OMG, I think I love your computer.
You've absolutely nailed it in every way, from Devil's Canyon to the 980 Ti driving that awesome CRT. Even the SSD is right up there at MBR's maximum 2TB capacity limit. And you even have the Classic theme going so that XP's intense visuals don't bog down your 4970K! 😜

Just 10/10, man.

This is insanely nice. I love & hate that your specs are almost the same as my daily driver 😂 this is a gorgeous build and I see a lot things I would have done the same way which makes me really love it. It's small, clean, the desk setup and CRT are excellent. Software side is very clean as well and I see a lot of my favorite games in your games folder. Another 10/10 from me.

What resolution/refresh rate do you run the monitor at? I bet it's extremely snappy. I remember using those at school and they're really solid.

I love this. I've had this motherboard sitting around with a 4790k for a long time trying to decide what to do with it. I think i found my plan haha. Although i'm not gonna deal with a SFF case, but i'm very into retro builds and have 486, Pentium Pro 200, AMD K6-2 550 (2x Voodoo2 12mb), etc... and i just don't have an XP build. I think it's time 😀

Do you have specifics on the mini pci-e extension cable used for the sound card? I've never used one and there are plenty out there to buy. Which did you use?

Beautiful. Absolutely well done.

Does a case that big count as SFF?
I would have thought it was a bit on the bulky side for SFF.

That's a great system there very well done. That will be hours and hours of awesome XP era games at max settings.

Fantastic build. Reminds me of Next hardware.

how did you get that PCIe Card working?

do you use something like this?
https://www.adt.link/mpcie.html

bbusse wrote on 2023-08-01, 03:06:

Do you have specifics on the mini pci-e extension cable used for the sound card? I've never used one and there are plenty out there to buy. Which did you use?

GokuSS4 wrote on 2023-11-13, 01:10:

how did you get that PCIe Card working?

I used a Mini PCI-E to PCI-E adapter - specifically this one: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07SWX4C5B .
I used two PCI-E 1X extension cables to connect to the sound card. Could have used a single, longer one, but meh - this works and looks good enough. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07J2BJPDN

Cosmic wrote on 2023-06-16, 16:44:

What resolution/refresh rate do you run the monitor at? I bet it's extremely snappy. I remember using those at school and they're really solid.

I was running at either 1024x768@85hz or 1280x1024@75hz. The monitor could handle both, but the 980 Ti's analog output can have noticeable artifacts depending on the frame rate (wavy lines).

However - I recently upgraded my main PC's display to an ASUS ROG PG42UQ OLED (firmware v040) and decided to also switch this SFF XP build to it. I particularly chose this display as it's one of the only OLED's with a DisplayPort and Linux is my main OS. AMD's Linux driver doesn't have full support for HDMI 2.1 and cannot output full RGB 4k@120hz with VRR - thus my main rig is connected to the DisplayPort.

I have the SFF XP rig connected using a DisplayPort 1.4 to HDMI 2.1 adapter. Downgrading the NVIDIA driver from 368.81 to 355.98 exposed the ability to add custom resolutions in Windows XP. I primarily use either 1600x1200@120hz or 1920x1080@120hz depending on the game.

All in all much nicer than the CRT I used previously. No analog artifacts, much higher resolutions/refresh rates, and frees up some office space. I also managed to connect my WIP Quadro 980 XGL and Voodoo 5500 build to this display without issue (both over DVI to HDMI). More on that in the future in another post...

Some additional hardware I use in this setup:

• Extron SW4 USB switch
• Beni_Skate's Automatic SPDIF switch with built-in DAC (currently only connected to the SFF RIG)
• Behringer UMC404HD audio interface (primary desktop connected via USB, SFF XP connected via to the analog output of the SPDIF switch)

nvllsvm wrote on 2023-12-16, 22:13:

I was running at either 1024x768@85hz or 1280x1024@75hz. The monitor could handle both, but the 980 Ti's analog output can have […]
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Cosmic wrote on 2023-06-16, 16:44:

What resolution/refresh rate do you run the monitor at? I bet it's extremely snappy. I remember using those at school and they're really solid.

I was running at either 1024x768@85hz or 1280x1024@75hz. The monitor could handle both, but the 980 Ti's analog output can have noticeable artifacts depending on the frame rate (wavy lines).

However - I recently upgraded my main PC's display to an ASUS ROG PG42UQ OLED (firmware v040) and decided to also switch this SFF XP build to it. I particularly chose this display as it's one of the only OLED's with a DisplayPort and Linux is my main OS. AMD's Linux driver doesn't have full support for HDMI 2.1 and cannot output full RGB 4k@120hz with VRR - thus my main rig is connected to the DisplayPort.

I have the SFF XP rig connected using a DisplayPort 1.4 to HDMI 2.1 adapter. Downgrading the NVIDIA driver from 368.81 to 355.98 exposed the ability to add custom resolutions in Windows XP. I primarily use either 1600x1200@120hz or 1920x1080@120hz depending on the game.

All in all much nicer than the CRT I used previously. No analog artifacts, much higher resolutions/refresh rates, and frees up some office space. I also managed to connect my WIP Quadro 980 XGL and Voodoo 5500 build to this display without issue (both over DVI to HDMI). More on that in the future in another post...

My goodness that's a setup. I've never seen XP on an OLED. You're really taking this to the max, not just in specs but the whole setup is extremely clean. Nobody could have had such a nice setup at the time.

What do you do with the monitoring speakers? Just listening to music? They look super nice. I've always been a fan of nice discrete audio. I previously rocked Emotiva XM4s + Indeed Audio class T amp + FiiO DAC + Xonar PCI card over TOSLINK. It was a badass setup.

If you get a chance I would really like to see the results from your Quadro 980 XGL. I recently upgraded my P3 rig from a 700 XGL to a 900 XGL (slight clock boost plus 64MB -> 128MB VRAM) and I'm still testing it, but the 980 XGL is a dream card for me. Probably wouldn't help much in my rig, but still a very cool card that you have.

nvllsvm wrote on 2023-06-15, 20:20:

Notes This system triple boots Windows XP Professional (32-bit), Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit), and SystemRescue and uses GRUB as […]
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Notes
This system triple boots Windows XP Professional (32-bit), Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit), and SystemRescue and uses GRUB as a boot menu. I temporarily connected a SATA DVD drive to perfrom the Windows installs (unmodified Microsoft discs). The fresh installs (no drivers) were then backed up using SystemRescue to hopefully avoid needing to reconnect the optical drive.

Everything works flawlessly. Temps never exceed 65C (CPU & GPU) and the system runs fairly quiet (except for the GPU's coil whine under heavy load).

This is one sleek-looking desk setup. Loving it. Impressive game list as well. The only thing I would need changed here is the keyboard (I need them full-sized, with a numpad).

Cosmic wrote on 2023-12-17, 00:33:

What do you do with the monitoring speakers? Just listening to music? They look super nice.

I mainly use them for casual listening, though I originally bought them for making music.

Cosmic wrote on 2023-12-17, 00:33:

If you get a chance I would really like to see the results from your Quadro 980 XGL. I recently upgraded my P3 rig from a 700 XGL to a 900 XGL (slight clock boost plus 64MB -> 128MB VRAM) and I'm still testing it, but the 980 XGL is a dream card for me. Probably wouldn't help much in my rig, but still a very cool card that you have.

Sure - I'll post a link here when I create that thread. The that build is currently on-hold until my IDE emulator order arrives. The 980 XGL is definitely a great card from the brief testing I've done with it.

Just added a PiKVM ATX control port so I can relocate the system to my server closet about 50ft away. The 980 Ti's coil whine no longer bothers me 😆.

New external components:

• USB over CAT extender
• SPDIF over CAT extender
• 50ft HDMI 2.1 cable

nvllsvm wrote on 2023-06-15, 20:20:

Hardware […]
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Hardware

• Case: FormD T1 (sandwich v2.0) (w/ 2x Noctua 120x25mm exhaust fans)
• Motherboard: ASRock Z97E-ITX/ac
• CPU: Intel 4790k (w/ Coollaboratory Liquid Pro TIM)
• CPU Cooler: Thermalright AXP90-X47 Full (w/ Noctua 92x14mm intake fan)
• GPU: GIGABYTE GTX 980 Ti G1 (deshrouded w/ 3x Noctua 92x14mm intake fans)
• Memory: 16GB (2x8GB) G.SKILL F3-1600C9D-16GXM
• Power Supply: 750w Corsair SF750 SFX
• SSD: 2TB Samsung 870 EVO (IDE mode)
• Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium

Notes
This system triple boots Windows XP Professional (32-bit), Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit), and SystemRescue and uses GRUB as a boot menu. I temporarily connected a SATA DVD drive to perfrom the Windows installs (unmodified Microsoft discs). The fresh installs (no drivers) were then backed up using SystemRescue to hopefully avoid needing to reconnect the optical drive.

Everything works flawlessly. Temps never exceed 65C (CPU & GPU) and the system runs fairly quiet (except for the GPU's coil whine under heavy load).

20230614.png

Why not the x64 version of XP?

I'm guessing it's for the usual reasons... backwards compatibility, barely any benefits for XP era software, and whenever 64 bits are necessary there's always Win7

Skeleton2323 wrote on 2023-12-30, 22:24:

Why not the x64 version of XP?

I have no reason to use Windows XP 64bit. The only potential benefit I can imagine is the ability to run the exclusive Far Cry 64bit patches, though I prefer the vanilla look of the game.

I decided to move back to using my CRT (Dell M782) with this machine. The artifacts I was seeing was due to analog interference. It wasn't that bad with the CRT connected directly to this PC, but became prominent when using it with an Extron SW4 VGA switch. I've mostly mitigated the issue by using a higher quality VGA cable between the switch and this PC (StarTech 3FT VGA to VGA MXT101MMHQ3). I'm also limiting the frame rate with Rivatuner Statistics Server v7.3.4 (NVIDIA driver version 355.98). With all this I typically run games at 1024x768 @ 100hz with no noticeable artifacts.

Now that's a clever idea to use the mini PCI-E slot for the Titanium ! But don't you experience any latency issue both with the video card or the sound card like this ?

I would like to make a very similar compact XP/X-Fi/32Bit build to yours in order to drive a Dell 3007WFP HC monitor in 2560 x 1600 (Yes, 1440P in 2006) and the 980Ti does not sound so overkill anymore.
Can you tell me the kind of framerate you got from EAX 5.0 compliant games back when you used it on your OLED at 1600x1200 ? I'll just have to slash the framerate in half to make up for the double resolution of that display.

Also, what kind of extreme resolutions were you able to achieve on XP with that build ? Have you tested anything at 4K@60hz though HDMI or Displayport ? Or it it limited to 4K@30hz with both outputs ? Or even less.
And of course, congrats for this compact build, it's enjoyable to see so much dedication to max out Windows XP while also striving for the smallest form factor possible.