Shagittarius wrote on 2024-05-05, 17:26:

Personally I think anything older than 64bit as far as CPUs go is retro.

There were 64-bit computers with SSE3 and PCIe slots as early as 2004 (20 years ago). I have such a machine in use as a file server.

The Windows 11 TPM 2.0 requirement is a big problem, though. That's what is going to finally render these computers retro.

RandomStranger wrote on 2024-05-08, 11:53:

kolderman wrote on 2024-05-08, 11:25:

I think we are blurring the line between retro and vintage here. Although i don't think a p4 is necessarily retro either. But clearly a p2 with 3 isa slots running win95 and playing midi music is a retro pc.

The line was always blurry. Depends if you define retro by age, function or something else. Even Prescotts rached 20 years of age and the latest introduced models are 19 (+1 year if Cedar Mill is included) and they were discontinued just 3 months shy of 16 years ago. So based on age a strong case could be made that at least s478 platforms should be fully considered retro. Based on function a strong case could be made that platforms with AGP should be considered retro. Based on something else... well, I consider the entirety of the XP era (the end of mainstream support is Q2 2009) retro.

ahhhh i still use XP as my main OS!

Errius wrote on 2024-05-08, 13:13:

The Windows 11 TPM 2.0 requirement is a big problem, though. That's what is going to finally render these computers retro.

But install anyways without tpm and all this stuff, at least for now

Rufus allows TPM bypass. Heck, they even allow you to skip the setup questions, or so I recall seeing recently.

Errius wrote on 2024-05-08, 13:13:

The Windows 11 TPM 2.0 requirement is a big problem, though. That's what is going to finally render these computers retro.

The TPM requirement is BS. The more concerning requirement is the 8th gen Intel processor requirement. (Every processor that meets the processor requirement, plus a whole bunch that don't like my i7-7700, have fTPMs) But that's also BS, at least for now. If you disable the check for those hardware features (or use something like Rufus which will do it for you), Windows 11 will work just fine on... pretty much all x64 machines that could run 10.

Doesn't need UEFI. Doesn't need secure boot. Doesn't need TPM. Doesn't need 8th gen Intel or whatever the equivalent AMD is. Oldest machine I've tried 11 on is a 45nm C2Q with a P43/ICH10R board. Runs just fine.

Fundamentally, they never told the engineering team "hey guys, the new baseline is X", so the engineering team hasn't actually put in any hard dependencies on any of those things. What they did tell the engineering team is not to compile it for 32-bit systems. But ultimately, MS reserves the right to ship a monthly patch that will break it on any machine without those, so certainly if you're a business user, you can't gamble on running 11 unsupportedly. And if you're a not-too-technical home user who barely uses a PC anymore and you get gloomy warnings from MS about impending malware doom when 10 falls out of support, this may be the nudge that gets you to go all-smartphone-centric.

Now, the word on the street is that the next big build (24H2? Windows 12? Who knows what it will be shipped as...) will require some CPU instructions that will leave the 45nm C2Q behind.

VivienM wrote on 2024-05-09, 01:57:

The TPM requirement is BS. The more concerning requirement is the 8th gen Intel processor requirement. (Every processor that mee […]
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Errius wrote on 2024-05-08, 13:13:

The Windows 11 TPM 2.0 requirement is a big problem, though. That's what is going to finally render these computers retro.

The TPM requirement is BS. The more concerning requirement is the 8th gen Intel processor requirement. (Every processor that meets the processor requirement, plus a whole bunch that don't like my i7-7700, have fTPMs) But that's also BS, at least for now. If you disable the check for those hardware features (or use something like Rufus which will do it for you), Windows 11 will work just fine on... pretty much all x64 machines that could run 10.

Doesn't need UEFI. Doesn't need secure boot. Doesn't need TPM. Doesn't need 8th gen Intel or whatever the equivalent AMD is. Oldest machine I've tried 11 on is a 45nm C2Q with a P43/ICH10R board. Runs just fine.

Fundamentally, they never told the engineering team "hey guys, the new baseline is X", so the engineering team hasn't actually put in any hard dependencies on any of those things. What they did tell the engineering team is not to compile it for 32-bit systems. But ultimately, MS reserves the right to ship a monthly patch that will break it on any machine without those, so certainly if you're a business user, you can't gamble on running 11 unsupportedly. And if you're a not-too-technical home user who barely uses a PC anymore and you get gloomy warnings from MS about impending malware doom when 10 falls out of support, this may be the nudge that gets you to go all-smartphone-centric.

Now, the word on the street is that the next big build (24H2? Windows 12? Who knows what it will be shipped as...) will require some CPU instructions that will leave the 45nm C2Q behind.

Thanks! Glad the Win10 2019 v1809 LTSC has 10 year Extended date of 2029-01-09 but the 2021 version only has a 5 year:)
" Important: Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021 has a 5 year lifecycle. (IoT Enterprise LTSC continues to have a 10 year lifecycle). Thus, the LTSC 2021 release is not a direct replacement for LTSC 2019, which has a 10 year lifecycle."
"Windows 11 LTSC: It's important for organizations to have adequate time to plan for adopting Windows 11. Today we're announcing that the next Windows LTSC releases will be available in the second half of 2024:
Windows 11 Enterprise LTSC
Windows 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC
We'll provide more details as we get closer to availability."
Guess we might be looking for a Win11 LTSC or similar sometime but bet MS eff's it up...

Sorry to be a bit sarcastic (and off topic) but... what about stopping using Windows ?

Do you like ads in you start menu ? Unpatched exploited critical bugs for month ? "Telemetry" (which is really much like collecting your data). Integration of components you can'disable (assistant, ai...). I guess a lot of people like @theelf are still using older machines for everyday use. Microsoft is forcing you trash your perfectly sufficient setup.

I use a 1 st gen I7 with Linux Mint for non gaming tasks and a Steam Deck for games. The company I work for offers the 3 OS choices for your laptop (Windows, Linux, OS X) but almost no tech people pick Windows.

There is nothing professional in Windows. Nothing groundbreaking anymore. They're just trying to suck every penny they can out of their monopoly. Soon you will have to pay windows as a monthly subscription

acl wrote on 2024-05-09, 07:15:

Sorry to be a bit sarcastic (and off topic) but... what about stopping using Windows ?

In my case, i really like windows, enjoy using windows as my every day OS

But still use XP , vista+ sucks...

theelf wrote on 2024-05-09, 07:24:

acl wrote on 2024-05-09, 07:15:

Sorry to be a bit sarcastic (and off topic) but... what about stopping using Windows ?

In my case, i really like windows, enjoy using windows as my every day OS

But still use XP , vista+ sucks...

me too, for older systems especially. for a newer system or an aging but still capable 64bit system i'm happy enough with linux mint.

the PC and laptop markets are still growing apparently and set to continue for a few years, though i think the definition must be getting broader

if you look at market share % (https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/de … y-200901-202404) over the long term then windows is slowly declining and mac os is slowly rising, but that's all - and against a backdrop of increasing numbers of PC/laptops they're probably not suffering in license numbers

i thought maybe the old standard of a PC might have faded more by now as other devices take over - but it seems maybe not

in any case a P4 can span from DOS to Windows 10 and take a linux of two on the way 😀 still pretty good while being vintage enough

I think the Pentium 4 is not underrated for anything.. If anything, it is pretty overrated historically and on VOGONS.

appiah4 wrote on 2024-05-09, 09:36:

I think the Pentium 4 is not underrated for anything.. If anything, it is pretty overrated historically and on VOGONS.

I agree. To me, the P4 platforms are simply boring. They do work well for the most part, but there's simply nothing special about them.
They're not particularly good for Win XP, they are far from ideal for DOS and while they are very good for Win98, so are many other platforms out there (which also come with other advantages).

bloodem wrote on 2024-05-09, 10:08:

appiah4 wrote on 2024-05-09, 09:36:

I think the Pentium 4 is not underrated for anything.. If anything, it is pretty overrated historically and on VOGONS.

I agree. To me, the P4 platforms are simply boring. They do work well for the most part, but there's simply nothing special about them.
They're not particularly good for Win XP, they are far from ideal for DOS and while they are very good for Win98, so are many other platforms out there (which also come with other advantages).

overrated? boring? won't anyone think of the hyper-threads ! 😀

well i guess they are often on boards that have less backwards/dos compatibility than many older boards for p2/3

always found them good for windows XP though, unless you mean later 64bit cpus are faster (they are, but XP is fine on p4 in my experience)

The P4 was trash when it was introduced and it's still trash now. There were better options when it came out, and there are still better options now.

Honestly, if you want an Intel, stick to the really solid P3 or go right on to the Core series. Skip the P4 entirely. AMD had a solid range of options (XP/MP and then the later 64/X2) that were arguably better, too.

About the only reason you could possibly want a P4 based system now is that short of a (very, very) small number of bespoke industrial boards for Core processors, they are the fastest mainstream boards that were/are available that have fully working ISA / ISA DMA implementations.

Late P4 platform, as a whole system and not just CPU, is better than Athlon XP. And arguably could be better than Athlon 64, when you consider the sorry state of AGP options for Socket 754/939.

Only problem with P4 rings is high power consumption. Like my computer systems to be 65W or less cpu so AMD APU or Core2Duo. And retro systems to be 40W or less so max is P3.

Somehow my main computer has become a 2year old 125EUR Xiaomi Redmi Note 11. With microUSB to USB3 adapter. And my latest AMD A10 comuter is usually offline. All older system are allways offline. Data transfers with USB. SD2IDE. FlashFloppy. Some older CF2IDE.

bloodem wrote on 2024-05-09, 10:08:

I agree. To me, the P4 platforms are simply boring. They do work well for the most part, but there's simply nothing special about them.
They're not particularly good for Win XP, they are far from ideal for DOS and while they are very good for Win98, so are many other platforms out there (which also come with other advantages).

I noticed they've been called "boring" a couple in this thread.

Taking into account industrial boards with ISA slots, I think as an "all-in-one" system they are anything but boring. I think there are a lot of interesting and mostly under-explored hardware combinations in that respect. Including being a surprisingly good DOS system.

Cyberdyne wrote on 2024-05-09, 12:28:

Only problem with P4 rings is high power consumption. Like my computer systems to be 65W or less cpu so AMD APU or Core2Duo.

There are P4 chips with TDP ratings of 65W or less. This is comparable to AMD and Core2 processors.

This is what I mentioned in the OP that it seems the power hungry chips seems to have tarnished the entire P4 line as being, well, power hungry. But in actuality not all P4 chips are.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-05-09, 12:33:

Cyberdyne wrote on 2024-05-09, 12:28:

Only problem with P4 rings is high power consumption. Like my computer systems to be 65W or less cpu so AMD APU or Core2Duo.

There are P4 chips with TDP ratings of 65W or less. This is what I mentioned in the OP that it seems the power hungry chips seems to have tarnished the entire P4 line as being, well, power hungry. But in actuality not all P4 chips are.

65W P4 versus 65W Core2. One is underpowered. One is pretti usable even today. I surf the net sometimes with my C2D 8600 3GHz 64W 4GB W7 Firefox and it works just fine and snappy. I can not say it about a dual core 3GHz Pentium 4 in over 100W. I have one of those animals in storage.

Cyberdyne wrote on 2024-05-09, 12:39:

65W P4 versus 65W Core2. One is underpowered. One is pretti usable even today.

That depends on use case. In the context of retro computing (e.g. 90s stuff) the P4 isn't under powered at all.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-05-09, 12:42:

Cyberdyne wrote on 2024-05-09, 12:39:

65W P4 versus 65W Core2. One is underpowered. One is pretti usable even today.

That depends on use case. In the context of retro computing (e.g. 90s stuff) the P4 isn't under powered at all.

Well yes if you do not have something better. Just for me the era of P4 and the era of early AMD 64bit is dead. I jumped from a souped up AMD Athlon XP ISA motherboard to a late Core2 that I still have. Usually like to transfer to mature and good platforms.P166MMX to BX P3 500 to AMD Athlon XP to Core2Duo to late AMD A10. All cheap and mature end of production.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2024-05-09, 12:15:

Late P4 platform is a better than Athlon XP, as a whole system, not just CPU. And arguably could be better than Athlon 64, when you consider the sorry state of AGP options for Socket 754/939.

What exactly are the sorry AGP options for Socket 754/939?