VOGONS


First post, by schoolofmonkey

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Hey guys.

I've got my Windows 98 machine sorted and am not looking to build a XP era machine.

Currently I have a AMD Athlon X2 5000+, 4GB DDR2 800Mhz, and need a Video card.
I was looking at the 8800GTX or 9800GTX, now I can get either for the same price, but which is more compatible for early to late XP gaming?

Thanks

Reply 1 of 15, by mcobit

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If you have a decent power supply, you can go for high end and use a 285 gtx. Those are pretty cheap by now and can play everything feom the dx10 aera with good framerates and aa.

I have one in an e8300 machine. The 8800 seems underpowered for that processor to me.

Reply 2 of 15, by squiggly

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schoolofmonkey wrote:
Hey guys. […]
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Hey guys.

I've got my Windows 98 machine sorted and am not looking to build a XP era machine.

Currently I have a AMD Athlon X2 5000+, 4GB DDR2 800Mhz, and need a Video card.
I was looking at the 8800GTX or 9800GTX, now I can get either for the same price, but which is more compatible for early to late XP gaming?

Thanks

Not=now?

I prefer radeon 5 series....5770, 5850...cool, quiet and destroy XP era games. Cheap too!

Reply 3 of 15, by schoolofmonkey

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squiggly wrote:

Not=now?

I prefer radeon 5 series....5770, 5850...cool, quiet and destroy XP era games. Cheap too!

Yeah, now, I'm full up with the flu sorry.

I remember having a 5850 on my 9550 system years ago, which I kept it now, same with the old 939 build I had in 2006.
The AMD Athlon X2 5000+ won't hold it back will it?

I can pickup a 9800GTX or 8800GTX for about $50 Australian, cheapest HD 5850 is about $150Au
Though I did find a 285GTX for about $70.

Powersupply I will be picking up a new Corsair VS450 450W

Reply 4 of 15, by squiggly

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The 5770 is also an excellent card and I can see one on a certain website currently at $26. I doubt an X2 5000 would bottleneck a 5770 much, and if it does, turn on AA to the max to make the gpu work harder.. Don't underestimate the value of the low power draw, heat and noise of that card.

You are talking about cards from 2008/2009 ... they should handle WinXP era games with ease. I have just fallen in love with the Radeon 5 series for the above reasons and rock solid stability and performance under WinXP. In 2009 the Geforces might have performed a bit better, but were power sucking heat blowing hogs. The subsequent 6 series radeons were crap.

Reply 5 of 15, by schoolofmonkey

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squiggly wrote:

The 5770 is also an excellent card and I can see one on a certain website currently at $26. I doubt an X2 5000 would bottleneck a 5770 much, and if it does, turn on AA to the max to make the gpu work harder.. Don't underestimate the value of the low power draw, heat and noise of that card.

You are talking about cards from 2008/2009 ... they should handle WinXP era games with ease. I have just fallen in love with the Radeon 5 series for the above reasons and rock solid stability and performance under WinXP. In 2009 the Geforces might have performed a bit better, but were power sucking heat blowing hogs. The subsequent 6 series radeons were crap.

Good point, found a local HD5770 for around the same price as the other cards.
It will be solely for XP Games, so no Directx 10 or 11, nothing that runs fine under my Windows 10 rig (8700k/GTX1080ti).

Reply 6 of 15, by squiggly

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I like your thinking. I also form the view that most/all games from the Vista/DX10 will run just fine on a todays computer, and that will probably be still true in 10 years time. DX9/WinXP up till round 2006 is the last retro computer we need.

Reply 7 of 15, by candle_86

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on an X2 5000 though an 8800GTX and a GTX 285 will preform the same, the X2 5000 doesn't have the raw power to drive it, you needed at a minimum an E6750 back in the day, and a Q6700 or QX6750 was recomened. Meaning in Athlon 64 naming comparable to an E6750 you would need an X2 6400

Reply 9 of 15, by Almoststew1990

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I've got a similar system. It's a E8500, 3GB DDR2 and a GTS 240 (which is a rebadged 9800GT and cost me £15) with XP for my disk based games. I do also have a GTX285 (I got a decent Gainward one for £22) but I never found myself needing the power - The most demanding disk based game I have is the Prince of Persia reboot, which the GTS240 managed 40fps at 1080p. I haven't even bothered with the GTX.

I don't think an XP5000+ will make use of the GTX285 - reviewers at the time were using i7 920+ with triple channel RAM etc which is leaps and bounds better. I expect my E8500 would be the bottleneck.

Considering this era isn't particularly retro I just tried to make it as cool, quiet and usable as possible instead of aiming for a specific spec. I'm half tempted to go 1156/5 + pentium with an Nvidia 750 or something to make it even cooler and quieter.

Ryzen 3700X | 16GB 3600MHz RAM | AMD 6800XT | 2Tb NVME SSD | Windows 10
AMD DX2-80 | 16MB RAM | STB LIghtspeed 128 | AWE32 CT3910
I have a vacancy for a main Windows 98 PC

Reply 10 of 15, by schoolofmonkey

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Well I haven't bought the 5000+ yet, but I can get these for around the same price:

Gigabyte GA-MA78G-DS3H motherboard w/Athlon 64X2 5000+ - AU $65.00

GA-EP45-DS3R //Q6600 CPU // 4GB DDR2 - AU $80.00

ASUS M4N68T-M V2+ Heat Sink Socket AM3 AMD Phenom II X4 955 - AU $65.00
Takes DDR3 Ram, I have plenty of that spare here in my z77 Media PC, 32GB's is overkill.. 🤣

Since finding the others last night I'm swaying toward the Q6600, that was a awesome chip in it's day and it comes with Ram, should handle a 8800GTX/9800GTX/HD5770 fine.

Reply 11 of 15, by XCVG

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schoolofmonkey wrote:

It will be solely for XP Games, so no Directx 10 or 11, nothing that runs fine under my Windows 10 rig (8700k/GTX1080ti).

Out of curiosity, which games did you have problems with on your modern rig? I tested several titles from 2000-2007, and all of them ran with only three having serious caveats.

schoolofmonkey wrote:
Well I haven't bought the 5000+ yet, but I can get these for around the same price: […]
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Well I haven't bought the 5000+ yet, but I can get these for around the same price:

Gigabyte GA-MA78G-DS3H motherboard w/Athlon 64X2 5000+ - AU $65.00

GA-EP45-DS3R //Q6600 CPU // 4GB DDR2 - AU $80.00

ASUS M4N68T-M V2+ Heat Sink Socket AM3 AMD Phenom II X4 955 - AU $65.00
Takes DDR3 Ram, I have plenty of that spare here in my z77 Media PC, 32GB's is overkill.. 🤣

Since finding the others last night I'm swaying toward the Q6600, that was a awesome chip in it's day and it comes with Ram, should handle a 8800GTX/9800GTX/HD5770 fine.

The Q6600 was indeed awesome for its day, but most XP games were single-threaded. With that being said, it did overclock well and if not that motherboard should take an E8400 or similar, which are dirt cheap these days. The Phenom II is maybe a bit faster, but the fastest Core parts can beat it and honestly when I see a Phenom II I think Windows 7, while the Core parts have more of a late XP era feel.

The Athlon 64 X2 is far behind the other two options in performance.

Reply 12 of 15, by mothergoose729

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The overlap between windows 10 and windows XP is pretty high. There are more XP era games that have trouble with dual cores CPU than games that just don't run on modern windows. My recommendation would be a E8 series core2 with a core disabled in software or the bios. An GTS 250 is the pinnacle of g92 core revisions. If you are going for authentic, a 4/3 aspect ratio with a resolution of 1280x1024 or 1600x1200 if you want to go really high end. The target era would be 2000-2007, anything newer can be bought on steam and runs on anything.

If you want to go overkill, Ivy Bridge and the the GTX9000 series are the most recent hardware officially supported by XP. Use a VGA out though, as the digital colors are off by default. I think VGA through an adapter on a DVI port is also fine so long as it is GTX 9XXX series or newer. I have read that 10 series cards no longer support VGA.

For ATI, you don't want to go newer than the 7XXX series.

Reply 13 of 15, by schoolofmonkey

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I picked up the Q6600 bundle as it has the ram, guy threw in a E8400 for $1 more, so I'll be able to try both.

Now to chose between the 9800GTX or 8800GTX or GTX 285 (all the same price after shipping, $70), trying to find a reasonably price HD5770 card here is stupid.

Reply 14 of 15, by mothergoose729

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Not sure about your region, but a GTS 250 is equal to a 9800gtx with better OC potential, runs cooler, and is readily available in the states for around 20-30$. That gets my recommendation.

Being a revision of the 8800 series core, compatibility and support should be perfect for XP.

For ATI, a 6670 is pretty close a 5770 in performance and readily available.