I would tend to put it in the outdated, still overkill for most peoples needs, but not retro yet category.

they're borderline old-school in my book. A q9550 or equivalent xeon with DDR3 and a 2009-2010 video card can still run quite a few games, but I do consider LGA 775 pentium 4/ pentium D machines retro.

It's all about perspective. Being 40ish I've seen every generation of PC in use. I don't think LGA 775 is anywhere near old school or retro. Old school to me means XT 8088 and maybe 286. Retro would be anything Pentium 3 or older. Socket 423 and 478 P4s are obsolete but not retro. I feel socket 775/771 is still serviceable, at least the Core 2 / Xeon lines.

PCIe 2.0 and DDR3 outdated? Not yet whippersnappers. 🤣

FuzzyLogic wrote:

It's all about perspective. Being 40ish I've seen every generation of PC in use. I don't think LGA 775 is anywhere near old school or retro. Old school to me means XT 8088 and maybe 286. Retro would be anything Pentium 3 or older. Socket 423 and 478 P4s are obsolete but not retro. I feel socket 775/771 is still serviceable, at least the Core 2 / Xeon lines.

PCIe 2.0 and DDR3 outdated? Not yet whippersnappers. 🤣

PCIe 2 and DDR3? That's what everybody with AMD uses. POW!

^This is true! My main pc must be a dinosaur.

Heck, I still use a DDR2 machine (Might have PCI-E 1, not sure) as a media center.

Thanks guys. I'm sure this will help him. Hopefully he doesn't do anything crazy with the new found information. 😒

Personally I think that, at this time, roughly anything using AGP can be considered retro.
DDR3 is nice, but frankly even 12GB of memory is barely enough for my daily driver with all the bloated webbrowsers these days. To me a Q6600 with 4GB DDR2 is very much obsolete for use as a daily driver, because it's too old and slow.
My current daily driver Phenom II is using around 37% CPU power at this very moment and I'm basically not doing anything intensive right now, except for listening to music, browsing the web and having lots of stuff open because I'm busy doing lots of stuff.

I do consider s370 more retro than, say, anything "Core" or more recent. Athlon XP is also retro, heck Socket A can't even be run with a modern PSU anymore, you have to get (and often repair) an old-school PSU for that. That sounds quite retro in my book.

DDR3 and PCI-e 2.0 retro/old school ?
No way.

AGP and DDR1 are 100% retro (retro = something that can't be used with todays tech, but is still fun to use).
PCI-e 1.x and DDR2 are a old school tech to me (old school meaning how we used to do things).

Explanation :
Core 2 Quad's/Core 2 Duo's and Xeon's CPUs, represent old school tech at it's finest.
They don't have IMCs, iGPUs or PCI-e controller build-in, like we have today.
They are just plain cpu die (w/L2 cache), and an interface to outside world.
BTW, how long was FSB in use (in Intel CPU's) ?
Since first Pentium III (we only added second core in 2005) ?

I agree that Pentium 4's and Pentium D's should be concidered retro at this point (even if they are paired with DDR3 and PCI-e 2.0 motherboard).

I don't know if this is a personal thing for me, but does anybody cringe when they hear the terms "Retro" and "Old School"?

I think my problem is my purism for old tech. I personally think those words are abused far too often.

I'd argue the cutoff's probably around 10 years... when tech moved faster, that might've been 5 - but now that covers Sandy Bridge - and a well equipped i5/i7 SB holds up darn well.

Ampera wrote:

I don't know if this is a personal thing for me, but does anybody cringe when they hear the terms "Retro" and "Old School"?

I think my problem is my purism for old tech. I personally think those words are abused far too often.

That may be true (word abuse).
But here's a thing : If "Old school" and "Retro" terms are reserved for pre-Pentium and up to Pentium III/Athlon XP era CPU's (arguably).
How do we call everything later (like AM2 and LGA 775), in 5 years time ?
Do we still call them "modern" because they can run 64-bit code ?

I think words meaning should be updated as technology moves forward.
It may get you to cringe right now, but that's how it goes.

On the other hand :
10 years is A LOT for ANY CPU, and it may sound as word abuse but because CPU evolution slows down we have this naming problem.
In 2006 I doubt anyone would try to call 10Y old parts as NOT old school or retro (latest cpu architectures from around 1996 are Pentium Pro [Q4 1995], and AMD's K5 [Q1 1996]).
In 2016, a Pentium XE 965 or Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad (Q1/Q3/Q4 2006), are still able to run every game out there if OC'ed and paired with good GPU.

Can you run games like F.E.A.R or Half Life 2 : Lost Coast on a AMD K5 or Pentium Pro with best GPU ?
No, and that's why some may consider them as definition of retro and old school.

I like to clarify that the term "retro" applies to anything with retro as its main purpose, regardless of age. Sure there's a typical age for a retro machine - stuff that's obsolete for current tasks, but install WinXP or earlier OS on any system and it certifies retro to me.

Classic, vintage, old school, those are pretty exclusively reserved for 80's and 90's gear in my mind.

Such setups are still used as main (or even only) PC by a lot of people.

firage wrote:

I like to clarify that the term "retro" applies to anything with retro as its main purpose, regardless of age. Sure there's a typical age for a retro machine - stuff that's obsolete for current tasks, but install WinXP or earlier OS on any system and it certifies retro to me.

Classic, vintage, old school, those are pretty exclusively reserved for 80's and 90's gear in my mind.

I agree with Classic and Vintage, they should be used exclusively with 80's and 90's stuff at this point.
But third term, Old school I feel is best suited for Core 2 Duo/Quad.
Would love to know your term for Pentium III/Athlon XP or Pentium 4/Athlon 64 PC's ?
Obselete/Retro ?

Also, when I use Win XP on my Core i7 3820 it becomes a retro machine in your eyes... interesting 😀

Jade Falcon wrote:

A friend of mine who does not have an account here asked me to ask the fallowing question here.

Would you consider a 775 or 771 system with a quarto card of the same age to be an old school setup?

A friend of a friend of mine told him to tell me to tell you so you can tell your friend that Socket 775 is not old school.
I myself have a Core 2 Duo laptop with Win7 that works perfectly fine for office work and DOSBox.

agent_x007 wrote:

I agree with Classic and Vintage, they should be used exclusively with 80's and 90's stuff at this point. But third term, Old sc […]
Show full quote

firage wrote:

I like to clarify that the term "retro" applies to anything with retro as its main purpose, regardless of age. Sure there's a typical age for a retro machine - stuff that's obsolete for current tasks, but install WinXP or earlier OS on any system and it certifies retro to me.

Classic, vintage, old school, those are pretty exclusively reserved for 80's and 90's gear in my mind.

I agree with Classic and Vintage, they should be used exclusively with 80's and 90's stuff at this point.
But third term, Old school I feel is best suited for Core 2 Duo/Quad.
Would love to know your term for Pentium III/Athlon XP or Pentium 4/Athlon 64 PC's ?
Obselete/Retro ?

Also, when I use Win XP on my Core i7 3820 it becomes a retro machine in your eyes... interesting 😀

Yeah, if you use it as a retro machine, it's a retro machine.

C2D's/C2Q's running Win7 are only just now falling out of daily use as the main desktop machine in many places, they belong in the clunker spectrum. P3's are borderline old school, but my only term for the P4 era is "obsolete". 😀

This stuff is entirely subjective, and the perspective shifts with new people. You're always going to need to be specific, obviously.

Not oldschool but quite useful for XP and oldschool games.

agent_x007 wrote:

That may be true (word abuse). But here's a thing : If "Old school" and "Retro" terms are reserved for pre-Pentium and up to Pen […]
Show full quote

Ampera wrote:

I don't know if this is a personal thing for me, but does anybody cringe when they hear the terms "Retro" and "Old School"?

I think my problem is my purism for old tech. I personally think those words are abused far too often.

That may be true (word abuse).
But here's a thing : If "Old school" and "Retro" terms are reserved for pre-Pentium and up to Pentium III/Athlon XP era CPU's (arguably).
How do we call everything later (like AM2 and LGA 775), in 5 years time ?
Do we still call them "modern" because they can run 64-bit code ?

I think words meaning should be updated as technology moves forward.
It may get you to cringe right now, but that's how it goes.

^^Agreed.

konc wrote:

Such setups are still used as main (or even only) PC by a lot of people.

To me this analogy isn't true though.
Not having any PC that's more recent doesn't automatically make the PC non-retro. And besides, many people switched from using a PC to using a smartphone as their daily driver.

Retro is a bit of a gliding scale and kinda dynamic.