full quote

When it comes to DX9 games and memory usage 2GB is plenty for most games but not all. A perhaps bad example is World of Warcraft* but I am sure there are others.
But if the Windows XP system is a secondary system then games that use alot of memory could just as well be played on a new up to date computer.
The Windows XP 32bit 4GB memory limit was the reason I upgraded to Windows 7 64bit.

*I had to use the LARGEADDRESSAWARE fix that made it possible for a single program to use more than 2GB system memory under Windows XP 32bit or it would crash after a few hours of gaming.

Wasn't aware of that with World of Warcraft (I'm not very familiar with it). I agree with the "secondary system" idea - I assumed that was the goal here, and maybe that was incorrect on my part - my thinking was that the goal is those few games that have issues with Windows Vista or Windows 7, not to be a "do everything" gaming box. 😦

obobskivich wrote:

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas should be considered a lost cause with multi-core systems, even if they are running Windows XP (and I would assume Grand Theft Auto: Vice City will have similar issues).

I got San Andreas working on an Athlon 64 X2 by running it in Windows 98 compatibility mode. (It crashed constantly otherwise. Go figure.)

Took me a while to realize that the physics only behave correctly with the 25 fps limit enabled. It's a good game, but damn, the GTA 3 engine is a sloppy mess.

bestemor wrote:

Somewhat off-topic, but...
Not having bought a 'modern' sound card for ages, anyone have some input on what decent/good PCI-e cards still available in webshops, that also have (non-sucking) XP-drivers ?

Under XP, a decent Sound Card still mattered. Not because of the DAC, but because sound was rendered in hardware. The best cards for XP are the last PCIe Titanium X-Fi card. But NOT the the Titanium HD. It does not work under XP.

Whenever I see a cheap Titanium on eBay I grab it.

One thing you MUST try is a Titanium in headphone with CMSS-3D enabled and some decent EAX games like Splinter Cell Chaos Theory, BF2142. Positional sound like that is a thing of the past. Under the current Windows it's all software and all you get is 5.1, but no real audio rendering.

maximus wrote:

obobskivich wrote:

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas should be considered a lost cause with multi-core systems, even if they are running Windows XP (and I would assume Grand Theft Auto: Vice City will have similar issues).

I got San Andreas working on an Athlon 64 X2 by running it in Windows 98 compatibility mode. (It crashed constantly otherwise. Go figure.)

Took me a while to realize that the physics only behave correctly with the 25 fps limit enabled. It's a good game, but damn, the GTA 3 engine is a sloppy mess.

I could get San Andreas to go *sometimes* like this with my Core 2 Quad - I had to set it to Windows 98 or Windows 2000 mode, and then restrict the main process to Core 0 in Task Manager, and even then it would crash quite a lot on attempting to start up. "Sloppy mess" is a very good way to describe it... 🙄

The real bummer is that the performance requirements for San Andreas aren't that bad - it isn't like the computer had particular trouble running it (unlike say, Grand Theft Auto 4 🙁 ) - full maximum settings at very high resolutions was never really an issue, if I could get the game to actually start-up and run. 😵 Personally I just stick to running those games on PlayStation - much less issues that way. But if I had to get it going on XP again, I'd go for a single core chip if possible - I don't remember Vice City or GTA3 ever having issues with my Pentium 4 at least. 😐

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Under XP, a decent Sound Card still mattered. Not because of the DAC, but because sound was rendered in hardware. The best cards […]
Show full quote

bestemor wrote:

Somewhat off-topic, but...
Not having bought a 'modern' sound card for ages, anyone have some input on what decent/good PCI-e cards still available in webshops, that also have (non-sucking) XP-drivers ?

Under XP, a decent Sound Card still mattered. Not because of the DAC, but because sound was rendered in hardware. The best cards for XP are the last PCIe Titanium X-Fi card. But NOT the the Titanium HD. It does not work under XP.

Whenever I see a cheap Titanium on eBay I grab it.

One thing you MUST try is a Titanium in headphone with CMSS-3D enabled and some decent EAX games like Splinter Cell Chaos Theory, BF2142. Positional sound like that is a thing of the past. Under the current Windows it's all software and all you get is 5.1, but no real audio rendering.

Agreed. 😀 It's also worth noting that all of the "true" X-Fi boards (meaning it has EMU20kx as its DSP - the Titanium HD is not among these, you also want to avoid "XtremeAudio" and anything else with a CA-0xx chipset at its core; at least if you want hardware EAX rendering) will have the same processing features and capabilities; output quality differences between them are fairly slight from what I remember too (that is, the fancy PCI cards and the fancy PCIe cards all measure very very well). I know the Titanium is a popular choice, but the Fatal1ty, Platinum, Prelude, and Elite series for PCI are equivalent save for being PCI based. Some of them have more elaborate break-out boxes as well - I think the Platinum is the last Sound Blaster to support the conventional "Live Drive" and the Elite has its own break-out box with a slew of features (like the Audigy 2 and 4 Pro cards). The Audigy 2 and later also support EAX 4.0 and CMSS-3D, which is nearly the same in practice given how few titles actually support EAX 5 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_ga … hat_support_EAX). Also all of these cards have had Dolby Digital Live ported onto them by now, which is another nice feature to have. Why oh why Microsoft had to entirely gut the audio from Vista and onwards is one of those great questions for the ages... 😢