First post, by computergeek92
Based on testing all the PC's in my collection - 1990's computers till present day, age is based on how useful a PC is in today's world. For how old a computer is in comparison to people years is based on the age of its cpu. I think the Pentium MMX 166MHz-233MHz are 65 years old - Just on their way out in terms of being useful at all on the internet. You can try to use a super light Linux like "Delicate Linux" but don't push it too hard. Pentium IIs around 233MHz-450MHz are in their late 50's to early 60's. Nowhere near as efficient as modern PCs, but there are some good linux to try like "AntiX" that are said to run well on the hardware. In todays world, P6 core cpus are usually the oldest generation to be supported under linux. Pentium IIIs 450MHz-1.4GHz are in their early to mid 50's. I can still go online With Windows XP on a Pentium III 1.0GHz with 768MB ram (More expensive PIII PC) and have OK performance, but you need to use lighter browsers like K-melion to be useful. Don't expect much online video performance. I typically get 144p video with slow framerate. I also used Zorin Linux Lite which ran good enough on the hardware. I reccomend lightweight Linux on a Pentium III equivalent PC, because after 1 month of using WinXP on a PIII with 512MB ram it got so slow I had a hard time copying to a usb drive due to so little remaining resorces. By the way, Windows XP is still very useful in 2015. Avast antivirus claims to support XP until somewhere in 2017 at least. For the remainder of this guide I'm skipping some of the newer Intel cpus since I don't use them, but Pentium 4s I used to use and most P4s are as fast as Athlon XPs. AMD Athlon XP computers (i'm using one right now!) are the minimum for a PC for typical online use without compromising much. (Around 45 years old.) You need at least 1GB of ram today if using Windows XP on the internet. Thats how much ram is with my Athlon XP 2400+ pc i'm using now. It runs pretty good considering it age being a little over 10 years chronologically. But you can't run Skype because Athlon XP lacks SSE2. Windows 7 should work as long as you have at least 2Gb ram. You could also try Linux too. Many should work acceptably. AMD Athlon 64s are relatives of the same design that the much newer Phenom IIs use. (Mid to late 30's.) Still very useful. Should do most PC tasks except high end gaming, should run Youtube too, but just make sure you have a decent video card to play 1080p. You can run Windows 7 well on this system if you have 2GB+ ram. I'm not sure if Windows 8 will run as it needs newer cpu instruction sets (SSE2, PAE, etc) But Athlon 64s have SSE2 and can be great for Skyping. All modern Linux should work, but remember that Linux has driver problems and won't work with some video chipsets, sound cards, or wireless adapters. this applies to just about all Linux versions. Early Dual cores like AMD Athlon 64 X2 or Intel Core 2 Duo are in their early 30's. Should work great for most tasks, if meeting my ram requirements said earlier. High end Intel Core 2 Quads and the very first Core i7s (2008) are in their late 20's. Still a lot of life left in those. Windows 8 should work good. as well as 7 or Linux. AMD Phenom IIs and the first AMD Bulldozer PCs are modern era cpus. (Early to mid 20's.) Brand new AMD Kaveri APU PCs and the latest Intel Core i7s produced today are 18-20 in people years. If you're unsure about what are the chronological age of some of these cpus listed, check Wikipedia. Pentium IIs are 1997-1999 and Athlon 64 were first produced in 2003, for example. Hope this long and comprehensive guide helps many people! 😀
Dedicated Windows 95 Aficionado for good reasons:
http://toastytech.com/evil/setup.html
