Around this period I was using a Core 2 Duo E7200 with a Geforce 7800 GT that I built in 2007, by 2010 I was having difficulty playing games like Rainbow Six Vegas 2 and Mass Effect on any reasonable quality settings, so I upgraded to an i5 650 and a Geforce GTX 275 in early 2010, so your GTX 260 would be about perfect. For the CPU I guess one of the later Core 2 Quad's if you want to stick with 775? Throughout both rigs I used my Audigy 2 ZS that was born in my Athlon XP 3200+ build around 2005, and I still use it today (even in Windows 10) but an X-Fi would probably be more period correct 😀

I just recently built a C2Q machine using a Xeon X5460 (you can mod some 775 MBs to run them) and it covers pretty much anything XP based up to today

Yeah an X-fi would be perfect. I loved that series of creative cards.

Looks great but I would upgrade the cpu either to a Good quad core Xeon (45nm) or a 9k series quad. Just don't get a Q6600 and overclock it as that killed a lot of 680is back in the day (vrms slowly cooked).

I would get two more 8800 GTX and go tri sli or just go the easy way with a pair of 285s or a single 295 because why not plus that was sexy back in the day.

nforce4max wrote:

Looks great but I would upgrade the cpu either to a Good quad core Xeon (45nm) or a 9k series quad. Just don't get a Q6600 and overclock it as that killed a lot of 680is back in the day (vrms slowly cooked).

I would get two more 8800 GTX and go tri sli or just go the easy way with a pair of 285s or a single 295 because why not plus that was sexy back in the day.

Yeah I was originally going to get a Q6600 but I've decided when i upgrade the CPU it will be to a QX6700 (125w, 2.66GHZ, 1066 FSB) or a QX6850 (125x, 3GHZ, 1333 FSB). The QX6850 is around 50 dollars though where as the QX6700 is around 25 so It will depend on how much money i decide to put in the project and how much of a difference I think that 330 or so MHZ per core will make. I'm just worried about the 125w CPU's cooking the motherboard. Those things weren't nice to these boards when they were new. That being said:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2280/2

The guys at Anandtech got one of those beasts up to 3.9GHZ on a 680i. They were also using OCZ-PC29200 Low Latency memory though.

as for the 295, I could certainly get one for around 50 USD, but with a 9800GX2 already on hand (although I've had issues with it) I'm not sure I could justify it. A 285 might be more reasonable but I'm not sure its worth the extra cash for the performance gain it would bring over the GTX260. Maybe GTX 260 SLI? I mean i AM running an SLI board.

I would go Core i7 (first LGA 1366 are a late 2008 tech) + Radeon HD 5870 (late 2009) for "Ideal 2009 gaming rig".

For LGA 775 :
Check QX6800, it's G0 stepping and may be cheaper than QX6850 (since latter one is the fastest 65nm Intel ever made).

GTX 285 has 1GB VRAM, GTX 260 "only" 896MB.
Also, GTX 260 has two versions (192SP and 216SP).
Then we have a GTX 275 (or GTX 285 with 896MB VRAM), there are multiple options here.

This whole thread confuses and angers me.

Q6600 (or Q6700/QX6800 if you're lucky) / 8800GTX / 2GB DDR2 / WinXP x86 would make for a fast and rather compatible winXP gaming machine.

Since your CPU is a 45nm model, the board obviously supports CPUs newer than the Q6600, so I'd highly recommend going with a newer 45nm quad core.

If you're up to it, I think S771 Xeons modded to work in S775 boards offer the best value. I've done this many times and never had an issue. If the board can overclock the FSB beyond 1333Mhz without screwing with the PCIE clock, a low wattage Xeon L5420 can manage some pretty awesome things. Otherwise an E5450 is the equivalent of a Q9650, but they tend to be much cheaper.

S775 Xeons are also an option if your want to avoid modding the CPU and socket (it's quite easy but it is a little scary).

Look up the list on Wikipedia, and the mod is pretty easy to find with a Google search

... though I must admit, I don't fully understand the reason for spending money on this. Unless your plan to just keep it in storage until 2009 era systems are vintage and nostalgically valuable... there is literally nothing that a power-hog space-heater Windows Vista\7 system from 2007-2009 can do that a cheap core i5 2400 workstation with a GTX 750Ti couldn't do much better with a tiny fraction of the power and heat. Just about any somewhat recent gaming system will have no problem handling the same games that this system would. Hardware accelerated 3D sound was already gone since XP and everything is fully DX10 backward compatible now.

Ozzuneoj wrote:

Since your CPU is a 45nm model, the board obviously supports CPUs newer than the Q6600, so I'd highly recommend going with a new […]
Show full quote

Since your CPU is a 45nm model, the board obviously supports CPUs newer than the Q6600, so I'd highly recommend going with a newer 45nm quad core.

If you're up to it, I think S771 Xeons modded to work in S775 boards offer the best value. I've done this many times and never had an issue. If the board can overclock the FSB beyond 1333Mhz without screwing with the PCIE clock, a low wattage Xeon L5420 can manage some pretty awesome things. Otherwise an E5450 is the equivalent of a Q9650, but they tend to be much cheaper.

S775 Xeons are also an option if your want to avoid modding the CPU and socket (it's quite easy but it is a little scary).

Look up the list on Wikipedia, and the mod is pretty easy to find with a Google search

... though I must admit, I don't fully understand the reason for spending money on this. Unless your plan to just keep it in storage until 2009 era systems are vintage and nostalgically valuable... there is literally nothing that a power-hog space-heater Windows Vista\7 system from 2007-2009 can do that a cheap core i5 2400 workstation with a GTX 750Ti couldn't do much better with a tiny fraction of the power and heat. Just about any somewhat recent gaming system will have no problem handling the same games that this system would. Hardware accelerated 3D sound was already gone since XP and everything is fully DX10 backward compatible now.

It supports 45nm Core2 Duos, but only 65nm Core2 Quads

The point of this is experiencing high end gaming from 2009 with era correct parts. I find fun in dealing with the same BS you had to back then.

The highlight of your machine is the nice SLI board. So I would find a way to use that somehow.

Now 2009, that's quite recent. Didn't Nehalem come out in that year?

Anyway, Two GTX 285 in SLI gets my vote. And a PCI or PCIe X-Fi card.

It supports 45nm Quads, I had this excact same board 2 years ago, i put a Xeon X5460 into it.

So I'd do

Xeon x5460
Triple GTX 285 or Dual GTX 295 cards
4gb DDR2 1066
30/60gb SSD (this was the year they started to become affordable)
Windows 7 SP0

It won't support the Core2 or Xeon 775 45nm parts, but it will run 771 45nm quads

candle_86 wrote:

It supports 45nm Quads, I had this excact same board 2 years ago, i put a Xeon X5460 into it. […]
Show full quote

It supports 45nm Quads, I had this excact same board 2 years ago, i put a Xeon X5460 into it.

So I'd do

Xeon x5460
Triple GTX 285 or Dual GTX 295 cards
4gb DDR2 1066
30/60gb SSD (this was the year they started to become affordable)
Windows 7 SP0

It won't support the Core2 or Xeon 775 45nm parts, but it will run 771 45nm quads

Apparently the bios have the microcode for normal 45nm quad cores and some people have had success with them on 680i's however some have not. Maybe I'll pull my Q8400 and try it in the 680i. I don't see what harm it could do.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

candle_86 wrote:

It supports 45nm Quads, I had this excact same board 2 years ago, i put a Xeon X5460 into it. […]
Show full quote

It supports 45nm Quads, I had this excact same board 2 years ago, i put a Xeon X5460 into it.

So I'd do

Xeon x5460
Triple GTX 285 or Dual GTX 295 cards
4gb DDR2 1066
30/60gb SSD (this was the year they started to become affordable)
Windows 7 SP0

It won't support the Core2 or Xeon 775 45nm parts, but it will run 771 45nm quads

Apparently the bios have the microcode for normal 45nm quad cores and some people have had success with them on 680i's however some have not. Maybe I'll pull my Q8400 and try it in the 680i. I don't see what harm it could do.

I wouldn't test the Q8400 just go straight for a 771 Xeon. The 680I chipset isn't compatabile with 45nm Quads for Core 2 line but is with 771 Xeon, ask Nvidia why 🤣

I'm in a somewhat similar situation. I use a C2D Q6600, 4GB RAM (3.7 Usable I think?), Geforce 9800 GTX+, with Windows XP SP3 x86. I find I use this PC mostly to play games like Far Cry and Call of Duty 2, and Battlefield 2. Anything that came out in 2009 is easily playable on my modern i5 6600, 16GB DDR4 RAM, Geforce GTX 970, Windows 10 Anniversary x64.