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First post, by Luke4838P

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Good day.
I am looking to build a PC that is windows xp era for gaming, i have some ideas but i need to complete it.
I wanted to use Pentium IV 3.6 Ghz socket 775, 2mb cache, 800 fsb as cpu.
4 gb ram.
Pci-e gpu.
Sb live! 5.1 pci sound card.
Now, i need to have advice on a good motherboard that has both Ide and plenty of Sata connectors (SATA for HDDs and Ide for CD-drives), floppy drive support,pci-e x16, at least 3 pci slots (better if 4), integrated usb connectors and support to upgrade cpu with dual core.
What gpu can I use to run all the games from early 2000s to mid 2000s?
This machine will be used for gaming so I need the best specs for this.

Reply 1 of 15, by RandomStranger

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There are a lot of budget cards that can do the job.
GT240; 9600GT; GT640; HD4670; HD5670; HD6670
These are abundant and have decent performance for the mid-2000s while modest in power consumption/heat production.
The Pentium 4 however will make your PC a furnace. You'd be better off even with a Pentium Dual Core E2220.
As for mainboard, anything that can feed the CPU should do fine. For example a ASUS P5Q Pro. I think that one can handle any s775 CPU and has all the SATA ports in the world.

sreq.png retrogamer-s.png

Reply 2 of 15, by zapbuzz

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RandomStranger wrote on 2022-07-25, 10:13:
There are a lot of budget cards that can do the job. GT240; 9600GT; GT640; HD4670; HD5670; HD6670 These are abundant and have de […]
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There are a lot of budget cards that can do the job.
GT240; 9600GT; GT640; HD4670; HD5670; HD6670
These are abundant and have decent performance for the mid-2000s while modest in power consumption/heat production.
The Pentium 4 however will make your PC a furnace. You'd be better off even with a Pentium Dual Core E2220.
As for mainboard, anything that can feed the CPU should do fine. For example a ASUS P5Q Pro. I think that one can handle any s775 CPU and has all the SATA ports in the world.

I have to agree about the Pentium 4 heat production but I would stick on Pentium 4 for games such as sim city 3000 that hates multi cores and maybe others ... perhaps there could be a thread of those multi core hater games. some games hated windows xp x64 because they couldn't inject code into the kernel 🤣 deftineately a shame injecting code was a messy buisness left pc's unstable.

Reply 3 of 15, by Sombrero

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RandomStranger wrote on 2022-07-25, 10:13:

The Pentium 4 however will make your PC a furnace. You'd be better off even with a Pentium Dual Core E2220.

D0 stepping variant Cedar Mill's are 65W TDP, so they are fine. Though their Tcase max is lower than with the 86W models, around 64,5°C vs ~69°C so still a good idea not to cheap out on the heatsink like I did with my P4 rig 🤣

Edit: @Luke4838P, Pentium 4 HT 661 SL9KD is the 3.6GHz 65W Cedar Mill P4 if that's the one you want.

Reply 4 of 15, by dionb

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Do you have the luxury of a wide range of P4 So775 motherboards available to you? If not it might be a better idea to work the other way round, see what is available and which of those suits your needs...

Then there's OS support. Which OS do you want to run? Windows XP will work on just about anything from this period, but you might be limited with newer OSs. Conversely, Win98SE doesn't play nice with PCIe chipset - but I doubt you'd be looking at that for this period. Also note that floppy support is likely to be single 3.5" floppy support, no dual floppies, no 5.25".

As a rule of thumb, any dual-channel Intel 9xx chipset would probably be fine, but YMMV depending on requirements. "I need the best specs" vs retro is also a bit of an oxymoron. It's old stuff. By definition it's not the fastest - any Core2Duo would wipe the floor with the best P4/D regardless of motherboard, let alone vs anything modern (which could run 2000-mid 2000s games perfectly). So you should question needing the ultimate high-end thing from any given period - that means hot, noisy and prone to failure because it stresses components more than an entry-level part from next generations that could deliver comparable performance (and that really is the case here - a Wolfdale Pentium Dual Core would wipe the floor with the fastest Pentium D Extreme Edition).

Reply 5 of 15, by Luke4838P

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RandomStranger wrote on 2022-07-25, 10:13:
There are a lot of budget cards that can do the job. GT240; 9600GT; GT640; HD4670; HD5670; HD6670 These are abundant and have de […]
Show full quote

There are a lot of budget cards that can do the job.
GT240; 9600GT; GT640; HD4670; HD5670; HD6670
These are abundant and have decent performance for the mid-2000s while modest in power consumption/heat production.
The Pentium 4 however will make your PC a furnace. You'd be better off even with a Pentium Dual Core E2220.
As for mainboard, anything that can feed the CPU should do fine. For example a ASUS P5Q Pro. I think that one can handle any s775 CPU and has all the SATA ports in the world.

I will also need a good psu to give the mainboard the power it needs.
Pentium IV late models develop less heat and consume less energy.
I considered the 3.8 Ghz Pentium IV (the most powerful) but there's too much power and heat from that cpu, while the 661 Pentium IV 3.6 Ghz is way more efficient and develops little heat.
I intend to play games from late 90s up to 2008-2009 (always considering specs requiments), like Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, that were optimized for single core cpu PC's.

I already have a xp build with a pentium IV 2.8 Ghz with a ge force 210 (1 gb ddr3) and 4 gb of ddr ram, it has nice performance but I want a gaming pc from that era.

dionb wrote on 2022-07-25, 11:23:

Do you have the luxury of a wide range of P4 So775 motherboards available to you? If not it might be a better idea to work the other way round, see what is available and which of those suits your needs...

Then there's OS support. Which OS do you want to run? Windows XP will work on just about anything from this period, but you might be limited with newer OSs. Conversely, Win98SE doesn't play nice with PCIe chipset - but I doubt you'd be looking at that for this period. Also note that floppy support is likely to be single 3.5" floppy support, no dual floppies, no 5.25".

As a rule of thumb, any dual-channel Intel 9xx chipset would probably be fine, but YMMV depending on requirements. "I need the best specs" vs retro is also a bit of an oxymoron. It's old stuff. By definition it's not the fastest - any Core2Duo would wipe the floor with the best P4/D regardless of motherboard, let alone vs anything modern (which could run 2000-mid 2000s games perfectly). So you should question needing the ultimate high-end thing from any given period - that means hot, noisy and prone to failure because it stresses components more than an entry-level part from next generations that could deliver comparable performance (and that really is the case here - a Wolfdale Pentium Dual Core would wipe the floor with the fastest Pentium D Extreme Edition).

I need to buy the motherboard but I need advice on the one that gives me the best performance for a mid 2000s gaming pc.
I want to use xp as it had the longest life and excellent support of almost everything, from late 90s games to late 2000s/early 2010s.
The gaming pc I'm building it must have at least 4 gb of ram.
The graphics card should be also a good one that can keep up with the cpu.
I want an authentic gaming pc build with XP that was designed for single core cpu PC's.
The motherboard chipset that supports upgrading can help me with a possibility to switch to newer models and improving the performance.

Reply 6 of 15, by psychofox

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Sb Live replace with Audigy or Audigy 2 (these can be used in DOS too if needed) or X- Fi. These cards have much cleaner output than Live. And newer version of EAX !

Reply 7 of 15, by dionb

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Luke4838P wrote on 2022-07-26, 08:25:

[...]
I need to buy the motherboard but I need advice on the one that gives me the best performance for a mid 2000s gaming pc.

In that case you want an Athlon64 or Pentium M, not a Pentium 4. Late Pentium 4 was a very hot-running dead-end, overtaken by both Intel's own mobile offerings (for which desktop boards were available) and AMD's hammer.

But that aside, my point was rather that you don't exactly have shops with hundreds of different 20-year old boards. If I say "GA-G1975X is the best motherboard for you", can you instantly find and buy it for an acceptable price? Probably not (in this case there are examples on eBay, but for hundreds of EUR - silly money). Moreover, unless you have very, very specific requirements - which you don't - almost anything with your target chipset(s) will be fine. So again: it makes a lot more sense for you to indicate which 2005-era boards you can easily and cheaply get your hands on, and then we can say which is the best match, rather than us telling you to get unobtainium. Which period boards can you easily get hold of?

I want to use xp as it had the longest life and excellent support of almost everything, from late 90s games to late 2000s/early 2010s.
The gaming pc I'm building it must have at least 4 gb of ram.

Windows XP 32b can't use more than 4GB of RAM, so 'at least' doesn't make sense. Windows XP 64b is an oddity with limited hardware and software support. If you want >4GB RAM, you need proper 64b support and you should look at Windows 7 (or Vista, if you are a masochist).

The graphics card should be also a good one that can keep up with the cpu.

One or two? This was an era when SLI and Crossfire were beginning, and you wanted "the best performance". Choosing one of those (or not) could help narrow down motherboard choice - and GPU - as they weren't all interoperable back then.

I want an authentic gaming pc build with XP that was designed for single core cpu PC's.
The motherboard chipset that supports upgrading can help me with a possibility to switch to newer models and improving the performance.

Upgrading to what? Again, games from this era will run on a current i7/Ryzen. The only reason for not running them on the current system is because you want that 'authentic gaming pc build' - so focus on that, on the specific era/system you want, not on potential upgrades. That's relevant for new systems, not retro stuff.

Reply 8 of 15, by Sombrero

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dionb wrote on 2022-07-26, 09:58:

In that case you want an Athlon64 or Pentium M, not a Pentium 4. Late Pentium 4 was a very hot-running dead-end, overtaken by both Intel's own mobile offerings (for which desktop boards were available) and AMD's hammer.

Again, 65W D0 Cedar Mill's aren't any hotter than dual core C2D's, it's like P4's scarred some people here for life 🤣

A dead end they might have been, can't argue with that, but there' still fun to be had with the late P4's, when used for the right purpose.

Luke4838P wrote on 2022-07-26, 08:25:

I intend to play games from late 90s up to 2008-2009 (always considering specs requiments), like Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, that were optimized for single core cpu PC's.

But this isn't the right purpose, Cedar Mills are equivalent of Prescott 600-series in terms of speed and they were released early 2005. The P4 HT 651 3.4GHz I've got already limits games like Far Cry (quite badly, no chance of stable 60fps) and Unreal Tournament 2004 (onslaught mode can drop to ~40 occasionally, otherwise runs well), both from 2004. You will not have a good time with later games like Oblivion. Seems to me you really should go C2D and just force earlier games to use only one CPU core when you happen to run in to one that doesn't like multiple cores.

Reply 9 of 15, by Jura Tastatura

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If you go XP and LGA775 route, then use the best cpu your MBO supports. XP runs great on C2D hardware. Pair it with GTX260 or GTX280 and you have a PC that can run any XP game with max details.

Reply 10 of 15, by RandomStranger

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The GTX260 and 280 are fast period correct cards, but I'd go a little further and get something like a GTX550 Ti. Same performance with a lot less heat production and you get away with 1×6pin power connector rather than 2×6 pin or 1×6+8pin.

sreq.png retrogamer-s.png

Reply 11 of 15, by TrashPanda

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RandomStranger wrote on 2022-07-26, 12:45:

The GTX260 and 280 are fast period correct cards, but I'd go a little further and get something like a GTX550 Ti. Same performance with a lot less heat production and you get away with 1×6pin power connector rather than 2×6 pin or 1×6+8pin.

*points to the two GTX 295s in SLI ...however if you want old style muscle that looks cool as fuck, might need a 790i board unless OP likes to mess with modded nVidia drivers for Intel chipset boards.

Sure a GTX 550ti is ok ..but its like a 4 cylinder ricer box ...cheap and fast but zero style.

Reply 12 of 15, by RandomStranger

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TrashPanda wrote on 2022-07-26, 15:24:

Sure a GTX 550ti is ok ..but its like a 4 cylinder ricer box ...cheap and fast but zero style.

Did you just insult my XP/Vista build? 😁

sreq.png retrogamer-s.png

Reply 13 of 15, by TrashPanda

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RandomStranger wrote on 2022-07-26, 16:16:
TrashPanda wrote on 2022-07-26, 15:24:

Sure a GTX 550ti is ok ..but its like a 4 cylinder ricer box ...cheap and fast but zero style.

Did you just insult my XP/Vista build? 😁

Not really .. some people like Ricer cars 😁

Reply 14 of 15, by dionb

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TrashPanda wrote on 2022-07-26, 16:56:
RandomStranger wrote on 2022-07-26, 16:16:
TrashPanda wrote on 2022-07-26, 15:24:

Sure a GTX 550ti is ok ..but its like a 4 cylinder ricer box ...cheap and fast but zero style.

Did you just insult my XP/Vista build? 😁

Not really .. some people like Ricer cars 😁

Maybe we can put an oversized spoiler on a typical 200x-era ATX case... 😉

Reply 15 of 15, by Jura Tastatura

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dionb wrote on 2022-07-26, 19:51:
TrashPanda wrote on 2022-07-26, 16:56:
RandomStranger wrote on 2022-07-26, 16:16:

Did you just insult my XP/Vista build? 😁

Not really .. some people like Ricer cars 😁

Maybe we can put an oversized spoiler on a typical 200x-era ATX case... 😉

Or just go mad with rgb lights and fans. 😁

Anyway, I believe I've read here on Vogons that GTX2XX cards are the best for XP gaming regarding compatibility. Ain't that true?